3DS: ssspwn exploit works on firmware 8.x, Smealum hopes for a release “soon”
If you own a 3DS you already know that homebrews on that device are currently limited to 4.x firmwares, and people willing to get the more recent 5.x, 6.x, 7.x and 8.x firmwares have to give up on homebrew.
Developer Smealum has been at the center of the attention of the 3DS scene for several months now, when he announced having exploited a new vulnerability that gives him code exec on recent firmwares (at the time, up to firmware 6.3). Announced by Smealum on his blog back in March, the vulnerability is known as ssspwn, and the dev has been hard at work to make it run homebrews.
He did warn in March that his main reason for not releasing was the fear it would eventually lead to piracy.
Recently though, Smealum announced he has made good progress, finding a new vector to access the exploit on the most recent firmwares 7.x and 8.x.
Even more exciting, he announced he feels “confident that a release will be soon possible”. This tells me he has found a way to limit the effects of piracy on the hack (that or he changed his mind on the matter).
btw : glad to be able to say that I’ve gotten back to doing some 3DS work and we’ve actually made good progress. expect *something* soon-ish
— smea (@smealum) July 12, 2014
so code exec on 7.x is a go. won’t be able to test on 8.0 for another week or so unfortunately but things are looking up !
— smea (@smealum) July 13, 2014
fyi : this is just “ssspwn” updated to work with a new entrypoint i found. it’s unfortunately not the most convenient but should work on 8.x
— smea (@smealum) July 13, 2014
made some fantastic progress today. I’m feeling more and more confident that a release will soon be possible.
— smea (@smealum) July 20, 2014
Smealum confirmed on his twitter account that his exploit will not require any flashcard (and that’s good to know, you know how I feel about these), and announced he is looking for artists to work on a 3ds homebrew menu.
.@MasterofJP exact requirements will be anounced in due time. no flashcard (DS or 3DS mode) will be required.
— smea (@smealum) July 16, 2014
it’s still a bit early for this (lots of remaining work), but still : any artists wanna try their hand at designing a 3DS homebrew menu ?
— smea (@smealum) July 23, 2014
This might be good times to be a 3DS owner. I’ve been thinking of getting one for some time now… do you have a 3DS? Do you like it?
I’ve been a 3DS owner way longer than a Vita one, and have been following Smealum’s progress on ssspwn for some time now. Very excited to see what entry point he used for the latest firmwares. Previously running any code on 3DS exploited the DS profile and required a method of running DS mode homebrew. I assume he’s utilizing a game exploit as the entry point and from what I understand ssspwn is user mode only so there is no chance of piracy directly from the exploit itself
Well it is a good thing I have 2 3DSs (Reg and XL). One is on Gateway 4.2 and the other is on the latest OFW. Will see how this is when it comes out.
Lets hope shortly after the release someone finds a way to play backups then we wont be reliant on those damn flash cards.
After Gateway and their bricking consoles I think he would be the 3DS god if he let it run backups. But it wont be long after that someone else finds a way.
Hoping this leads to the demise of those greedy Gateway teams.
Really!? “I don’t want to pay for a flash cart that will keep me from paying for games” How selfish can you be!
Lots of people don’t have 3ds’s with firmware 4.5-
You can buy as many flash cards as you want, but if you have a newer 3ds you’re out of luck.
Or you should just buy your games, you filthy ***.
No, He does not want to buy a flashcart because Gateway bricked numerous consoles using clones with a software update . I wouldn’t want to deal with a company like that either.
That’s what happens when you support someone who steals other peoples work and calls it their own.
I highly doubt he will release this if there is a possibility for backups to be run. It would be released now if not for fear of piracy.
If it is in fact a game exploit I’m sure he;ll put in some piece of code that will only allow that game to be launched when running homebrew.
time to buy a cheap 3ds and pirate every single game
It’s a user-mode hack. So it literally can’t be used for piracy. That would require full access to the kernel.
I think he was being sarcastic. But on a serious note, I’m sick of smealum’s white knight ***. If people are going to use exploits for piracy, why should that stop the rest of us from enjoying homebrew. I’m not going to get into another “effects of piracy” debate. I’m simply gunna state that , piracy aside, consoles that have been hacked have had more attention and development then those that havent.
