http://imgh.us hasn't given me any trouble.

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Originally posted by devin

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In the article for Gunman's Proof, I mentioned a strange empty region of ROM that the game would attempt to load code into under certain circumstances. It turns out that GT Racing has this code present on the cartridge already - it's a fully functional machine code monitor including a memory viewer, disassembler, and a whole lot more.

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I wonder if this was a compile-time switch, or some type of hardware trick that would map the appropriate code into that region? If the former, you'd expect the code that loads it would be disabled too.


Also, late reply:

Originally posted by Peardian

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Anybody here good with Python and/or C++? If so, I have some code from Super Mario Strikers here that might be worth looking at. Edit: Now with code tags! Thanks!
[...]

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So, they actually just made a script to patch the binary to set the region flag? and the script source codes are on the disc? I wonder what happens if you patch it back to the sentinel value and run it...

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The crash screen is well known; the only interesting part is that the game reliably crashes, and that's probably just a hardware issue.

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Originally posted by stag019

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Edit: So it looks like, me, Xkeeper, and HyperHacker were wrong about this one. According to iimarckus, the game does in fact have code, which, if bit 1 of $D732 is set, will actually skip the intro sequence and force the default names to be used. However, this does not set the default names, that happens every time when the game initializes. It's just that when the intro is skipped, you can't select names to overwrite them.

You can see this in action by using the GameShark code 010232D7 and starting a new game.

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Huh, but what does that flag do, exactly? Is it a debug routine, or just the flag that tells whether you've gone through the opening sequence already?

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Piracy is not going away as long as pirated copies are better than legit ones. Just about every time I buy a DVD, I have to hack around some stupid copy protection to make it play on my PC, which is usually quite a bit more difficult than just downloading a copy of the movie I just bought. Games want you to be online constantly, or at least at startup, to play offline. And don't even get me started about unskippable ads at the beginning of movies. A legal copy becomes a pain in the ass to use, if it works at all, while a pirate copy just works smoothly and painlessly. (and the solution? make it even MORE annoying next time! )

It seems like media companies designed a business model that relies on the fact that information can't be perfectly, effortlessly duplicated and transmitted - which is pretty silly, because it can. Now instead of trying to design a less broken model (which would *gasp* cost money), they're trying to prevent that duplication, by means of DRM and insane laws. It's a bit like someone who, realizing their brilliant architectural design fails catastrophically in the presence of gravity, tries to get rid of gravity instead of fixing the design.

Really, piracy can be a pain even if you know what you're doing. Good stuff is hard to find. I'd much rather use a service through which I can actually buy movies/music/games, if I could find any that:

• Actually have the content I'm interested in


• Are available in Canada (ideally, worldwide) and won't refuse to let me buy things because of where I am


• Run on Linux without sucking or doing anything sktechy (gold standard: open-source project on Sourceforge or similar)


• Just give me the goddamn file. No encryption, licensing, expiring, streaming, "can only be played in our special software" bullshit, just give me an ordinary audio/video file to use as I please. (even better if you can match the quality of good pirated media, i.e. FLAC audio and high-quality mkv/ogm video[1])

([1] I realize mkv and ogm are merely container formats, but they seem to be the ones used by people who actually know a damn thing about video encoding and produce good-looking videos, whereas other container formats generally contain crappy over-compressed video ripped by some n00b using Windows Media Player.)

But it doesn't look like anyone is really interested in doing that. Instead of trying to make piracy less attractive by making legal copies not worse and less accessible than illegal ones, they want to do it by pretty much legally destroying anyone who dares copy a file. So they'll just keep doing this. Push some new law that makes it punishable by death to so much as look at the shiny side of a DVD, and when people complain enough to stop it, tweak it a little in hopes they won't recognize it and push it again, and just keep trying until it goes through. And when it does, start again with an even more insane law! (see DMCA)


tl;dr this shit isn't going to stop until a) the legal system is fixed to prevent this kind of "just keep ramming it until it goes through" attack (hahahaha) or b) someone creates a sane business model and crushes them. (but the latter would encounter much difficulty due to licensing BS and so forth too...)

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Originally posted by Aaendi

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topless girl's nipples = inappropriate
topless girl covered in blood = allowed

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topless man's nipples = allowed. Logic.

Originally posted by BMF54123

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I completely ditched TV about 4 or 5 years ago. I wish other people would do the same.

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I stopped watching broadcast TV probably 7 years ago, but lately, it's hard to avoid getting sucked in sometimes when everyone else in the house is watching and I'm in the room and whatnot.

Still, I see the ridiculous shit they do with the advertising, and the general lack of quality content, and I completely fail to understand why anyone in their right mind would pay for this garbage.

