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Hacking The DS's Wireless
xNoLaNx writes "Darkain, maker of the remote control program for Winamp, RM-X, has been working day and night hacking the Nintendo DS and its wireless, and making a custom USB power connection for it. He has been able to monitor packets over 802.11b coming from PictoChat and more."
I remember when I was playing King Quest in 80's, when the king has to go to this wizard place to learn some magic. I had to resort to opening up the binary files and read some command lines to know what to do and what to pick up. I didn't have too much luck with Police Quest though, since it's more of an action-based game :)
So now with these decoded Mario64 packets, we know to wait for yoshi in the middle of kira spa, room 1?
Other than that, I don't know what is the use of these decoded packets.
The USB power cable is cool, if not for the fact that we already can buy USB-powered XMas tree, desk fan and whatnot.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Imagine sooner or later, with the right development one could load up ethereal on their DS and start monitoring the local wifi connection.
This game system could turn into a neat little surveilance device.
I gotta say that the DS is way more fun than I expected, and Feel the Magic puts a grin on my face like few others have in the past few years. This system seems like it has a great future ahead of it, and online capabilities (true online, not just wireless multiplayer) are going to put it over the edge!
Look it up
So... will I be able to participate in a pictochat with my cousins' DS, while I use my powerbook?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
The Nitro project is actually working on tunnelling games over the internet. I believe they're using some of this guy's data as help, but they're also doing other stuff.
I hope somebody finds a way to hack WoL capability for the DS.
I thought one of the best things about these new handhelds (PSP included) was that you could play people you didn't know by just 'beeping' them whenever they were in range.
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I don't have one yet, but from looking at it, it appears very hackable, which will be nice once I get the cash for one I expect this to be the first of many
Signatures are so 90s
I was disappointed to learn that the DS doesn't support networking beyond local links to other DSs.
With Wi-fi support in every unit, I'd pay $30 for a "game" cartridge with an internet suite based on Opera or maybe the mobile Mozilla technology. Give me a web browser, IMAP client, AIM, and maybe an RSS reader and I'm good.
Hopefully something like this is on the way, something a little more portable than my laptop.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
You can play Frozen Bubble wirelessly! duh :P
I can already see someone making a LAN tunneler program for the DS that use a good old wireless router and a program on the computer to grant players the power to play online. It might work something like this. You bring up the program and it gives you list of games you pick a game and then pick a "room" depending on the game the "room" might hold more or less players. The room would fool the DS into thinking it near these other player as if they are in the same physical room. Once in the "room" you can simpley turn on the DS load up the game like metroid hunters and its game on!
Umm, its called learning, maybe if you had a fun hobbie you wouldnt be posting such lame posts on slashdot.
keanmarine.com
Are you sure? Because you sound pretty sarcastic to me...
Nintendo guards its intellectual property very closely. That's why it took so long for GameCube bsd and linux to come out- and they're still not as functional as xbox linux. I'm sure Nintendo has made it so that it would make more sense to "hack" or even just buy peripherals for a Palm/palmtop than to try to make DS useful.
Yes! Now I can finally monitor packets with my Nintendo DS!
i read that the DS can use the same power cable as the GBA SP. why bother hacking that together (other than the sheer nerdy joy of doing it yourself)? someone already made one: http://www.the-console-corner.com/gba_sp_usb_power _cable.htm
(sorry for not making that html. lazy tonight.)
Buying a subscription kinda turned me off from Nokia, especially since its adds significantly to the price.
Nintendo, I know you won't listen to me, but please, do what Sony did with the Aibo and release a consumer-grade development kit!
For those of you without the equipment to make your own, you can buy them quite cheaply from a Hong Kong importer called Lik Sang. http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=278&prod ucts_id=2994&
*It makes more sense (at least by how easy it is) to program for a PDA, sure, but that doesn't mean that it's as interesting. People hacked the GBA and have developed homebrew apps for it, and it's even less powerful and without the wifi and the likes.*
it being less powerful in this case though means it's MORE EASIER TO HACK, the more complex it becomes the more locked in it becomes as well(remember, there were emulators for gba too from day 1).. gba is pretty simple to code for as well as you don't have to care about os or other stuff that's probably running on the ds under the hood(unless you're going to just run gba code on it... ). nintendo isn't exactly the kind of vendor that just lets anyone download sdk's either and could for their own reasons have made homebrews no ds a bit harder.
though, sense never stopped forum-hopers and trolls from feeding rumours about every possible kidn of hack that's 'possible'.
what the packet analyzer would be probably most good for would be building some program to tunnel the packets through internet.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
from the article:
List of things you need to get started:
* TWO (or more) Nintendo DS Units
* A WiFi card of some kind
* AiroPeek NX software package
AiroPeek NX?
hmm... sounds interesting... *click* *click*
Its 3.5 grand for a copy w/ a 12 month support contract!?!
