HackerTube.dev

34C3 - Console Security - Switch

media.ccc.de · 134.6K views · 2017-12-30 · 56:50

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

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.

On Hacker News

Used as a reference for how the Switch was actually broken, including the Tegra debug backdoor, and for facts about its non-FreeBSD kernel.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2018–2023

Topics

Security & hackingSpeedrunning, glitches & game hacking
Search by tags
nintendo switchconsole hackingreverse engineeringboot security34c3

What people said

Lutzb · 2023-07 · Reference

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. [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗
smoldesu · 2023-03 · Reference

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] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
willis936 · 2020-04 · Reference

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. [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by media.ccc.de, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources