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PS Vita Jailbreaking       Thread starter PSXHAX       Start date Jun 19, 2016 at 9:02 PM       36      
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This weekend console hacking scene profiteer GaryOPA reports that PS Vita scene game dumps from groups including BigBlueBox, VBL and PSiCO are beginning to surface for his boss Max Louarn's latest DRM-infected product known as the Cobra BlackFin.

So besides Max and Gary's latest attempt persuade unsuspecting sceners into wasting money on a useless product like they did many times before such as with the True Blue PS3 dongle (while real sceners were reverse-engineering it, warning the public of their 'max con' job, defeating their DRM protection, releasing N0DRM free fixes, sharing source code openly and finally leaking the True Blue PS3 disc BCA codes) what is the Cobra BlackFin?

PlayStation scene developer Joonie sums it up in the following tweet below:
Here's what garyopa had to say on their latest PlayStation Vita backups product, to quote:
We have reported on the Cobra BlackFin dongle for the PlayStation Vita a few times, and even tho there is not much info out there on how it all works, and no full review, it does seem to be slowly shipping out to resellers now, and being used by some Vita handheld owners, and now a old-school warez scene group has started to slowly release proper dumps from various retail Vita games out into the wild west of the underground 'net for people to grab that don't want to go thru all the problems in making their own personal backups.

Well here we are again, after 4 months of silence :) Today we bring you the first PS Vita game, dumped by the "BlackFin" from Team Cobra !

After our first attempt to release a PS Vita game we saw a lot of criticism from public devs about the way it was pred. So in this nfo we want to clear up a few things and give some insight about what was and what will be in the future for the PS Vita scene.

-- About the license situation --

1. To the lightbulb on twitter:

We don't get your understanding of "unique" when it comes to the license files for PS Vita games, but when the SAME file, from the SAME game, with the SAME Game ID differs in almost all regards, compared from two cartridges, we don't see how they can NOT be unique.

2. To the vitadevwiki / public scene site admins:

The understanding of the licenses are pretty much zero and we can only guess what information they might hold, so if any effort should be put into the PS Vita hacking right now, it has to go towards figuring out the structure and information these .rif files hold. It would be awesome if public discussions could take place on your platforms.

3. To our fellow competitors:

We would advise you to take extra caution with releasing PS4 and PS Vita titles because of what we said above. We got word from two independent sources that the licenses from both platforms COULD be tracked by Sony with information like first time activation and current console / user ID. As long as you never played the game or had the console online where you played it on, we would see no problem in releasing it.

-- Suggestions to Team Cobra --

1. The dumping process needs to be fixed, it's very unstable sometimes and seems to be related to the distance between the card emulator and the BT dongle?
2. Sometimes writing a game to the card emulator ends up in an error, and we could not identify the cause for this issue. You might want to investigate it and come up with a fix :)
3. In addition to 2) we (and probably a lot of users) would also welcome a seperate piece of software which can write to your microSD card filesystem (CEFS) with a standard card reader, rather than the BlackFin one.
4. Please enable individual file dumping from within the BlackFin software.
5. It would be awesome if users could check the currently available game carts which are online, without having the BT dongle plugged in.
6. A companion software for smartphones with bluetooth would be awesome, so people can authenticate their games on the go. PS Vita is a handheld after all right ? ;)
7. Open your servers !! :D

-- To the archive / catalogue / preservation scene --

1. The BlackFin dumps don't seem to be 100% complete.
2. The dump sizes look a bit strange, the only two we could identiy right now are: 1.958.739.968 Bytes and 3.959.422.976 Bytes The BlackFin Software lists them as 2GB and 4GB, whereas those bytes converted are around 1,82GB and 3,68GB. We don't know what might be missing here (if even).
3. It contains custom information from the BlackFin at 0x2000.

-- To the keen devs --

1. The filesystem on a PS Vita game cart seems to be exFAT, check 0x8000 for the beginning of the partition. If anyone could come up with a extractor, that would be very appreciated.

