Action Replay Wii

[biolizard89]

Datel has stolen codes before- from me- and sold them on specialized ARs that only worked on Twilight Princess.
I am not the only one they've done that to.

If anyone can confirm stolen codes, I will put a PSA on geckocodes in a heartbeat.

I haven't heard this story; would you mind elaborating on how Datel stole your codes before?  I'm curious....

Anyway, if Datel is indeed stealing codes without giving credit, someone should look into whether that's a copyright violation.  (Probably depends on the terms of use / license that the codes were released under, but I'm pretty sure that distributing someone else's intellectual property, for profit, without permission, and without credit, is mostly likely a copyright violation.)  Meaning that James (or the hackers whose codes were stolen) could file DMCA takedown notices for Datel's website.

[megazig]

I imagine based on size and usage that they would be allowed to do it under fair use.
Doesn't make it right, but you have to think about what they've taken

[dcx2]

Fair use usually requires a certain set of circumstances to be fulfilled, such as being used for education, satire, parody, discussion, etc.  Length of the work is only one factor.

I'm not sure redistributing even one code would fall under any of the fair use, unless it was being used for demonstration purposes.  And if they redistributed many codes, then that would be reproducing a large part of the work.

[James0x57]

It was back in GCN days. They have only ever credited one hacker for something on their site and devices. The rest of the codes are posted without a name attached.

Unfortunately there was nothing I could do back on GCN days but publicly cry foul. All their codes are encrypted under their own scheme and it was their codetypes I was writing with etc etc. If it was ASM hacks then, that could have been a different story.
The guy who actually stole them had an account on Kodewerx and did get fired about a month later. I called complaining like 4 times. I even found his home phone and tried that. I was pissed. Never heard if he got fired /because/ I complained though- just that he was.

But that Twilight Princess only disc was the biggest upset since most of the codes they explicitly mention on the back of the box were mine.

So yeah, if I could help destroy this one now I'm all over it. Just gotta know for sure so I don't look ridiculous or get hit with libel lawsuits.

[GMO]

It was back in GCN days. They have only ever credited one hacker for something on their site and devices. The rest of the codes are posted without a name attached.

Unfortunately there was nothing I could do back on GCN days but publicly cry foul. All their codes are encrypted under their own scheme and it was their codetypes I was writing with etc etc. If it was ASM hacks then, that could have been a different story.
The guy who actually stole them had an account on Kodewerx and did get fired about a month later. I called complaining like 4 times. I even found his home phone and tried that. I was pissed. Never heard if he got fired /because/ I complained though- just that he was.

But that Twilight Princess only disc was the biggest upset since most of the codes they explicitly mention on the back of the box were mine.

So yeah, if I could help destroy this one now I'm all over it. Just gotta know for sure so I don't look ridiculous or get hit with libel lawsuits.

I remember those days, codejunkies even shut their forums because of the complaints

[biolizard89]

It was back in GCN days. They have only ever credited one hacker for something on their site and devices. The rest of the codes are posted without a name attached.

Unfortunately there was nothing I could do back on GCN days but publicly cry foul. All their codes are encrypted under their own scheme and it was their codetypes I was writing with etc etc. If it was ASM hacks then, that could have been a different story.
The guy who actually stole them had an account on Kodewerx and did get fired about a month later. I called complaining like 4 times. I even found his home phone and tried that. I was pissed. Never heard if he got fired /because/ I complained though- just that he was.

But that Twilight Princess only disc was the biggest upset since most of the codes they explicitly mention on the back of the box were mine.

So yeah, if I could help destroy this one now I'm all over it. Just gotta know for sure so I don't look ridiculous or get hit with libel lawsuits.

