6 ms·

> the number of fuses is large enough they're never really going to run out of it. "640K ought to be enough for anybody!" But seriously, in the 3DS world, the

> the number of fuses is large enough they're never really going to run out of it. "640K ought to be enough for anybody!" But seriously, in the 3DS world, they've been going back and forth with hackers for a long time. There are a lot of updates for that system: http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/231/~/system-menu-update-history http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a... Any time you see "Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience," it's them closing an exploit vector. That would be a lot of fuses to blow. I wonder how many of these systems have secure enclaves and some ability to have a WORM-style hardware incrementer. The SoC version of an odometer.

resonanttoe 9y ago
Yeh there are a lot of updates. But (and this has come up elsewhere) people call every update a firmware update and its not. Not every update is a firmware update. But every update is a software update. Firmware in this context is (most likely from what I can tell) 2nd stage bootloader that exists in EFI. It's pretty rarely updated. This is Package1 that they talk about here and http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=System_Versions http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=System_Versions here. Even less if we're talking about firmware updates that burnt a fuse (bottom of this page http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Fuse_registers#FUSE_RESERVED_ODM7 http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Fuse_registers#FUSE_RE...) So despite 11 Software updates, there has only been five firmware updates. When we're talking about fuses odm_reserved has 256 bits to play with. Assuming that one bit is 1 fuse. Then they can do 256 firmware updates before they're in trouble. Firmware is a pretty horribly misused term these days.
- timdorr 9y ago
  Fair point! Thanks for correcting me and giving more detail.
ReverseCold 9y ago
There's a cheap/easy/reliable hardware exploit now, so Nintendo has given up on patching things for the 3DS. In fact, their latest firmware even opens up a new bug.

resonanttoe 9y ago

Yeh there are a lot of updates. But (and this has come up elsewhere) people call every update a firmware update and its not. Not every update is a firmware update. But every update is a software update. Firmware in this context is (most likely from what I can tell) 2nd stage bootloader that exists in EFI. It's pretty rarely updated. This is Package1 that they talk about here and http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=System_Versions http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=System_Versions here. Even less if we're talking about firmware updates that burnt a fuse (bottom of this page http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Fuse_registers#FUSE_RESERVED_ODM7 http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Fuse_registers#FUSE_RE...) So despite 11 Software updates, there has only been five firmware updates. When we're talking about fuses odm_reserved has 256 bits to play with. Assuming that one bit is 1 fuse. Then they can do 256 firmware updates before they're in trouble. Firmware is a pretty horribly misused term these days.

timdorr 9y ago
Fair point! Thanks for correcting me and giving more detail.

ReverseCold 9y ago

There's a cheap/easy/reliable hardware exploit now, so Nintendo has given up on patching things for the 3DS. In fact, their latest firmware even opens up a new bug.