-- For the previous and (hopefully) coming PS Vita scene --

1. We will dump the games as *.psv, because the dumps are not conform to any ISO standard and don't seem to be 1:1 raw binary dumps either. After *.nds, *.3ds, *.wud, etc. this should be fine ;)
2. If anyone else out there pres PS Vita games, please include the game ID in the nfo, so the good private souls and Team Cobra can invest in those games to be hosted for authentification in the future.
3. We request a nuke for our own release: Uncharted_Golden_Abyss_EUR_MULTI5_READNFO_PSV-PSiCO Because the expected exploit to play those never happened and we now have a working solution by Team Cobra.

Shoutout to BBB: Touch.My.Katamari.USA.PSV-BigBlueBox - should follow this fate.

And to whoever released: World.of.Final.Fantasy.PAL.PSViTA.READNFO-VBL - f*ck you <3

Well this is it guys, we hope you enjoy this release and the rest that is coming up.

This release is Multi 5 (Eng, Fre, Ger, Ita, Spa)

Thanks to Team Cobra for making this possible !!

And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!

So there you have it finally after all these years, proper working PlayStation Vita Game Rips are appearing on the underground 'net by a scene group for usage by those that have already bought a Cobra BlackFin dongle for their Sony handheld, and normally we don't publish full long .nfo's like this, but being the first release, and also the fact the group published alot of useful info and tips and things that should be now discussed in their .nfo, its time to get the balling rolling and properly build up the Vita Scene finally.
PS Vita Sinking.jpgFinally, for those curious below are some of the aforementioned PlayStation Vita scene game dump NFO files (where available)... let's hope history repeats itself with PS Vita scene developers creating a free and open-source alternative to the Cobra BlackFin (even though PS Vita sucks and has been dead awhile now :p).

