Wii VC Hacked

[StepOnfrog]

i will continue to try to hack the vc games along with the wii in anyway i can... for one reason, im curious.

How odd..!
I can see 2 types of people being tarred with the same brush in this debate...

1. The Hacker/Cracker
2. The Downloader/User

If you read through the whole of this thread you will notice that there's only 1 cracker throughout - these are people who just prefer the challenge of breaking the algorithms that make up the protection on software; what they do thereafter cracking is a bonus.
The rest are downloaders who prefer something for nothing, which I have no argument against... sure, if you can get something for nothing then why not take it? Look at the US government in the oil fields of Iraq, and poppy fields of Afghanistan, eh?!

Hacking/Cracking algorithms is not illegal (and I really cannot see how cracking algorithms can be linked with back-engineering)... sharing the product IS.!
Nintendo won't lose money by people cracking codes, nor will they lose money by people uploading said code (althoug, uploading the code IS illegal).

If a person doesn't download a VC game from the Shopping Channel, then Nintendo won't get money; if this same person downloads a cracked VC game from elsewhere, and neither the cracker or nintendo receive any money for such a download, then has anyone lost or gained money??? Now that's the question...!

Has Nintendo lost any money, or did they just not sell a person a particular software because that person was not going to buy the software in the first place.? I'm more with the side that Nintendo hadn't sold a piece of software to a user, so, wasn't going to make any mony from that user, and therefore, haven't lost any money.

How can someone lose something they haven't got?

** This doesn't mean that I side with stealing. I just thought I'd join in with the philosphising, morality, and theory debate...

 

[gamechaser001]

I'm all for getting something for free, I wouldn't say that i support bootlegging, but I don't have a problem with it, if there was a way to get hacked proven-to-work games for free off of a website, i'd do it, but i'm not going to keep something outdated or risk bricking/ruining something just because that if it worked, it would be free, i'd rather pay for something and have proof it will work well, then get something for free and it has the chance to be a virus or something, or if I was caught or something, just spend the $10 or so and just be happy that what you put on your Wii wasn't a trojan or something

 

[CYBERKNIGHT]

Um... remember, Nintendo holds the rights to the Wii, and probably have the rights to view your Wii Channels, thus tracking if you ever bought the actual Virtual Console game, thus getting you busted. There's always a way around the way around.

Nintendo ain't stupid.

 

[Canumbler]

Jessetheinferno:

You can pretty much be sure it's not as simple as that.

Without actually having looked into it my guess would be that the VC games are signed with the public key of a public-private encryption pair before it even gets to your machine.
Ie, the nintendo server signs the VCG with your wii system no. (known via net connection) using their own encryption technique that noone else knows, and then to play it your wii would use a private key that only it knows to verify the VCG.
And it's quite possible that it's worse, most likely your wii system no. isn't actually related to the encryption pair, and is just used as a lookup into a database that only ninty has access to, which they get your corresponding public key out of.

So now we have two problems to hacking VCG by hacking the roms (clean way), we need to find out the signing method used that only ninty knows, and we also need to somehow get access to ninty's database to get the public key that corresponds to our wii.
IF you could do that (imo impossible), you could then probably get an unsigned VCG and sign it with your credentials and use it safely with your wii (ninty will not be remotely monitoring what games you're playing / what you've bought off their marketplace i don't think, as that would be fair unethical).

Whoops, and now i've identified a third obstacle, we need to get an unsigned VCG, which means we're also going to need to get the private key side of whoever's wii actually paid for the VCG, and find out the verifying method (could possibly be determined given the signing method as they're usually the same thing).

Remember here that I am just speculating on this, but from what I know what I've written is reasonable.

So anyway, that makes the signing VCG's properly a fairly mammoth and unwieldy task, and something that was never accomplished for either the xbox or playstation or playstation 2, you'll notice all of those machines require either a chip or a hack just to play BOUGHT signed software, which is all signed with the exact same key, let alone software that has been signed with a key specific to your console.

So, discounting being able to sign anything we want (it just aint gunna happen, sorry), what are we left with?
The tried and true method of hacking most consoles is to trick the console into thinking that it's already checked the signing of any code, this can be seen in hardware mods, and the hacks where you load a special savegame for a compromised game, which then causes the console to check the signing on that (legal) game, but then you switch it out with your unsigned software and it keeps running. (HORRIBLE SENTENCE)

Anyway, those type of things seem a bit of overkill to be playing classic games for free as far as I can tell.

What I personally think would be a very nice and fairly elegant way of doing it, would be to write a flash-based front-end for an emulator such as zsnes, and then just run it as a server process on a PC in the house.
Unfortunately that would not be a trivial amount of work, but would be damned cool.

On a totally unrelated note, what does everyone think the chances are of ninty releasing a good media-center channel for the wii? One that can access network shares etc.

 

[acphydro]

There's no true justification to it.
It's just the fact that.
Why pay? When I can get it for free?
It's a philosophy of this day and age.
Has been for a long time.