Not to sound cheap (cos I am), but um, thats a bit of an investment for what sounds like etheral w/ tcpdump on windows.
Anyone with experience w/ Airopeek mind sharing all the cool stuff it can do?
If you could hack DS and allow it to connect to a network, than maybe you can install a pocket pc OS on DS. If you could install a Pocket PC OS, than Opera, AIM, Word, and other programs can run off of DS. This would create a super cheap pocket computer, with a touch pad (mouse)!
What's the power consumption of the DS?
I believe the USB spec allows for a maximum 500mA from a USB port.
One of the features of the DS is that only one person has to own the game, and you and your friends can play together on that one cartridge.
How much would it take to make this technology send out downloaded copies of the game that are fully playable on another system?
Of course there may arise the potential of travel risks for this guy.
For example, how will this affect is ability to travel freely to and (perhaps more importantly) from the USA?
*cough*DMCA*cough*
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
What about sending the Slashdot RSS to Pictochat? That'd be really sharp...
I think it would be cool to setup a Nintendo DS server (if such a thing existed) here in my house on my spare Soekris box. I could stick a miniPCI wireless card in it, hook it up to an antenna that I could mount on my roof, and then host a 24/7 Metroid Prime Wireless LAN party to all the people in my area.
If someone came out with a device similar to the DS, where it was clamshell, had 802.11, bluetooth, 2 screens, and possibly GSM, I would buy one immediately.
I need a PDA that I can toss in my pocket and not have to worry about the screen being hosed. Triple points if I can replace my phone with it also. The Sidekick would be there if it wasn't so crippled and had bluetooth.
And for christsakes, don't put a damn camera on it. It's going to suck and no one will use it. It just raises the cost and increases the size of it.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Might we see a color hack in the near future? Apparently it uses gba style 16 color tiles. Until you hack up pictochat, I suspect that would be limited to tunnelling and other interference only.
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Open Source Sysadmin
Kinda, except the hack would have to do something blatantly illegal, like load pirated ROMs to to play, and it would have to inevitably result in Nintendo cracking down on all Wireless hacking and crippling DS wireless in the future. Then it would be like people breaking Apple's DRM. (I know, I know, no feeding the troll, sorry guys.)
Anyone know if this will be updated to support DS? or if a gcc toolchain is in the works?
Ok the DS has memory to download games from other DS's over the wireless. You could use that to load other code, browser, games, chats, the only limit would be the amout of memory that the DS has.
Other things that could be done,a program could be coded to use you wifi on your pc to chat with the DS, or multi player games.
10 minutes after this is perfected, someone will try to install linux on it.
I've been doing most of the same stuff as Darkain has, but under Linux using all free software. Ethereal/tcpdump doesn't keep the raw 802.11b packets needed to see all of the DS data, but AirSnort does. AirSnort will record to pcap format and then you can mess with the packets in Ethereal. Just a heads up for those who don't want to pay for AiroPeek and still want to mess with low level wireless stuff (like the Nintendo DS).
I think you just hit the nail on the head as to why Nintendo wouldn't want to immediately do this. Like most other pieces of hardware they probably sell it a razor thin margins, if there is even a margin at all. People would buy the device and not the games. Thrusting them into a market they don't necessarily want to be in.
So, how long until somebody upgrades the range on this thing to a few hundred metres (a few, uh, three hundred feet for you americans)? Presumably it'd only work if both DSs playing multiplayer had the upgrade or one side would experience extreme packet loss but hell, somebody must be working on it.
You would be charged for piracy. If anyone can play with only 1 cart then people can just download + play Metroid Prime off you any time they want to.
Have you metaroderated recently?
is a program to scan for DSes and when pictochat packets are seen, join that local network and paste nasty pictures on their screens. that'll teach those kids the importance of secure networking!
Only 4 meg, that is true, but it still gives some interesting options: - homebrew games and software (and maybe even hacked roms, no clue if that is possible) can be programmed in a way that the data is streamed real-time from your pc. Why the need to download the full game in 1 blow? Download the new level/map from your pc the moment you need it :)
- watch streaming movies! Use the 4 meg to download a streaming movie player onto your DS, let your computer do the rest.
Yes, the memory is limited, but combined with the wi-fi connection the amount of possibilities is larger then you might think ;)
making a custom USB power connection for it
Hook it up to a wireless USB adaptor and you'll have wireless power!
Yes, I have verified that it works, and I didn't have to kill a perfectly good spare power cord or USB cord, and hope that I matched the colors right.
Link for $13.00
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
yeah but all your calls are now free! now just everyone you want to talk to needs to have a DS and you'll save a fortune on cell phone charges.
V O T E F O R M O G
the DS actually supports up to 16 players. ;)
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
actually, no, they arent 100% the same. the power ratings are the same, but if you notice the picture of the three power adapters on the site, you will notice they are indeed slightly different adapters. link
yes, they may be interchangable, but no, they are not the exact same adapter.