Touch.My.Katamari.USA.PSV-BigBlueBox / Touch My Katamari USA PSV BigBlueBox
Code:
ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛßß                                                             ßßÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛÛ                                                                     ÛÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛ                    ÜÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
Û²Û                   Üß²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÜßÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û                 Üß²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²Üß²²ÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û               Üß²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²Üß²²²²ÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û              ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²ÛÛ                Û²Û
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛ²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²ÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛ²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²ÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛ²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²ÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛ²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²ÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
Û²Û        ____  ÛÛ_     ÛÛ ____   _               ÛÛ___  ÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û       |    \ (_)     ÛÛ|  _ \ | |             |  _ \  ÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û       | |_) | _   __ ÛÛ| |_) || | _   _   ___ | |_) |  ___ __  __       Û²Û
Û²Û       |  _ < | | / _` ||  _ < | || | | | / _ \|  _ <  / _ \\ \/ /       Û²Û
ÛÛÛ       | |_) || || (_| || |_) || || |_| ||  __/| |_) || (_) |>  <        ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ       |____/ |_| \__, ||____/ |_| \__,_| \___||____/  \___//_/\_\       ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛ   __/ |                        ÛÛ     ÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛ  |___/                         ÛÛ     ÛÛ                ÛÛÛ
Û²Û              ÛÛ²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²ÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û              ÛÛ²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ                Û²Û
Û²Û              ÛÛ²²²²Üß²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²²²Üß                Û²Û
Û²Û              ÛÛ²²Üß²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²²²Üß                  Û²Û
ÛÛÛ              ÛÛÜß²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ²Üß                    ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛ             ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛß                     ÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛÛ                                                                     ÛÛÛÛÛ
Û²ÛÛÛÛÜÜ                                                               ÜÜÛÛÛÛ²Û
Û²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²Û
Û²ÛÛÛÛßß                                                               ßßÛÛÛÛ²Û
Û²ÛÛÛ         ÜÜÜÛßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßÛÜÜÜÜ          ÛÛÛ²Û
ÛÛÛÛ         ÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²²² >>>  BigBlueBox  <<< ²²²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛ          ÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ           ßßßÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛßßßß            ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ                                                                         ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ   ÛßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßÛ   ÛÛÛ
Û²Û   Û                        Proudly Presents:                        Û   Û²Û
Û²Û   Û                        Touch My Katamari                        Û   Û²Û
Û²Û   Û                                                                 Û   Û²Û
Û²Û   ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ   Û²Û
ÛÛÛ                                                                         ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ                          Release Information                            ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ                       ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß                          ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ      þ Date ............  þ  ......  þ   28/02/2016              þ      ÛÛÛ
Û²Û      þ Platform ........  þ  ......  þ   PsVita                  þ      Û²Û
Û²Û      þ Region ..........  þ  ......  þ   USA                     þ      Û²Û
Û²Û      þ Publisher........  þ  ......  þ   Bandai Namco Ent.       þ      Û²Û
Û²Û      þ Imagesize .......  þ  ......  þ   15x50MB                 þ      Û²Û
ÛÛÛ      þ File Name .......  þ  ......  þ   bbb-psv-tmk.rar         þ      ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ      þ Game ID .........  þ  ......  þ   PCSE00016               þ      ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ      þ Format...........  þ  ......  þ   Decrypted..........     þ      ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ      þ .................  þ  ......  þ   ...................     þ      ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ      þ .................  þ  ......  þ   ...................     þ      ÛÛÛ
Û²Û      þ .................  þ  ......  þ   ...................     þ      Û²Û
Û²Û                                                                         Û²Û
Û²Û     ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ     Û²Û
Û²Û    ÛÛ                                                             ÛÛ    Û²Û
ÛÛÛ   ÛÛ                        Release Notes:                         ÛÛ   ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ  ÛÛ                a nice and shiny USA Vita release                ÛÛ  ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ ÛÛ                go on and touch it, we dont mind ;D                ÛÛ ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ  ÛÛ         only file we dont include is our carts licience         ÛÛ  ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛ   ÛÛ                        Enjoy as Always                        ÛÛ   ÛÛÛ
Û²Û    ÛÛ                                                             ÛÛ    Û²Û
Û²Û     ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß     Û²Û
Û²Û         ÛßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßÛ         Û²Û
Û²Û         Û  Greetings to everyone who likes to play our games  Û         Û²Û
ÛÛÛ         ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ         ÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛ                                                                      ÜÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛÛÜÜ                                                               ÜÜÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ
ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ
World.of.Final.Fantasy.PAL.PSViTA.READNFO-VBL / World of Final Fantasy PAL PSViTA READNFO VBL
Code:
Uncharted_Golden_Abyss_EUR_MULTI5_READNFO_PSV-PSiCO / Uncharted Golden Abyss EUR MULTI5 READNFO PSV PSiCO
Code:
                       ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

 
            Uncharted: Golden Abyss (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


        Store Date...:   22.02.2012     |     Filename..:   psi-uga.0**
        Release Date.:   08.02.2016     |     Size......:   56 * 48 MB
        Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   Decrypted Files
        Region.......:   EU (UK)        |     Languages.:   Multi 5
        Genre........:   Shooting guys  |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00001

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/



      Uncover the dark secret of a lost Spanish expedition massacred
      400 years ago deep in Central America Ц and join legendary fortune
      hunter Nathan Drake in a brand new epic adventure for PlayStation Vita.
      Surrounded by temples, ruins and forgotten legends, Nathan finds
      himself caught in the middle of a bitter rivalry between old friend
      Jason Dante and Marissa Chase, granddaughter of the eminent
      archaeologist called in to investigate the site Ц who has mysteriously
      vanished without a trace.


         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/



      Well here we are, the first PS Vita NVG game cartridge dump ! :)

      The contents you find in this release come pre-decrypted without the
      pesky PFS encryption layer.
      The reason behind this is the fact that the next logical step in Vita
      hacking is to touch the kernelspace and patch it, so it doesn't check
      the signatures and licenses.
      De-/encryption takes places in whole different area of the system which
      would require additional exploitation, which is currently not on the
      horizon.
      So we decided to pre this release in a decrypted form without any
      licenses, because this data is unique and not needed anyway in case
      this (and the following) dump(s) become playable in the future.
      This is also common in the 3DS scene, so please don't cry because of
      "incomplete" dumps, the game assets and executables are all in place.

      A special thank you flies out to our beloved friends at ABSTRAKT !
      Without them probably none of this would have been possible <3


      That's it for now, expect more Vita games in the future from us !
      Until then enjoy this release in whatever way possible :D


      This release is Multi 5 (Eng, Pol, Por, Rus, Spa) (PCSF-00001)



    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2014 _/
ModNation_Racers_Road_Trip_EUR_MULTI5_READNFO_PSV-PSiCO / ModNation Racers Road Trip EUR MULTI5 READNFO PSV PSiCO
Code:
                      ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

 
            ModNation Racers: Road Trip (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


          Store Date...:   22.02.2012     |     Filename..:   psi-mrt.0**
          Release Date.:   14.06.2016     |     Size......:   34 * 47,8 MB
          Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
          Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   Multi 5
          Genre........:   Racing         |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00002

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


          Rev up your imagination and create the craziest kart racing
          championships ever with the unique features of PlayStation Vita.
          Use cutting edge touchscreen technology to build racetracks,
          create Mods and design karts however you want in fast and fun ways.
          By downloading even more designs generated by rival racers via the
          in-game Share Station, youТll never drive the same track twice.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/


          Well here we are again, after 4 months of silence :)

          Today we bring you the first PS Vita game, dumped by the "BlackFin"
          from Team Cobra !

          After our first attempt to release a PS Vita game we saw a lot of
          criticism from public devs about the way it was pred.
          So in this nfo we want to clear up a few things and give some
          insight about what was and what will be in the future for the
          PS Vita scene.

          -- About the license situation --

          1) To the lightbulb on twitter:

             We don't get your understanding of "unique" when it comes to
             the license files for PS Vita games, but when the SAME file,
             from the SAME game, with the SAME Game ID differs in almost
             all regards, compared from two cartridges, we don't see how
             they can NOT be unique.

          2) To the vitadevwiki / public scene site admins:

             The understanding of the licenses are pretty much zero and we
             can only guess what information they might hold, so if any
             effort should be put into the PS Vita hacking right now, it
             has to go towards figuring out the structure and information
             these .rif files hold.
             It would be awesome if public discussions could take place on
             your platforms.

          3) To our fellow competitors:

             We would advise you to take extra caution with releasing
             PS4 and PS Vita titles because of what we said above.
             We got word from two independent sources that the licenses
             from both platforms COULD be tracked by Sony with information
             like first time activation and current console / user ID.
             As long as you never played the game or had the console
             online where you played it on, we would see no problem in
             releasing it.

          -- Suggestions to Team Cobra --

          1) The dumping process needs to be fixed, it's very unstable
             sometimes and seems to be related to the distance between the
             card emulator and the BT dongle?

          2) Sometimes writing a game to the card emulator ends up in an
             error, and we could not identify the cause for this issue.
             You might want to investigate it and come up with a fix :)

          3) In addition to 2) we (and probably a lot of users) would also
             welcome a seperate piece of software which can write to your
             microSD card filesystem (CEFS) with a standard card reader,
             rather than the BlackFin one.

          4) Please enable individual file dumping from within the BlackFin
             software.

          5) It would be awesome if users could check the currently available
             game carts which are online, without having the BT dongle
             plugged in.

          6) A companion software for smartphones with bluetooth would be
             awesome, so people can authenticate their games on the go.
             PS Vita is a handheld after all right ? ;)

          7) Open your servers !! :D

          -- To the archive / catalogue / preservation scene --

          1) The BlackFin dumps don't seem to be 100% complete.

          2) The dump sizes look a bit strange, the only two we could
             identiy right now are:

             1.958.739.968 Bytes and 3.959.422.976 Bytes

             The BlackFin Software lists them as 2GB and 4GB, whereas
             those bytes converted are around 1,82GB and 3,68GB. We don't
             know what might be missing here (if even).

          3) It contains custom information from the BlackFin at 0x2000.

