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Wii Uses Elliptic Curve Cryptography For Saves
An anonymous reader writes "A user at the Nintendo-Scene forums just posted a lengthy post about his discovery that the Wii savegame files are signed and encrypted with NIST B 233 bit elliptic curve cryptography. Could this be the first step for a Wii softmod the homebrew community have waited for? From the post: 'It appears a Wii savegame file ends with a certificate chain. The certificates contains a public keypair (the one that is being "certified") and a signature (another number pair) from the signing entity. The number pairs are stored as a compound 60 bit data (first 30 bytes for the first number, and the next 30 bytes for the second). Hence, the first and middle byte is always 00 or 01 for keys, and 00 for signatures. One can check that the keys are indeed NIST B 233 keys using openssls EC_KEY_check_key function (code forthcoming).'"
Well, I'll just dig out my uplink disk....I think I have an elliptic code breaker in there somewhere
Why is it that we live in a world where our console gamesaves are protected more aggressively than our bank accounts and our identities combined?
Not criminals. Cheaters. They're keeping gameplay fair.
That this likely means the exact opposite. Elliptic Curve Cryptography is relatively difficult to crack (not unlike RSA). More to the point, it's also not liable to factorization attacks like RSA is. Furthermore, the best crack of elliptic curve technology is of a 109-bit key, and still took 3,600 or 15,000 computer-years (whether it's a binary or prime field case, respectively).
Nintendo's not stupid. They've used RSA encryption to keep the average hacker out of DS-wireless homebrew, and this is most likely a mandated response to the Splinter Cell hack that allowed soft modding on the Xbox. It won't stop hacking through security holes in the internet protocols (a-la PSO+BBA), but they're certainly making efforts to prevent corrupted data from opening up softmod paths.
it would seem this way on the surface. but the potential for online games on the wii[see mario strikers charged or big brain academy wii degree for early efforts] means cheats for extra gold coins or whatever could have a negative affect on me. personally I am not interested in hacking my saves and would like to know people I am playing against online are not cheating, so this is something I would request. in my mind as a regular player [I own a wii console four full controllers 2 classic controllers and about 13 games, that makes me a big buyer for them compared to most] I feel that they have done me a service by trying to keep online gaming fair and I've not had anything I wanted to do on my wii hindered by this. just something to keep in mind.
/.er will outrank me here]
for reference I am a linux user and took time out of writing a shell script for a solaris machine at work to write this response. normally your mentality is how I think but this time it doesn't stand up to a little critical thinking from the perspective of a fairly heavily vested party. [I don't know anyone who has spent more towards wii, games, and controllers than I have. though I am sure some
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Perhaps you don't understand why most
Nintendo does none of this. They encrypt savefiles. So what? This does not impede on your right to do anything. You can play any given game on as many Wiis as you wish. Nintendo is also not suing people to force hackers to halt breaking their savefile encryption. Game developers generally don't want players artificially advancing within games. Perhaps there are statistics stored within the savefile used online. Whatever's in the savefile is up to the game devs, and Nintendo is simply hiding that.
In other words, Nintendo is completely within their rights to encrypt savefiles. In turn, AFAIK, you are completely within your rights to attempt to break that encryption. And in turn again, Nintendo is completely within their rights to push out any updates to change or otherwise enforce their encryption. It's really that simple.
No, I think there is a much more mundane reason. In the past some of the consoles were broken with manipulated save games, the games didn't properly check the data and so opened a hole. I would guess Nintendo didn't want to take that chance and so added an API which sits between the game and the saved data. As the saved data could be verified for being originally written by the game before the game would even get a chance to have a look at it, it means it is much harder to attack code not written by Nintendo to be exploited.
Disclaimer: I have never seen the API of a game console, this is only a wild guess.
(Assuming that this discovery allows people to write new, arbitrary yet signed data into a save file on a SD card that the Wii will recognize as a "valid" save)
The next step will be to search for an exploit in the console or in a game that allows execution of that data. The final step is to figure out how to get that newly loaded code to do something useful. I know this has been done before, but I'm under the impression that the exploit (in a 007 game) was found by chance. After that lucky break, the code-something-useful part came very fast.