Wow, I never heard about this.... apparently I didn't follow the scene as thoroughly as I thought I had.  I just checked CodeJunkies; they're advertising codes for the following games:

    Poképark 2: Wonders Beyond (EU)
    Wii Action Replay
    Kirby's Return to Dream Land (US)
    Wii Action Replay
    Mario Party 9 (EU)
    Wii Action Replay
    Zelda: Skyward Sword (EU)
    Wii Action Replay
    New Super Mario Bros. (US)
    Wii Action Replay
    Mario Kart Wii (US)
    Wii Action Replay
    Xenoblade Chronicles (EU)
    Wii Action Replay
    Animal Crossing City Folk (US)
    Wii Action Replay
    Monster Hunter Tri (US)
    Wii Action Replay

But they don't list or link to actual codes as far as I can tell.  :-/  Hopefully someone reverse-engineers and can verify whether anything is infringing.

[Arudo]

Seems awfully... late to release this seeing as the Wii is on its last legs. It all still stinks of something awful though.

[Bully@Wiiplaza]

Wow, I never heard about this.... apparently I didn't follow the scene as thoroughly as I thought I had.  I just checked CodeJunkies; they're advertising codes for the following games:

   Poképark 2: Wonders Beyond (EU)
  Kirby's Return to Dream Land (US)
   Mario Party 9 (EU)

*cough*
I made a ton of codes for these three games.
It is pretty much impossible to make a complete database afterwards without stealing my credit there.
Do they hide the codes from us for a reason? I couldn´t find any of their codelists.

[Arudo]

Isn't the device just a slightly modified SD card? Although I'd say it'd be pointless to buy the damn thing, but if someone had it and could extract the data from it, it should be possible to figure out the codes from that... right?

[111]

Hmm...very interesting.  Surprised that I hadn't heard of this, and that they even bothered to release it so late in the Wii life span.  Hopefully they aren't using stolen codes from Geckocodes or anywhere else, but even if they aren't, I still see no point in buying it.

I also wonder if Nintendo will have another System Menu update to break it.  I originally thought that Nintendo was done with System Menu updates, but they might not like an unlicensed developer making money with the use of such exploits.  I remember that they released IOS37 (first IOS to fix the signing bug) shortly after the Wii Freeloader was released.

[Bully@Wiiplaza]

I originally thought that Nintendo was done with System Menu updates, but they might not like an unlicensed developer making money with the use of such exploits.

Nintendo has given up with the Wii. They won´t make another update to mess things up. I´m pretty sure, it´s been a year or so since 4.3. was released.

[biolizard89]

I don't think this requires homebrew software to be installed because that would be promoting violations of the terms of service.

Running any unlicensed code on the Wii (including Action Replay) already violates the ToS, regardless of whether the system is modified permanently.  Those ToS are obviously anticompetitive and therefore unenforceable legally, so I doubt this would bother Datel.  That said, Datel generally has a history of not requiring any additional homebrew to be installed, so I'm not surprised that they appear to be using a modified version of LetterBomb.

[megazig]

you don't install letterbomb. so they'd use letterbomb to run their own unsigned code which will load the game and hook the codes in

[dcx2]

Maybe they're counting on this being end-of-life for the Wii and that Nintendo might let this one slide?

I agree with megazig, they're probably forcing you to run letterbomb every single time.

As far as catching codes, one trick is to look at the button activators.  That's how I caught Ralf.  FWIW, though, the youtube video above showed a Skyward Sword moon jump that had a different button activator.

But I would still like to see exactly what they're doing.  Did they make their own code handler?  I bet you could use rebooter and set a BP on the letterbomb exploit's address to see what they're doing...

[biolizard89]

One question is what memory range Datel's code handler resides in.  If they're using high memory, the GeckoOS handler could run simultaneously and we could dump their handler.  If they're in the unused exception vector like GeckoOS, you could still reassemble the GeckoOS handler to use high memory (most Wii games are fine with this).

@megazig, were you addressing me?  I didn't say that Datel "installed" LetterBomb; I said that Datel usually doesn't install homebrew, which is probably why they picked LetterBomb (because it doesn't need to be installed).