Una y otra vez, las aplicaciones de Waninkoko no han sido mas que simples interfaces implementads sobre código existente o herramientas de otros. Su FS Dumper salió cuando le comenté lo del truco del TMD con GID 0. El WAD Installer salió después de que yo reversé las funciones de ES y las agregué a libogc. Su primer cargador de warez DVD apareció después de que saliera el toolkit de módulos de IOS, al cual añadió DVDX y algo de código DI viejo de GameCube. Y just ahora, el cargador USB de warez aparece misteriosamente 22 días después de que salga el módulo USB2 para IOS.

Lo raro es que haya tardado los 22 días en conseguir que funcione.

Todas sus aplicaciones posteriores tienen anuncios, y sus descargas oficiales requieren que te registres en la página de su sponsor, que de paso de obliga a apuntarte a un servicio de spam. Vamos, que desde luego se está sacando un buen dinerillo de su particular versión de la “scene”.

Bien, normalmente esto no sería mas que otro episodio en el que Waninkoko hypea aplicaciones triviales para piratear llenas de anuncios y que están basadas en el código y el trabajo de otros. Sin embargo, han pasado algunas cosas interesantes. Tanto hype creó sobre el vídeo que el servidor de su sponsor se derrumbó ante la avalancha de accesos. También dicen de haber recibido un ataque DDoS. Yo seguí la irrisoria situación en los foros de ElOtroLado, y de paso predije correctamente que la supuesta app iba a ser un cargador USB antes de que saliera. Por supuesto, ahora de nuevo es el dios de la scene para aquellos que le siguen.

Y entonces me acusaron de ser el autor del DDoS (no, no he tenido nada que ver con el supuesto).

El administrador Xtreme de Teknoconsolas, al que no le caigo demaiado bien, empezó a soltar mierda usando una ridícula comparación de literatura musical. Al parecer, ahora Waninkoko es como Mozart y yo soy Salieri. Insultos por doquier, ahora parece que soy un me-gustaría-ser-waninkoko. Aunque la analogía se rompe un tanto cuando consideras que yo fui el responsable de guiar a Waninkoko a través de sus primeros pinitos en la scene de Wii (y bien que me arrepiento de eso).

Al fin y al cabo, ¿que dificultad real tendría duplicar el loader de Waninkoko? Al fin y al cabo, como he dicho, están todas las piezas ahí. Así que me puse a crear mi propio cargador de warez por USB, empezando con cachitos disponibles públicamente, e intentando hacerlo en el menor tiempo posible. Quien sabe, quizás esto ayude a la gente a comprender realmente lo trivial que es.

La respuesta: se tarda unas 6 horas.

Este es mas o menos el log de progreso de mi propia expedición al Lado Oscuro:

Hora de inicio: 3am (horario de verano, justo con el cambio de hora)

• 3am – 4am: copio el juego al USB, trasteo, pienso
• 4am – 5am: pongo la estructura de compilación en orden, monto IOS + instalador, añado debug por gecko
• 5am – 6am: añado driver EHCI y consigo que funcione
• 6am – 7am: consigo que funcione el código de USB mass storage, y añado los comandos DI
• 7am – 8am: adapto el cargador de PPC y depuro el apploader
• 8am – 8:20am: depuro el apploader algo más
• 8:20am – 8:30am: arreglo las globales de MEM1 y por fin arranca el juego
• 8:30am – 9:30am: limpieza y debug

He grabado un vídeo del resultado. Es un cargador cutre, por supuesto, pero la idea es que en escribir la funcionalidad principal del loader – lo único que posiblemente podría ser innovador – se tarda sólo 6 horas. Se podrían añadir muchas funciones, como soporte decente de NTFS, una caché (este cargador no tiene y aun así va rapidito), soporte para multiples juegos, un dumpeador de juegos incorporado, y anuncios como para asfixiarte, pero eso son aburridas guindas para el pastel. Y la razón es que el código de carga USB no es innovador en absoluto – solo es una combinación de los siguientes componentes: IOS36, el módulo USB2, el toolkit de módulos IOS, algún código de apploader que tenía por ahí (esto es de la época de la GC), unos cachitos de Gecko OS para conseguir que rule, y una pequeña cantidad de código original.

Por motivos evidentes, esto no lo voy a sacar ni de coña.

Este es el vídeo del cargador cargando una copia de Super Smash Bros. Brawl (cuyo original por supuesto poseo). Presta atención al LED de actividad del disco USB.

(Si, me paso con los ataques trueno)

Ahi está. El cagador de warez de 6 horas.

Volvemos a nuestra programación habitual. Gracias a bushing por realizar el montaje del vídeo.