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Originally posted by Elara

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TPB is down half the time I go there. And I trusted Demonoid a lot more because of the invite requirement... never got a virus from them.

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TPB tends to be my last resort. It's unlikely they ever have what I'm looking for, and rarely is it in any decent condition... and even if there is a good copy, finding it is a royal pain.

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Originally posted by Peardian

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So, what engine will Super Mario RPG HD be using?

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In that case, I wonder if it does anything else? If it's not a side effect from tweaking game state variables, it could be a debug flag... or I wonder if they intended to have demo sequences at some point, and that flag would skip the intro and (in conjunction with some other variables) go directly to a certain point in the game...

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Open source isn't going away as long as I'm around.

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Great! Now how about finally...

• Dumping Flash completely?


• Showing tags again?


• Making the mobile app not complete shit? (annotations would be a good start)


• Realizing how much bandwidth they'd save by letting people download videos?


• Letting me subscribe to someone's uploads without having my feed spammed with every video they rate or comment on?

Haha no let's just change the page layout slightly.

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Originally posted by Inuyasha

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Indiana Senate nominee Richard Mourdock (R) says pregnancies caused by rape are intended by god

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Can we please bring back witch hunts? I have a pointy hat we can put on him.

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Well then.

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Originally posted by legacyme3

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I'm probably retarded, since I'm not a pirate...

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That's some very interesting logic.

It does make piracy easier; it also allows for homebrew such as the Linux functionality Sony took away however long ago, hacked/translated games, alternate versions of the built-in software, and all manner of other nice things. Pirate loaders are basically just one use of homebrew capabilities. (They're also functionally identical to legal backup loaders, since the only difference is where you got that ISO in the first place... )

I still wonder if similar exploits exist that would allow key recovery from other Sony devices.

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Anyone surprised?

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Copyright Office fails to protect users from DMCA
Posted by Donald Robertson at Oct 26, 2012 06:01 PM

The Copyright Office picked Sony over you; fails to expand DMCA anti-circumvention exemptions to devices other than cell phones, or to the sharing of anti-circumvention software
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The FSF has fought for years against the threat of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Users should have the right to modify, share and learn from the software on their devices, and technical measures put in place in the name of DRM offer a substantial roadblock. It's even worse when those measures have the force of criminal law behind them, threatening people who simply want to change the software on their computers with jail time. The FSF wants to create a world in which there is no DRM. Until then, at the very least, users shouldn't have to worry about legal consequences for disabling these malfeatures on their own devices.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of course circumvents the rights of users by making it illegal to modify your devices in ways that would give you actual access to them, or to share tools to help others do this. Congress did create one small carve-out from this belligerence; that once every three years the Library of Congress (via the Copyright Office), would consider making exceptions to this broad rule. In 2010, the Office recommended exempting the freeing of cellphones. They did not, however, make clear that this exemption extended to people who distributed tools for freeing these devices. In 2012, we had hoped to expand the exempted class of uses, and encouraged the Copyright Office to extend exemptions to tablets, gaming consoles, and computers running restricted boot. We were on the side of organizations like the EFF, and the Mozilla Foundation as well as hundreds of other individuals calling for the protection of those who simply want to be able to use their own devices in freedom.

But we were not the only ones to send recommendations to the Copyright Office. Large corporations like Sony, and corporate-backed groups like "Joint Creators and Copyright Holders" also sent comments opposing these reasonable exemptions. And the Copyright Office fell for their FUD. The Copyright Office has announced that while freeing your phone in order to install your own software is still permitted, unlocking the phone in order to switch carriers will be phased out. And even that minimal remaining protection has not been extended to tablets. Offering the duplicitous explanation that they weren't sure what a tablet was, the office completely abdicated its responsibility to protect users' rights to run their own software on their devices, as well as their rights to works locked down on those tablets. They similarly rejected exemptions for users wanting to install their own operating system on game consoles, and even worse, failed to extend protection to users who want to install their own operating system on computers with restricted boot.

This means no longer being able to switch your own cell phone carrier without permission. This means no modifying tablet operating systems without legal threat. It means that trying to install a different operating system on your game console could result in the FBI breaking down your door. It means that you cannot even be sure of your right to remove proprietary software from devices encumbered with restricted boot.

The Copyright Office picked Sony over you. They had an opportunity to protect users, but instead chose to protect corporate interests. This is a terrible outcome for users everywhere, and just proves that we need wholesale elimination of the anti-circumvention laws.

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(emphasis mine; see the original article for relevant links as well)

Because you know, it's not like tablets are just giant smartphones. Oh wait, that's exactly what they are.

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