34C3 - Console Security - Switch
Why Hacker News recommends it
Used as a reference for how the Switch was actually broken, including the Tegra debug backdoor, and for facts about its non-FreeBSD kernel.
What it is
A 34C3 talk on the security architecture of the Nintendo Switch and the early progress breaking it. It introduces the Switch's custom OS and software stack, with the hackers' reverse-engineering and glitching work.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2018 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Cites amaranth · 2018-01 · on “Yuzu – Nintendo Switch Emulator”
It's an almost stock Tegra X1 reference system. The hacks that got access to the system recently started with a Tegra backdoor/debug option Nvidia and Nintendo apparently forgot about. [this video]
Cites willis936 · 2020-04 · on “How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection”
If you’ve gone to a pop culture convention in the past few years you will also see reproduction cartridges (repro carts). The first one I saw was a legend of zelda ocarina of time master quest N64 cart, but there are new NES and SNES games that are being written from scratch and sold on repro carts. This wasn’t possible for N64 titles until relatively recently[1]. Interestingly, the method of cracking N64’s boot security sounds rather standard when compared to the 3DS and switch glitching[2][3]. 1. [LINK] 2. [LINK] 3. [this video]
Cites smoldesu · 2023-03 · on “Paving the Road to Vulkan on Asahi Linux”
My personal favorite is the This Week In[0] series of posts, if you want a simple way to keep track of notable changes. Technical blogposts are a pretty common practice among reverse-engineers, too; the Dolphin emulator has some great breakdowns[1], along with the people who reverse-engineered the Nintendo Switch's boot process[2] (and the rest of LiveOverflow's stuff). The Asahi writeups are great, but certainly not all there is. Tons of reverse-engineering stuff and Linux documentation gets submit to this website, it just doesn't generally do as well in the ranking system. [0] [LINK] [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]
Cites Lutzb · 2023-07 · on “FreeBSD at 30 years: Its secrets to success”
The switch kernel / Horizon/NX is not based on FreeBSD. This has been debunked over and over. The wikipedia list is not correct in that regard. It is see e.g. [this video] [LINK] [LINK]