Time and time again, Waninkoko’s apps have just been thin wrappers around existing code or tools written by others. His Filesystem Dumper came about when I told him about the GID 0 TMD trick. WAD Installer showed up after I reverse engineered the ES interface and added the relevant functions to libogc. His first DVD warez launcher showed up after the IOS Module Toolkit appeared, to which he added DVDX and some old Gamecube code. And just now, his USB warez launcher appears mysteriously 22 days after a USB2 module for IOS was released.

The only strange part is that it took him all 22 days to get it to work.

All his later apps have included advertisements, and the official downloads all required signing up for his sponsoring site, which also requires that you sign up for an e-mail spam service. He’s definitely making a pretty penny out of his particular version of the “scene”.

Now, this would ordinarily be just one more episode of waninkoko hyping up ad-riddled trivial warez-friendly applications built on top of other people’s code and work. However, some interesting things happened. He hyped up the release date of the video on his blog, and the mass amount of page reloads around the time caused his sponsoring site to go down. They also claim that there was a DDoS attack involved. I followed this hilarious situation on the ElOtroLado forums, and correctly predicted that the hyped app would be a USB warez launcher before it was revealed. Of course, he is once again being revered as a scene god by those who don’t know any better.

Then I got accused of the supposed DDoS. (No, I had nothing to do with it)

Teknoconsolas administrator Xtreme, who doesn’t seem to like me that much, started firing shots using a cheesy music literature reference where Waninkoko is Mozart and I’m Salieri. Insults galore, apparently I’m now a “wannabe waninkoko”. Though the analogy kind of breaks down when you consider that I’m responsible for walking Waninkoko through his beginnings on the Wii scene (and boy do I regret that).

So I figured, how hard could it really be to replicate Waninkoko’s loader? After all, as I said, all the pieces are there. So I set out to create my own USB warez launcher, starting off from publicly available bits and pieces, in the shortest possible amount of time. Maybe this would help people understand just how trivial it is.

The answer? It takes about 6 hours.

This is the rough progress log of my very own venture into the Dark Side:

Start time: 3am (CEST, just after the DST change in Spain)

• 3am – 4am: copy game to USB, screw around, think
• 4am – 5am: get build structure in order, make IOS + installer, add gecko debugging to it
• 5am – 6am: add EHCI driver to build and make EHCI driver work right
• 6am – 7am: make USB storage work, add DI commands
• 7am – 8am: adapt PPC loader code, debug apploader
• 8am – 8:20am: debug apploader some more
• 8:20am – 8:30am: fix MEM1 globals and finally get the game to boot
• 8:30am – 9:30am: clean up and debug

I recorded a video of the result. It’s a crappy loader, of course, but the point is that the core functionality of the loader – the only thing that could possibly be innovative – took all of 6 hours to write and debug. Many extra features could be added, like proper NTFS filesystem support, a cache (this loader has none and it still loads fast!), multiple game support, a built-in game ripper, and enough ads to make you gag, but those are just boring bits of icing on the cake. And the reason for this is that the core USB loader code is not innovative at all – it’s just an amalgam of the following existing components: IOS36, the USB2 module, the IOS module toolkit, some random apploader launch code (this dates back to the GC era), some bits of Gecko OS to make it work, and a small amount of original code.

For obvious reasons, there is no chance in hell of this ever being released.

What follows is a video of the launcher loading a copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (which I own the original to, of course). Pay attention to the USB drive’s activity LED.

(Yes, I spam thunderbolt.)

So there you have it. The 6-hour warez launcher.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thanks to bushing for editing the video for me.

Comments containing any of the following will be deleted:

• Any questions regarding warez launchers, or implications that you use said software.
• Any questions regarding pirated VC or WiiWare titles, or implications that you use those. This includes any mention of WADs unless you specify which legal WADs you’re talking about.
• Flamebait regarding piracy and how we suck because we don’t condone or endorse it.
• Flamebait about such topics as “homebrew is illegal”. We don’t need yet another pointless discussion on the legality of homebrew in various places and its comparison with warez or warez tools.
• Comments in other languages. Pido perdón a los lectores hispanoparlantes; este blog está en inglés.
• “Backups”. It’s a wildcard for piracy. Sorry if you have legit backups of games; this isn’t the place to discuss them due the piracy discussion that all too often hides under the “but it’s just backups” excuse.
• Comments that are just plain wrong and likely to mislead, horribly bad or dangerous advice, and which contradict the very post that they are on (debate or properly identified contradiction is okay; I’m talking about answering a newbie question with a bad answer or the opposite of what the post says without properly explaining yourself)

If your comment is otherwise valid or insightful, but violates one of the above rules, it gets deleted. Too bad. Sorry, I can’t go editing comments to remove the bad bits, and some people would see that as even worse than removing them outright. Get rid of the objectionable parts and post it again – we don’t ban commenters (unless they spam).

