Wii Uses Elliptic Curve Cryptography for game saves

[Zeus]

An anonymous source has stated that Wii save game files are signed and encrypted with NIST B 233 bit elliptic cryptography which has got people speculating that this will lead to a new Wii homebrew softmod method.


"A user at the Nintendo-Scene forums just posted a lengthy post about his discovery that the Wii savegame files are signed and encrypted with NIST B 233 bit elliptic curve cryptography. Could this be the first step for a Wii softmod the homebrew community have waited for? From the post: 'It appears a Wii savegame file ends with a certificate chain. The certificates contains a public keypair (the one that is being "certified") and a signature (another number pair) from the signing entity. The number pairs are stored as a compound 60 bit data (first 30 bytes for the first number, and the next 30 bytes for the second). Hence, the first and middle byte is always 00 or 01 for keys, and 00 for signatures. One can check that the keys are indeed NIST B 233 keys using openssls EC_KEY_check_key function (code forthcoming).'"


News Source: <A href="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/16/0317204" target="_blank">slashdot</a>

[jakefell]

yippie :) :)

[Kenban]

This is all well and good but until the private key is found you can't sign your own saves. After that a game which has an overflow error in the handling of save games must be found. From there the actual code to exploit the problems can be written but all of this is easier said then done.

Its all possible but its also possible for Nintendo to fix the save exploits in new firmware versions. I still think a modchip is the best approach.

[Waka_the_lion]

I'd like to see something simple done first, like decrypting a save or at least the icon header. Been waiting for that long enough. The signature information in the Wii saves was found one day after the Wii's US release. Figuring out that it is NIST B-233 was a good step forward. Now lets see some code to decrypt a sace an reencryption will follow. The private key will be found sooner or later.

[HowardC]

This is all well and good but until the private key is found you can't sign your own saves. After that a game which has an overflow error in the handling of save games must be found. From there the actual code to exploit the problems can be written but all of this is easier said then done.

Its all possible but its also possible for Nintendo to fix the save exploits in new firmware versions. I still think a modchip is the best approach.

You can't make a mod chip until the wii's os is first hacked unless one wants to write a brand new os. And no, the current mod chips out there aren't real mod chips, they simply bypass security checks at the dvdrom level, which isn't enough to get into the wii's os and figure out how to make software for it.

Also remember that wii game saves and VC downloads (which are essentially stand-alone applications) are very very similar, only VC dl's are encrypted a second time, to key them to the console they were downloaded to. Getting into the game saves would be the key to figuring out Vc downloads, thus allowing one to figure out how stand-alone software channels are written for the wii.

[JonathanD]

At least its a start, maybe it will lead to some actual homebrew ! I would like to see what the Wii can do for emulation.(besides on the VC lol) The GC side I have to say is fairly impressive.

Oh and for the people who like to say "ohh thats stealing Nintendo will not get money from the VC then !!!"

Baahhh I have spent over 100$ on VC games, hmmmm down to 1100 points... im thinking Wave Race lol

I do have to say I like the emulation better then the VC ones, if im using my GC controller(it can be programmed how you want the VC lacks that ability). The classic controller does rule for SNES and NES games though and that would be the sweetness for emulation.

I also wonder if the wii could emulate a PS1 lol that classic controller would be pretty cool for some SOTN :)

[Xenogears V]

Protection also on the savegames, but where will we go to end?.