Is there any way to search for such an exploit other than brute force testing of games? Are there things to look for that normal players might see, or do you have to just try to execute code over and over and over in various situations, hoping to find a hole? In short, how can I, a non-programmer, help?
I have hundreds of SNES and NES carts. I would love to be able to run those games on the Wii without having to buy them a second time or wait for N to trickle them out. Now if I can just hack together some Wii wireless SNES and NES pads, I'll be in heaven.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
In terms of bricking consoles, Nintendo's a little bit nicer about it. They'll still brick it, but they'll warn you first "hey, if your console is modded, this update's going to brick it, so you might want to abort now".
By the way, with some games refusing to run without updating, this becomes one of those scenarios where if your console is modded, you have to get games illegally to make them work (assuming pirates have found a way to eliminate the code that forces the update).
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
There is a way to remove updates, it's a small program called Wii Brick Blocker that patches isos. It is rather ironic that Nintendo essentially force people into piracy with their updates...
Ironic? Only if you've modded your Wii. I've always considered a console in the realm of "no user servicable parts inside." Course, it's not like Nintendo plans to worry about every possible modding configuration available. Rather, they have a set piece of hardware and a set piece of software. Thus, designers know exactly what they have to code for.
Unlike Windows which you can get to install on damn near anything within reason.
I figure modders should get a second, control Wii if you will, that they can fall back on for games.
As much as I'm for tinkering, it's not like Nintendo's really promoting openess on their systems. Why should the modding community expect it? I feel the same way about the XBox and PS3 (although the PS3 not as much; Sony promoted the Linux part quite a bit).
Guess I'm just old fashioned in some ways. I like my consoles too much to tinker with em.
No.
This means that Nintendo has a clue.
It is signing all the data with a certificate. Proper crypto, not DIY snakeoil ala most DRM schemes out there. The only way to break it is to get to the device key.
If they have done is right the key is per device and hardware protected by a crypto module. From there on breaking this at the crypto level is absolutely impossible.
The consequences are actually the opposite to what the clueless editor posted:
1. No chance for homebrew unless someone steals a cert from somewhere and even then Nintendo can simply revoke it using their online service or in a service pack.
2. All communication from the console to a server and back can be signed with strong crypto so no online game cheating.
As far as the elliptic curve cipher choice, this is a common choice for devices with very limited CPU or memory resources. That is what these ciphers are designed for.
All I can say: Applause Nintendo, applause, well done.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
no its not, why the fuck haven't you bought the fourth nunchuck yet?
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
What will all the hacker and code breaker types do with their time if all companies stop encrypting stuff?
Balderdash!
'Hacking' save games is just one of the possible uses for this. The most worrying one for Nintendo is that it allows people to write their own code, sign that, fool the console into thinking it's a save game and then look for some program on the Wii which is happy to execute a block of code within a saved game. This can then be used to modify some properties of the console, usually nothing particularly drastic but I'm sure Nintendo don't want to take the risk.
...where the police are looking for a violent killer, and then their surveillance locates him, and they all breathe a sigh of relief, as they assume that's the hard part done - all they have to do now is arrest him.
I can't help thinking that there's a wee bit more work to do than just find out what encryption method is being used.
Then again, maybe your average slashdotter thinks that 'breaking encryption' is as easy as 'guessing the algorithm used' :-).
Modding save games has very little to do with online play... Typically for an online game, your "save game" will be stored on the server so you can't edit it anyway.
Editing single player save games would have no effect on online play...
To prevent cheating with online games, you want to prevent modification of the game data itself, and modification of the network traffic. However this all gives a false sense of security, because people will still always find a way to cheat.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
This is a save game, not in memory. It now takes 3.4 seconds to load/save instead of the 3.33339 it took without the crypto. Yippie fucking do?