I’m also not stupid. If I can draw a line from your comment to “I’m almost certainly pirating”, I probably will. If you’re pirating, you should probably avoid commenting here. If you need help with anything to further your pirating, you really should not post a comment about it, because there’s a good chance I’ll notice what your intentions are, even if it’s not explicit. And if you honestly are not doing anything questionable but you think it might be interpreted as such, make sure you provide an explanation. Stupid implausible exuses from pirates need not apply.

In addition, random blog entries aren’t the place for off-topic messages directed personally to me or bushing. I’ve got an e-mail address. I do read comments that contain personal messages and may act upon them, but I won’t approve them (they clutter the already long comment lists), and I won’t reply to them. If you have a message that you need to get to me personally, use e-mail. If you have a general inquiry and/or need help on something off-topic, go to the Wiibrew Forums or the #wiihelp IRC channel on EFNet.

Finally, I’ve been known to get cranky at times and delete comments that just plain bore me or annoy me. Like asking something already answered in the blog post. Or talking about off-topic and unsupported/dangerous stuff that we don’t particularly care about or consider a good idea. Like those silly system menu skins or mods, or random custom channels that you really could do without. It depends on my mood and how silly the comment is.

If your comment mysteriously didn’t appear, think twice about what you said. If you don’t see anything wrong, we may have made a mistake, or maybe your comment got caught in the automated Akismet spam filter. Just try posting the comment again, or maybe change it up a bit if you think the spam filter might have been the issue.

If you feel this is censorship, go voice your problems, concerns, or opinions elsewhere. The Internet is pretty large; I’m sure you’ll find a place where you can post your issues.

As a reminder, proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation goes a long way towards getting better answers from other people. It also tips the balance your way if I’m unsure whether to delete your comment or not. This goes particularly for English natives who just feel like being lazy or doing it on purpose. I understand that non-natives might not know English that well; just do your best, and try to explain yourself in detail if you think that people might have trouble understanding you.

I’m leaving comments open for this entry – this is your chance to talk about this, because you won’t get to do it on other posts. The rest of the rules still apply here, so no warez or flamewars about homebrew or piracy.

Hint: If you worked on screwing up piracy instead of blocking homebrew, you might have a better chance at stopping it. And you know that we aren’t going to help the pirates, don’t you?

This was also your last chance to get rid of some piracy before the release of a NAND backup/restore solution. You blew it.

• Nintendo, as expected, half-assed the SD feature by just automating the copy to NAND. No surprise there.
• The IOS16 that warez users used to pirate is no longer an option, thank goodness.
• HBC survives. So does DVDX.
• They fixed the bug that the HBC installer and DVDX 3.4 installer use; time to bring out another one.
• Twilight Hack no longer works. I’d like to remind everyone that this exploit has been in use for over a year. Whether it comes back or a new game exploit takes its place, I think we can say it’s served us all well.
• No new problems expected with BootMii, other than needing a new exploit as mentioned above.

Yes, solutions are being worked on to run code via games and to install HBC. Sheesh.

There is very little information regarding the claimed issue. However, considering HBC is not a prerequisite for Mario Kart online cheating, nor does it have any direct relationship with it, and especially considering the ease with which we could change HBC’s Title ID, I think it’d be incredibly foolish for Nintendo to do this. They aren’t the brightest of the lot, but they’re not that stupid.

I have succeeded in playing a perfectly normal WFC match on-line with Mario Kart while HBC (1.0.1) was installed. There was no sign of trouble or errors at all.

Unless we get multiple, verifiable reports of people who have never cheated at Mario Kart or performed any modifications whatsoever, and who do not have and have never had any other installable homebrew other than HBC and no other modifications (that means no region changes, no downgrades, no IOS16, no cIOS, no warez launchers, and no other unofficial channels), no modchip, and a legit, in-region copy of Mario Kart, I am forced to conclude that whoever made this claim hasn’t done their research properly.

I would like to remind you that we in no way condone on-line game cheating. Try playing like a normal user a few times. I just got a golden mushroom without having to patch memory and screw up other players; I’m sure you can too.

Anyway, if you’re one of those people who are happily bundling The Homebrew Channel, Twilight Hack, warez launchers, and a whole bunch of illegal wads and IOSes, would you please stop including our stuff? You know, because our scammer friends love to link to your downloads as part of their “product”. Like homebrewinstaller, who is selling links to DJTaz’s warez launcher pack hosted on his personal pages at iol.ie. The file named 002fixGammaLoader.zip.

I know I’m not going to stop any of you guys from using our hacks to pirate games, but at least have the decency to not distribute our (OMG free!) apps and unknowingly help the scammers. It’s bad enough dealing with the stuff that they put out and host.

Edit: Thanks to DJTaz for removing the file. I apologize for the somewhat strong wording; these scammers don’t exactly make me feel happy.