You could very well steal anything you wanted with that [philosophy] of yours. Just because stealing in this form would be easier with less risk doesn't make it right to do so. You could go to the store right now and steal anything you wanted to but what prevents you? It's just as easy for them to catch you here as it is at the store. Same concept, you stay hidden, put on a happy face, make a move and move out. Nintendo would easily be able to see those who did not pay for a channel on their system as being a channel service they probably game themselves rights to looking at individual console channel contents. Maybe I'm wrong but stealing is stealing. I did note you said there is no true justification to it, however, stealing in a store is just about as easy as stealing digital content. Not only that is the fact that you raise the price for us people that pay for the rights to the items be buy and provide support to the company financially.

If everyone just stole the games when someone hacked it then Nintendo would just inevitably shut down the service completely as no one is [interested] in their back catalog products. Maybe even remove the code from systems or at least update it in firmware so that anything past a certain date can't be played or another security measure that has proven to be flawless. Who really knows, but the bottom line is that stealing is stealing no matter how you slice it. Surely you bought your Wii console, so why steal the software for them? It just doesn't make much sense in this day and age, where people are supposed to be getting more intelligent as the years pass, lots of them just get dumber and fail to see what else happens when they steal and only think about themselves.

 

[acphydro]

Nice philosophy. Why pay for food, transportation, movies, or music when you can take it without paying? Stealing is awesome.

GTFO thats one of the funniest counter comments I've read here :lol:

 

[acphydro]

How odd..!
I can see 2 types of people being tarred with the same brush in this debate...

1. The Hacker/Cracker
2. The Downloader/User

Has Nintendo lost any money, or did they just not sell a person a particular software because that person was not going to buy the software in the first place.? I'm more with the side that Nintendo hadn't sold a piece of software to a user, so, wasn't going to make any mony from that user, and therefore, haven't lost any money.

How can someone lose something they haven't got?

** This doesn't mean that I side with stealing. I just thought I'd join in with the philosphising, morality, and theory debate...

I also agree with that statement somewhat although it contradicts my own statements. It is true that if I weren't going to buy something in the first place then they aren't losing money from me per say since they weren't going to get it in the first place. HOWEVER that just goes to show you that people are indeed becoming less intelligent as technology and life itself progresses. If there was no way that they could outright steal the software, surely they MIGHT buy the software right? Thats how a lot of software pirates are that I know. If they can't steal a game because they won't be able to play it online they are most likely to go buy it or etc. So there are two sides to every story. Regardless the code wasn't theirs, and they didnt have permission to use it, so they still STOLE it, no one just [lost] and [real] money from it.

 

[r00ntje]

There has been some research on this in 1970 or something. Well actually it was about high taxes and people frauding the government.

It turned out that if you have high taxes, a lot of people will fraud with their taxes they are paying, thus lowering the total tax revenue.
When the taxes are low, people don't have the need for, and their sense of morality outweighs the fraud. So more people pay taxes.
If you would compare these results, it turns out that the total revenue of low taxes is actually higher then with the high taxes.

I personally think the same can be accounted for videogames, music and any pc-program. If the recordcompanies wouldnt be hogging insane amounts of money, MP3s would have never been so popular. They are doing this to themselves actually... Compare the US with the Netherlands, US citizens pay less money for music CD's and Dutch people have to pay more. Now guess in which country the most MP3s are downloaded?

If videogames would have been $10, we would buy them sooner, more, PLUS hackers wouldn't feel the need to get a piece of the pie.

 

[acphydro]

There has been some research on this in 1970 or something. Well actually it was about high taxes and people frauding the government.

It turned out that if you have high taxes, a lot of people will fraud with their taxes they are paying, thus lowering the total tax revenue.
When the taxes are low, people don't have the need for, and their sense of morality outweighs the fraud. So more people pay taxes.
If you would compare these results, it turns out that the total revenue of low taxes is actually higher then with the high taxes.

I personally think the same can be accounted for videogames, music and any pc-program. If the recordcompanies wouldnt be hogging insane amounts of money, MP3s would have never been so popular. They are doing this to themselves actually... Compare the US with the Netherlands, US citizens pay less money for music CD's and Dutch people have to pay more. Now guess in which country the most MP3s are downloaded?

If videogames would have been $10, we would buy them sooner, more, PLUS hackers wouldn't feel the need to get a piece of the pie.

Quite a reasonable analogy, but, these videogames are nowhere near overpriced. [The VC ones that is], I've stated before that, Storage, Bandwidth, Employees, Maintenance, many other things cost money. They most likely arent making as much money as you might think off of virtual console per sale. I can agree that $50 for a regular Wii game is kind of pushing it. $30-40 would be a perfect pricepoint for me at least.

MP3s are downloaded because companies like Napster symbolized that downloading copyrighted music was perfectly fine and had no means in stopping nor trying to prevent that kind of theft. Once the general consumer feels that 1. everyone else is doing it so it must be ok and 2. the software i got for free lets me so it must be ok it spreads like a plague. Before that lots of people rarely downloaded music online let alone stole it outright. I can understand not wanting to pay $15 USD for a CD with 17 songs but which 1 is only good, however with no support the economy goes nowhere and pirates just drag it down even farther. They aren't helping the problem they are worsening it. Companies have to make up for lost revenue and will raise prices accordingly or lower. Nintendo has shown this by offering players choice titles, as well as the other console manutacturers. There really is no true justification towards stealing digital content. Then again...who am I to judge?