White knight? Mind you he has no reason to actually release this other than actual kindness. the “white knight” you refer to is called CMA (covering my ***) as he doesnt want a lawsuit thrown in his face for allowing full piracy even indirectly. There is plenty of cases where honest but careless homebrew enabling hackers have lawsuits thrown in their face because it indirectly led to piracy. smea has much to loose if he isnt careful and patient, and upholds his anti piracy stance. just because the console is yours, doesnt give you the right to allow millions acces to piracy. this is why the lawsuits happen and usually push through in the end.
What lawsuits are you talking about? I know of one case where a lawsuit was pressed against a console hacker. and that would be Sony vs geohot, and that case was dropped. ‘Bunnie’ Huang hacked the original xbox, one of the most exploited consoles ever, and was never sued. DarkAlex and the psp, Team Twiizers and the wii, neither had cases against them. But you’re right, he doesn’t have to share anything. but look at it like this; He has been hesitant to release an exploit due to his stance on piracy. You can’t stop piracy, you can’t promise that no one will pirate, you can’t stop people from pirating. So how do we meet this impossible standard to get in on what he’s doing? And if we can’t, why show us?
Ah yeah the 3ds.
One good system, not like a certain something from a competitor.
Yeah wololo you can get one, even if you don’t use it for piracy & homebrew it still has a good library.
But for the standard youtube stuff and internet surfing I advise you to use another device, due to the 3ds not being constructed for that in mind. It works but… somehow choppy, the built in web explorer isn’t helping either due to it crashing on many sites with somewhat “complex scripts”.
But you can pick up almost any game on the 3ds and it will mostly be fun, be it the Nintendo brand stuff or third party software.
I can recommend cave story 3d, FE Awakening, Resident evil revelations & mercenaries… there are many good games for the 3ds available now.
Another thing I would advise you, GET AN AMERICAN 3DS! EU pricings for retail & digital software is horrendous. Set the region of the American 3ds to Brazil and language to english, that way you have much lower prices on the e-shop and you can use your credit card! as for the American e-shop no foreign credit cards are accepeted (somehow that reminds me of another company…).
Brazil e-shop has extremely good deals from time to time on AAA 3ds title, sometimes down to 33 Real which are approximately 11,5€ for a full title like etrian odyssey 4 or untold millennium girl.
That is cheap considering its Nintendo. (-_-)
Don’t know where to get an American 3ds? Play-asia.com should be your friend.
I’m with this guy about the piracy and how it will hurt the system and all that ***. But I’m kind of skeptical how this will not be used for piracy, because it will and IT WILL BE SOONER OR LATER
It’s a user-mode hack. So it literally can’t be used for piracy. That would require full access to the kernel.
Firstly, as replied, this is going to be released to public as a usermode hack, preventing full kernel access. the only drawback is that the exploit could be further hacked by someone else. the only person capable of such would face potential lawsuit as the only reasoning for such a mod is for piracy alone. as it stands, usermode hacking is all that is needed for homebrews. period. as it stands, piracy isnt going to come along for a while even after release. and i am not refering to gateway when i make this statement as that device alone is a joke. no online, limited games, etc. its a fools toy.
Yeah so I’m selling my Vita to buy a 3DS XL. =3
I really hope someone will be able to disable region lock with this exploit,so I could finally buy SMT4 we never got in Europe (tnx Atlus…,tnx Nintendo…),I have been looking forward for playing it for a year now,so if something like this comes out and I will be able to disable region lock,you bet I’m going to Amazon to buy this game :)´
wololo,I can only recommend getting a 3DS,after 3 years on market it has a nice library of good games and I have spent many hours playing on it (tbh more than any console I own in past three years).So yeah,I enjoy it 😀 (even though that region lock sucks)
+1
The 3ds is a good system, but its region lock is sh*t.
It wasn’t there on the normal ds or dsi.
SMT IV and Rune Factory 4… those are which I cry after as EU citizen… but on the other hand I’ve got an American 3ds so… wayne. 😉
I recommend getting an American 3ds due to various reasons I stated a few comments above.