And why exactly would it be impossible to get the key if it's stored in hardware then? It might be impossible without a modchip, and it might be impossible with some kind of other software exploit to get to the hardware, but it's most definitely 'impossible' at all. The xbox 360 uses a similar encryption/signing mechanism (per-box key stored in the CPU, signed and encrypted kernel and savegames), and people have already found ways to get to it. Either through an exploitable kernel that enables booting linux (if you never updated your console) or through a timing attack on the boot sequence (using hardware modifications). After you have the CPU key the whole security system more or less falls apart, because it allows downgrading the kernel, and (afaik, but I'm not 100% sure) hacking/encrypting/signing modified kernels.
So although the security implemented in these savegames is definitely about as good as it gets for now, it is definitely not impossible to break.
No, the most worrying for Nintendo is successful emulators that can run on non-Nintendo hardware. By locking down the savefiles, they retain control over savefiles, and over the ability of emulators to successfully save at all.
AFAIK there is no deliberate bricking, but rather the update process and/or the newly updated system code can fail due to the presence of mods. Nintendo warns the user of this because they don't want an uproar about them sabotaging consoles if an update kills machines with a relatively common mod chip installed.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Actually no, I do not pirate games. I've been importing video games from the US and Japan since the days of the NES. I said it was ironic because if someone like myself had modded the system for imports and then bricked it, Nintendo would in theory have left them no choice but to pirate games or buy another Wii. Thankfully I have not bricked mine and can run imports without any problems. It simply seems odd to me that Nintendo would do something that would encourage piracy.
Next time try not to automatically assume modding = piracy, because it does not, no matter how much the hardware manufacturers like to say it does. If I could buy a mod chip that enables imports but not pirated games I gladly would. The constant erroneous association of modding with piracy by clueless people such as yourself has become extremely tiresome.
Aren't Wii savegames transferable between Wii's? That would indicate that its not per device wouldn't it? Unless its reencrypted during transition which makes that a new weak point.
I happen to have a modded Xbox and a modded Wii
the Xbox has been my media center for about 4 years. I bought it the day it was easily moddable/hackable. It now plays the anime and movies from my server and also plays my dvds along with the games and imports. I really like the option to pay imports. I do speak and understand english, so there really is no reason I should wait 1-2 years for a game. Or movie...
After maybe 2.5 years the dvd reader died and I couldn't read discs anymore. I bought a replacement dvd player for the xbox and installed it myself, voiding my already dead warranty.
Morale of the story :
1 / I used my xbox in a "creative" way, exceeding by much what MS previewed/allowed me to do with it. I had fun with it, and I didn't have to build or buy a pre-made media center.
2 / When it got broken I just had to buy a small, cheap part. not a full xbox, as a "no user servicable parts inside" box concept would have made me.
Episode 2, the WII
Take story from ep.1, make hardware standard pc stuff as in xbox, rinse, repeat.
Guess I, too, am just old fashioned in some ways. I'm too cheap to have every piece of kit I want, so I like to tinker with consoles to give them all the bells and whistles I cannot afford otherwise...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The modding community "expects it" because you own the goddamned hardware, it should be yours to tinker in whichever way you like.
When you buy a car, does the dealership forcefully prevent you from using "unapproved" gasoline ? Do they tell you which bumper stickers you're allowed to stick, and where ? Do they come and smash your car with a crowbar if you disobey ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Can you modify your game console - that is, are you physically capable of altering its hardware? Sure! You can make it run imported games, homebrew games, Linux, anything you please. Heck, you can turn it into a motion-sensitive coffeepot if you want. However, the console manufacturer never sold you a motion-sensitive coffeepot, and they are under no obligation to support it if that's what you build out of it. To continue the car analogy, this would be like converting your new gasoline-powered vehicle to run on biodiesel, and then complaining to the dealer when it won't run on gasoline anymore. You're completely within your rights to do that, but the carmaker is also within its rights to make you support it yourself by taking away your warranty.
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
Clearly, the people who make our video games are far more competent than those protecting those other things like votes, money, identity, etc.
Actually, it makes a sort of perverse sense. It's pretty easy to write bog-standard business applications that do CRUD (in both the database & other sense), but it's not so easy to program a game that has to run at acceptable frame rates.
> Some games save continuously because t
The Wii Programming Guidelines (or Lot Check docs -- don't have the info at home but at work) dictate a maximum number of saving k/sec so as not to wear out the flash memory.