By the way....if I was a [pirate] why would I stop stealing software just because they lowered the price? I've been doing it for years and it just feels like it should be free now. The Bottom line is that the thief [as always] is in the wrong no matter how you look at it. Maybe the companies are being greedy, BUT, you can choose not to use the content PERIOD. They aren't stealing your money if you give it to them willingly. That could make you in a sense greedy for not wanting to spend the $10 for a game, but instead only wanting to pay $5.

 

[Deathmetalmaster]

dude........its not that much money man. I know for a fact that I am not going to buy EVERY Virtual Console game. But I am willing to pay their prices for the ones I love. Seriously dude, think about it.


And when are they gonna release some freaking megaman games?! I AM SICK OF WAITING.

 

[acphydro]

dude........its not that much money man. I know for a fact that I am not going to buy EVERY Virtual Console game. But I am willing to pay their prices for the ones I love. Seriously dude, think about it.


And when are they gonna release some freaking megaman games?! I AM SICK OF WAITING.

Same here---I won't buy every title but I will buy the ones that I want or love. I'm waiting for the mega man x series as well as many others.

 

[acphydro]

Now this is an EXTREME analogy or take on the subject.

If you are going to steal software, digital content, movies, music, or anything you may as well be committing rape. WHAT you say? HOW?

Well in the US prostitution is illegal, but that doesnt mean you can just STEAL tacos.[to not offend anyone we'll call it taco] That is considered rape right? The person is not willing and you forcefully take it anyway. That is stealing and rape---rape is stealing. Now wait...what did I steal---oh yes--- secretions.

Nintendo isnt willing to give you their software for free, so in essence you are raping them if you steal. Pretty much if you steal anything you may as well have committed rape and I strongly agree that people doing so should undergo the same type of punishment.

A lot of people will call BS on this because its not the EXACT same situation but the analogy is proper and what I have said are in fact STATEMENTS that are true beyond doubt. It's not the exact situation as I stated earlier however most of us should be intelligent enough to comprehend what it is I am saying and that is: Prostitutes generally cost a lot of money, but that doesnt mean that taking the taco makes it an alright way to express your opinion about it the same rules apply to software believe it or not!!!

 

[SixStringedStress]

Um... remember, Nintendo holds the rights to the Wii, and probably have the rights to view your Wii Channels, thus tracking if you ever bought the actual Virtual Console game, thus getting you busted. There's always a way around the way around.

Nintendo ain't stupid.

Bingo! I'm glad someone else realizes this! That is more than enough reason not to bother with the hacks. Remember that old lady that downloaded a song on Napster and was slapped with a multimillion dollar lawsuit?

I don't think people realize that Nintendo has direct line to your Wii. Think about this too, when you play for a while, what comes up on your message board? Isn't a letter to yourself that shows how long you've been playing what? Some how people without VC records are mysteriously playing VC games. Are people not making the connection yet? If anyone IS hacking, though they shouldn't, they better unplug their internet connection first. Better safe than sorry.

 

[acphydro]

Bingo! I'm glad someone else realizes this! That is more than enough reason not to bother with the hacks. Remember that old lady that downloaded a song on Napster and was slapped with a multimillion dollar lawsuit?

I don't think people realize that Nintendo has direct line to your Wii. Think about this too, when you play for a while, what comes up on your message board? Isn't a letter to yourself that shows how long you've been playing what? Some how people without VC records are mysteriously playing VC games. Are people not making the connection yet? If anyone IS hacking, though they shouldn't, they better unplug their internet connection first. Better safe than sorry.

Perfect statement. You put into words what I tried to and could not. I tried in one of my previous posts. Beautiful.

 

[StepOnfrog]

Pretty much if you steal anything you may as well have committed rape and I strongly agree that people doing so should undergo the same type of punishment.

Whoa! - :yikes: - If that's the method of your punishment, then the same could be said about starving children stealing food to feed their starving families. No, ifs; no, buts... your statement is basically 'steal, and you've committed rape!' In today's society, you can't just deal the populace a single brush to tar them with, if they all steal. Why has that person stole? Why is that child taking that? Does that person know that they're using pirated software bought from a dodgy shop and sold to them as a legitimate copy?

And, besides... does stealing mean that you should have your 'nads cut off? I'd only agree with that if means causing personal harm or injury, death, etc.


--------------

Are people not making the connection yet? If anyone IS hacking, though they shouldn't, they better unplug their internet connection first. Better safe than sorry.

Unplugging probably wouldn't work, though. :nono: Beacuse the Wii keeps records of what you've played for however long, and that Nint WILL have records of what VCs you've downloaded from them, all that has to be done is compare their list with yours... and hey presto!
"Hey up, you've got a game that you haven't downloaded from us and have been playing it for 3hrs 27mins on 10th Jan 2007, and started at 6:45pm. Can we look at your system???"