C
Story
History Of Hacking The Nintendo 3DS (2019) [pdf]
A good paper, but I think it could have used a little more detail. There was a long, complicated cat & mouse game between hackers and Nintendo, and a lot of that was glossed over to focus on individual exploits.

In particular, there's no mention of Gateway or the MSET exploit they used to get the first foothold in the 3DS ecosystem.

The discussion on arm9loaderhax also doesn't make it clear that the exploitable arm9loader was introduced for the New 3DS as a reaction to previous hacking efforts. The humorousness of it making the console vulnerable to a new and more powerful exploit was explained more clearly in the 3DS hacking talk at 32c3,

> The humorousness of it making the console vulnerable to a new and more powerful exploit was explained more clearly in the 3DS hacking talk at 32c3

Links below for convenience

Talk event page:

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/events...

Talk video:

https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7240-console_hacking

Also available on the media.ccc.de YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZczf57HSag

> Console Hacking: Breaking the 3DS [2015]

> plutoo, derrek, smea

> In 2011 the Nintendo 3DS was released. Today it is the most popular current-gen handheld console, having sold more than 50 million units worldwide. The 3DS features a completely redesigned architecture from its predecessors the DS and the DSi. This talk will focus on the security features of the 3DS, and how we got around them.

> We start by presenting a summary of the security system of the 3DS from the ground up. After the introduction, we proceed to elaborately exploit each layer of the 3DS operating system, starting with userspace, kernelspace, and finally gain code-execution in the security processor.

> We also present how we figured out a hardware secret built into the console, and an early break in the chain of trust.

> Basic knowledge of embedded systems and CPU architectures is recommended, although we aim to also make it enjoyable for non-technical audiences.

That similarly happened with the PlayStation Portable.

I was never good enough to be involved myself but it was always exciting to read about.

It might be interesting for someone to make a collection of these for easy perusal.

e.g. a collection including this and [1], which is the long-form version of this[2] c3 talk.

[1] - https://cs.oberlin.edu/~ctaylor/classes/341F2012/xbox.pdf

[2] - https://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/attachments/674...