Dangerous Hacking

Ok, so this Wii hack has hit Kotaku and it's pretty interesting stuff. I'm always hesitant to claim "oh, snap, it's hacked" because, really, until you get binaries in your hands and collaborated results you really can't say it.

Remember that the Wii controller uses standard Bluetooth technology, is capable of being tracked and interfaced on a PC, and video doesn't mean shit. I can very very easily produce such a demonstration on stage or in my own room with a multi-input AV switch, a Wii, a PC, a video doubler, two wiimotes, and the final broadcast device.

And the words are light on details. He goes into all this detail about the hardware and names of stuff, but the technique on how to munge the address lines and access higher memory was rushed through and covered up with some words and a hand gesture that I found rather suspicious. Definitely light on details.

That said, it's also worth mentioning that this is very similar to the technique used for hacking the DS and is probably the best argument against any system having a hardware backwards compatibility layer. That is, the DS was hacked thanks to it being built off of the original GBA hardware and the unavoidable shared hardware space, the GBA was hacked thanks to using pinouts to the classic GB/GBC cartridges* which are unavoidable to keep the hardware compact and robust and power efficient for delivering data to the execution hardwares (ARM7 and Z80). Even the PS2 is soft-hackable thanks to the way it handles PSX backwards compatibility.

* Except at different voltages, but, heh, that's easy to find out.

Three examples in 6 years (and now possibly a 7th) I think might just give the console hardware planners pause before including hardware backwards compatibility, particularly backwards compatibility to known cracked platforms.

Nintendo is actually in the best position to dump hardware compatibility in their 8th generation console. Since the Wii is the lowest powered of all the consoles, the next iteration could take the same hardware performance leap that, say, the Dreamcast took against the Saturn and perform all it's Wii/Gamecube compatibility in a software only hypervisor.

But, I guess we'll wait until the release of the hack comes out. I don't intend to do it to my system until I'm confident I can get another Wii without much fuss, personally. And I wonder when are companies going to just release sensible hobbyist programming kits at low cost to avoid having hackers try to fuck with their systems?

If Nintendo released a home dev kit for, say, $100 there would be no need for this kind of thing to develop. The homebrew people will be happy and Nintendo would be happy keeping people from openly developing an exploit that pretty much will immediately be used for piracy. Oh, that and stop making systems region-locked.

Holes & Fun

Ok, so I had some drama last week and it's all FINALLY resolved.

Monday I went to a strip gentleman's club. We wore monocles and top hats playing Gin while drinking brandy. During our game, a young lass said asked towards me: "Why, sir, I hear you have the strangest of artifacts attached to your Richard. Might I fancy a peek?"

So while I was getting a really hard lap dance while she ground herself onto my [covered] studded penis, somehow, one of the balls came loose. I didn't realize the whole assembly popped out and ran away somewhere. I went to the bathroom and started pissing like normal except now I was pissing on my shoe. That's when I looked in horror at the urine trailing down the bottom hole onto myself where the metal plug was GONE.

HORROR

Nevermind I looked like a drunk who'd just pissed his pants. I excused myself as gracefully as I could and sped home.

Don't know if you're familiar with body piercings at all, but, for something only 6 weeks old, if you remove the metal the body will close up the hole and you'll have a hell of a time getting it open again. I was in a PANIC. The only thing going through my mind was "must get something in the hole."

I saw the digital meat thermometer probe. I saw the emergency cd-tray eject pin. I saw the box of paper clips. I saw the eyeglass repair screwdriver. I saw the Nintendo DS stylus.

Now, I don't have a DS Lite, but I DO have a few DS Lite styluses. I bought a pack of three because I dislike the one that came with my Archos 605 video player. THAT would have been a feat, heh. I had my spare conventional DS stylus and never quite found a use for it. It certainly isn't very comfortable to hold for too long a time.

So, yeah, I promptly inserted it into the man-made hole in my penis. It wasn't very comfortable... the texture isn't completely smooth. The plastic is pretty general surface smoothness, PLUS the tiny Nintendo logo and the almost invisible seam line (which, while not immediately visible, is most certainly FEEL-ABLE). OW OW OW.

There's the thing, it's exactly 4mm in diameter. And I don't really know how big my piercing is. The studio is sort of dodgy on that information, I guess so they could sell me more jewelry in the future. But, by gum, it fit. And if I pushed the tip out the end of the urethra it stayed in place, which was important.

And I slept with it there.

Next day I call out sick from work and head over to piercing shops. NOTHING is open in the mornings. It's rather irritating, actually, when you've got a piercing emergency. So the place that's open the earliest that does some piercing is Tattoo's by Lou. I've heard a lot of BAD things about them, but I figure I'd buy it, go home and boil it, and pop it in after it cools.

They didn't stock it.

I wound up having to go all the way to Coral Gables to pick mine up. The only piercing shop in town that would carry that sort of thing. And, heh, not only are these places never open in the mornings, but they're also never open ON TIME.

Anyway, he asks what size and I don't have much of an answer. I said 8 because someone I showed it to reckoned it was (she didn't measure it, just eyeballed it). So I got an 8 and put it on after sterilization and it worked ok. No discomfort, nothing. It wasn't quite as long as the other one which made erections slightly uncomfortable, but it's only temporary until I the one I ordered from the original studio got here. Also the balls were smaller and the whole thing was shiny stainless steel instead of the super-cool colored titanium one I had before. But, again, temporary.

Fast forward to this week. I FINALLY get the metal from the original piercer, in the original size I had. I excitedly try to swap and came to a horrifying conclusion.

Too big.

Or, rather, the 8 gauge was SMALL. Get that? 8 = small. Turns out I've got a SIX GAUGE PIERCING DOWN THERE. That's, like, whoa, dude. No wonder when I showed it to Jane (who has a totally awesome vertical nipple piercing of her own, and, clearly, would know a thing or two about piercings) went WHOA. So, yeah, evidently I'm a bad ass (and all this time I thought she thought my dick was super cool. Oh well.) and now in trouble because the hole has conformed to the smaller size over the past week.

When I removed the steel one, I confirmed my fears. Yep, the stylus was wider than it was. Now, in order to get the new jewelry in, which was my old jewelry, I had to somehow stretch the hole. I look again, and, well...

DS stylus saved me again. Inserting this time was even MORE OW than before. Really. Not only was it not smooth and with a logo and a seam, but it was stretching the hole back to what it was. O. M. G.

But, it sure saved my ass, in a manner of speaking. With a little lube and a little oomph and additional stretching the piece went in and I'm happy. Turns out, there's a little thing about reassembling the jewelry that nobody seemed to explicitly tell me: when screwing the ball onto the post, it will get tight. At that point, CONTINUE TO TIGHTEN. It will get loose again and at that point when it gets tight it's tight for keeps. It's like a lock. Really a clever design, I wish I knew how it worked since I just love knowing how shit works.

Anyway, that was the whole point of it coming undone to begin with. I didn't tighten further than the safety spot. But, dang, that DS was a damn good purchase. Especially ol' fattie.
 

T-T

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