It looks like the DS trojan bricker is in the wild. There are instructions up to fix the situation. I was contacted by DarkFader last week wondering if I’d be interested in his answer to the PSP’s malware that had been circulating. I’m not interested in this kind of hacking because I feel it takes a lot more finesse NOT to break something. Here’s the info straight from the source for those interested:
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[witheld] <[witheld]@gmail.com>
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Fri, Oct 7, 2005 at 4:46 AM
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To: Eliot Phillips <[witheld]@gmail.com>
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Currently it tries to:
* erase XG flash card
* erase DS firmware (but recoverable when a patched firmware was installed)
* erase CompactFlash card inside GBA movieplayer
* erase GBA movieplayer firmware
* erase Supercard firmware
More devices to erase will be supported in the future.
Of course nobody would want try it if it’s known what it does :)
But someone could rename it and add a different text file to make it
more attractive to run.
Not many people can run this program anyway. It’s not as easy as on
PSP since it requires a PassMe device.
On 10/7/05, Eliot Phillips <[witheld]@gmail.com> wrote:
> It does what? You’re going to have to spell it out for me.
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> Eliot Phillips
> Hack-A-Day
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> On 10/7/05, HACK Tips <[witheld]@weblogsinc.com> wrote:
> >
> > IP: [witheld]
> > Name: anonymous
> > Email: [witheld]@gmail.com
> > URL:
> > Subject: nintendo ds malware
> > HACK Site: http://www.hackaday.com/
> >
> > Nintendo DS r0m loader (Risky-zero-Memory loader / bricking utility)
> > URL:
> > http://s52.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2L8PULZJOAPC81ON3J27LRY0M2
> > or http://www.sendspace.com/file/4nj8lj
> > This was written in response to the PSP variant.
> > Perhaps you can name both.
> > Not sure if it’s a good ‘hack’ though.
> >
> > Related URL:
> >
> >
>
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Making trojans _is not_ hacking!
If you desire potable hentai…. you have more problems than a bricked console.
Some people just don’t know how to play nice :-(
I’m dumbfounded they (nintendo, sony) release products than can be “bricked” at all. Why not have some kind of safety? why not have some way to “unbrick” your psp or ds? stupid, stupid, stupid. a “restore” umd, or a “restore” cartrige would be a godsend to these poor folks.
you wouldn’t make a computer that “bricked” when it’s OS got messed up, why would you make a handheld that did?
The reson that thay dont make it easy to unbrick them is that it forces you to put your $150+ handheld on the line. If you want to fark around with the firmware, for some people thats not a problem but your average joe is not going to be confident in his ability to do so with out bricking it, wether or not he could pull off the hack.
matt, they do have pc “brickers” in the form of bios erasers. They’ve been around ever since window$ began to allow re-flashing of the bios. Before that they were viri that would infest floppies waiting for you to leave one in during a boot. some mobo manufactures include a backup bios but the vast majority do not.
they were more common a few years back. now a compromised pc is going to become a spam zombie rather than a paperweight; a living computer is more sueful to a blackhat than a dead one.
Uh, yeah Matt, Nintendo should make a disk/cartridge to help those poor thiefs out there.
Call Sony and suggest a “restore psp disk” and describe why you would need one. Then give them you address and get a lawyer….fast.
“I’m dumbfounded they (nintendo, sony) release products than can be “bricked” at all. Why not have some kind of safety?”
The DS does have a built in safety. There is a protected area of the firmware EEPROM that can only be written to when two contacts on the motherboard are shorted. Under normal use (a person just running software normally) this area can never be deleted.
The homebrew firmware, FlashMe, installs an emergency boot loader to this area of the firmware during install. This emergency boot loader can be used to recover the DS in the event that the normal firmware is erased (such as the case with this bricker).
It is not known, or at least, has never been publicly said by the developers of the homebrew firmware, what is in this protected area on a stock DS. I would assume there is a Nintendo-made emergency loader, but as nobody but Nintendo knows how it works, it is useless to the general public.
So anyway, the DS does have protection against this sort of thing, and can be restored. As far as I know though, the PSP has no such mechanism.
a psp restore disk would be great if you happened to botch a normal upgrade. Say you absent-mindedly tried to do a firmware update with low battery power, or your houses power flickered during the flash while it was on a/c. you’ve got a brick, and a legit reason to have a restore device on hand. even if it has “bad” uses (in the eyes of sony), that one “legit” use pushes them all aside.
i just don’t think it’s alright for someone who bricked their psp by accident and someone who was stupid enough to brick it via faulty homebrew to be in the same situation at the end.
it doesn’t even have to be something a consumer can do, just to be able to take it to the service shop and have them fix it in a few minutes as opposed to them saying, “it’s a software problem, we can’t repair it” would be better than the current situation.
Is it just me or are those “witheld” addresses not quite as witheld as they should be when you mouse over them?
heh, heh, nice call Brett. Darn autolinking WYSIWYG blog software. It wasn’t really a security thing. I just wanted to limit the nuisance emails.
“and someone who was stupid enough to brick it via faulty homebrew”
This isn’t faulty homebrew. It’s dilibert malicious intent. There is a big difference between the two. AS for modding handhelds it should be a law that if you own somthing you OWN somthing and have the right to modify its operation.
The hentai slideshow version was only released in the development channel and with prior notice. So it shouldn’t be very widespread.
I’ve thought this over and I will not make any more harmful apps for DS. The point is clear now.
I myself am discusted by malware! It’s the equivalent to going to a parking lot and putting sugar in alot of strangers gas tanks. It is also sickening that people who get caught commiting crime via the Internet often times pay there ways outta a prison sentence.
I did help write a P.O.C. for the NGage that exploits a stack overflow via 802.x frames; it would bind a backdoor to the firmwars protocol stack.
I would never release some _Im doing something idiotic, isn’t that cool_ type stuff like a worm or virus though. Has anyone bothered contacting the vendor about this?
Your comparison just sucks.
It’s also really not much compared to a virus/worm. Not many seem to care about it anymore.
You all want a restore “disk”, for psp or ds. sony or nintendo will probably not give(sell) you one because it would just let us hack further into “how it works” and just maybe some other “viruses” or “worms” would be created so id say thats not going to happen, (although some nice new homebrew shells could be made)….
People can just buy a new ds or psp…
And just one question, why the hell would someone bother making trojans for ds and psp, what kind of no life loser is he?
I will appreciate if you provide more details on this. Thanks.
The Homebrew rom Legiononline has a trojan virus
so becareful at downloading. The file Server.exe is infected and I cleaned my flashcard with an Antivirus cleaner.
Definitely believe that which you said. Your favorite justification appeared to be on the internet the easiest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I definitely get irked while people think about worries that they just do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top as well as defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people can take a signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thanks