SMT IV was confirmed to come to the EU in the next few months.
With how slow releasing Atlus games in Europe,I can see that.Still it sucks it takes this long,don’t know why Atlus can’t start releasing in Europe,when they obviously have fans here.(I am glad that at least Ghostlight is releasing them here)
..hmm this may be enough for me to get a 3ds in the future. But probably not..
Wait, but what good does this do? Is there any homebrew out for the 3ds even? It does not even seem like it would be interesting to hack at all unless you wanted to pirate games and put me out of a job as a translator.
You could still contribute free translations while honing your skills.
Yeah, I hear ya man. However, free translations don’t pay the bills, and I am really exhausted after translating everyday for work. I feel confident in my skills. Now I just want to continue making money because of them.
There’s currently some homebrew for the 3DS. Like a GB emulator. But, it’s very early stage at this point. “What good does this do?” Are you high? Nobody’s going to develop homebrew for something that can’t run homebrew…. Everything has a beginning. Also, it’s a user-mode hack. So it literally can’t be used for piracy. That would require full access to the kernel.
Yo homey. I haven’t kept up with 3DS homebrew/cracking, but I can’t see what it could do that could not be done the same on a DS or smartphone.
Um.. how about ‘IN 3D’!?
My god, that sounds like a great idea. Everything is better in 3D!
I have 5 PSPs and 1 3DS and honestly other than to play a few Nintendo exclusives my 3DS sits on a shelf hoping for a CFW or LCFW one day.
Would be nice to get some emulators running on it.
Same here, except for the over abundance of psp’s thing.
Is there an option to do an vhbl hack to ps vita firmware 3.15 without exploiting any game? because i dont want to buy any psp game since i can also use cfw hack when it will be availble.
Would be nice to be able to bypass or break the stupid region lock since it is the only reason I won’t buy a 3DS here in Australia since we get next to nothing already and you can’t play any games imported from Japan or US.
I’d be heavily tempted to import a US system…
I’m not for the 3ds flash cards after having a gateway 3ds and having it brick my 3ds xl and then sending it to gateway to have it fixed then they tell me that I was using a lancher.dat that wasn’t supported. I was a beta tester for them I was using 2.0 beta for two months before it was released now HTF was I using a unsupported lancher. They sent my 3ds back bricked and unfixed so I ended up unbricking myself thanks to gbatemp.net and all there hard work
Think about playing CPS2 on the 3DS 🙂 almost perfect fit
3DS res: 400X240
CPS2res: 384X224
Would look and play fantastic 🙂
heck yeah. Would love to see Emulators running on the 3DS. Tried the ones for the DS, and I cant get them running, or I do, but the Emus have not been worked on in so long, there are some problems with them on the 3DS.
Just imagine – proper GBA emulation! No more using the glitchy gbaemu4ds!
heck yeah,I am looking forward for a proper GBA emulation (really want to play Mario and Luigi:Superstar saga on my 3DS,playing on GBA Advance is really tough for me now,as the non lit screen is hard to look at and my DS broke a year ago)
Big time. gbaemu4ds has so many problems. You load up a Game and the Graphics are bad, and the sound has MAJOR issues. Def need better Emus for 3DS.
There is one thing I want to know though: On the Gateway 3DS Blue Card (DS), when you open up the Settings, and hit the Previous Menu Tab, it talks about GBA Emulation Settings, and also Slot 2. How is this run???? GW does not explain that which is weird.
Just get a GBA SP.
I find it funny how you say ”homebrews” are only availavable with flashcards on the 3DS.
There are NO homebrews on the 3DS AT ALL.
Gateway is just for piracy, please say it how it is.
People don’t care about homebrew on the 3DS, they want to pirate, there’s literally no person following smealum that doesn’t wan’t to just pirate games.
I agree.
There isn’t a single thing to accomplish on 3DS, homebrew-wise, that any Android device can’t do much, much better. Nobody cares about 3DS homebrew.
The only homebrews I’ve seen are the DS ones like DScraft.
you sir, are full of biased assumptions. While vc roms can be injected now, it will be much easier upon release of SSSpwn. I for one plan to get to work coding an atari emulator. Smea isnt stupid. his exploit by itsself isnt going to help piracy. There are plenty of developers out there who would love to code and port games even more so with the 3d features this console provides. I would love the means to port my game project from unity 3d onto the 3ds, but without the money and ability to get a dev license through nintendo, the only option is a homebrew release. since the game is planned to be a free release, there is no reason why doing so would be a bad move for me. there are others looking into further developing applications such as irc clients, other emulators, and eventually better media support. that annoying 10 minute video limit? gone. we can hopefully convert our 3d movies for easy view on the 3ds. Please take the time to actually get real end users opinions and thoughts before making biased statements.
always makes me laugh how entitled people feel when it comes to this kind of work.
“sick of his *** etc etc”
realistically, if I had the necessary skills to do this kind of awesome work, I would definitely keep it for myself, giving it away for free after hours and hours of tedious effort to a bunch of complaining idiots seems like an extremely poor plan honestly.
its a risky business, giving it out, even riskier. If you feel as though you must have someone elses hard work, perhaps put the effort in and learn yourself.
I do not have 3DS and never will. I liked a few games and it is not worth to buy 3DS. The same for Wii U.. I liked few games for Wii U too but it doesnt help me to buy the console/portable at all. I am staying with PS3 and soon to be PS4 in the near future. Surely, I will buy Wii U — a used in the pawn shop or something in Portugal. I wont buy a brand new one.. Wii U is useless for 3rd party. That’s fine. I am into Zelda (rpg) and Mario (action game, not mario party or something like that)
Ehhh? Do you think anyone cares?
So does this work on the latest 8.1? Thinking it might be an idea to update to the latest exploitable firmware while I can.
Smea commented if your already on 8.0, 8.1 makes no difference. from the looks of things, 8.x needs polishing for better support as it quote: “kinda worked”
I would love to see nitro tracker running on my 3ds or lgpt tracker.
I had asked smea 2 questions that were quite important: Does the exploit allow nand emulation (redirection such as a memory card to prevent an actual update) and was the exploit easy to patch, and iof so, was there a fallback method. his reply was no nand emulation/redirection, and the exploit could be pretty easy to patch, though he has a fallback in place. this can be taken as ok news, as a big feature that would be useful is nand redirection, and if quickly patched, the possibility the fallback could be patched before, during, or shortly after this exploit is. I wouldnt advise using this on your main 3ds, but rather grabbing you a regular one from a pawn shop or such. It is certainly my plan to do that upon release of SSSpwn.
“…with great power comes great responsibility…. ”
we discovered fire and brought it into our homes, shall we abandon the idea because it might burn down the house? Shall we stop using electricity because a baby might stick his finger in an outlet and electrocute himself?
the pro-c team created the inferno driver so that we can have the most games compatibility for the psp. No one is complaining.
The operation doom train team translated the final fantasy type 0 game and part of the process is combining the two isos of the game. did they ask us to download only if we legally own the game? i think not.
creators can try to limit themselves but what will you end up with? a creation with limited possibilities and capabilities.
So just do it… why? BECAUSE YOU CAN!
like the Pro Team, Team operation Doomtrain, DarkAlex, TN, Neuron and all the other that gave life to the dying PSP.
SMEA GIVE LIFE TO THE 3DS.
YOU ARE DEUX EX MACHINA!
Awesome news! Will this open the way for a 4.x style firmware unlock hack? I really want to play Hatsune Miku Project Mirai 1 and 2 (legally purchased) even if they’ve been announced for the US in 2015. So excited.
Erm I meant Region unlock.. haha not firmware.
I haven’t been following the 3DS scene as closely as I’ve followed the Vita scene, but this seems like good news to me, a way to get 3DS home brew, which could easily surpass its DS counterpart! Unfortunately, if it is a game exploit, I might end up in the same boat as I am with the Vita, unable to buy even cheap exploited games before the company takes it down until the exploit is patched.
Can’t wait until someone use this to make something that play 3DS roms without the need of flashcarts. Someone who has the same skills will come along and do something that allow piracy.
Cool can play game boy games.