          -- To the keen devs --

          1) The filesystem on a PS Vita game cart seems to be exFAT,
             check 0x8000 for the beginning of the partition.
             If anyone could come up with a extractor, that would be very
             appreciated.

          -- For the previous and (hopefully) coming PS Vita scene --

          1) We will dump the games as *.psv, because the dumps are not
             conform to any ISO standard and don't seem to be 1:1 raw
             binary dumps either.
             After *.nds, *.3ds, *.wud, etc. this should be fine ;)

          2) If anyone else out there pres PS Vita games, please include
             the game ID in the nfo, so the good private souls and Team
             Cobra can invest in those games to be hosted for authentification
             in the future.

          3) We request a nuke for our own release:

             Uncharted_Golden_Abyss_EUR_MULTI5_READNFO_PSV-PSiCO

             Because the expected exploit to play those never happened and
             we now have a working solution by Team Cobra.

             Shoutout to BBB:
             Touch.My.Katamari.USA.PSV-BigBlueBox - should follow this fate.

             And to whoever released:
             World.of.Final.Fantasy.PAL.PSViTA.READNFO-VBL - f*ck you <3


           Well this is it guys, we hope you enjoy this release and the rest
           that is coming up.

           This release is Multi 5 (Eng, Fre, Ger, Ita, Spa)

           Thanks to Team Cobra for making this possible !!

           And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!


    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
Everybodys_Golf_EUR_MULTI4_PSV-PSiCO / Everybodys Golf EUR MULTI4 PSV PSiCO
Code:
                       ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

   
                   Everybody's Golf (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


          Store Date...:   22.02.2012     |     Filename..:   psi-ebg.0**
          Release Date.:   15.06.2016     |     Size......:   29 * 47,8 MB
          Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
          Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   Multi 4
          Genre........:   Sports         |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00006

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


          Hit the fairway as everybodyТs favourite golf series tees off
          on PS Vita. Explore a variety of visually stunning courses and
          make use of the innovative touchscreen controls, motion sensor
          and new shot system to drive, chip and putt your way to the pin.
          Whether youТre looking to enjoy a quick round or enter a giant
          online tournament, EverybodyТs Golf will delight golfing newbies
          and old pros alike.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/


           This release is Multi 4 (Eng, Fre, Ger, Ita)

           And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!


    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
Lego_Batman_2_DC_Super_Heroes_EUR_PSV-PSiCO / Lego Batman 2 DC Super Heroes EUR PSV PSiCO
Code:
                    ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

   
     Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (c) Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


        Store Date...:   22.06.2012       |     Filename..:   psi-lb2.0**
        Release Date.:   15.06.2016       |     Size......:   27 * 47,8 MB
        Platform.....:   PS Vita          |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
        Region.......:   EUR              |     Languages.:   English
        Genre........:   Action-Adventure |     Game ID...:   PCSB-00133

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


          In LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, the dynamic duo of Batman
          and Robin join other famous super heroes from the DC Universe,
          including Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to save
          Gotham City from destruction at the hands of the notorious
          villains Lex Luthor and the Joker.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/


          As always, if you like this game - please buy it !!


    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
Reality_Fighters_EUR_PSV-PSiCO / Reality Fighters EUR PSV PSiCO
Code:
                    ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

   
                   Reality Fighters (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


          Store Date...:   22.02.2012     |     Filename..:   psi-ref.0**
          Release Date.:   16.06.2016     |     Size......:   17 * 47,8 MB
          Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
          Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   English
          Genre........:   Fighting       |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00022

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


          Capture yourself using the PlayStation Vita's camera and become
          the star character in this side-splitting fighting game. Customise
          your body shape, clothing, weapons, fight style and even record
          your victory taunt, then engage in outrageous battles in real
          world settings of your choice. Take on the single player mode,
          challenge your friends or seek out other rivals from around the
          world to become the ultimate Reality Fighter.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/


           And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!

    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
Little_Deviants_EUR_PSV-PSiCO / Little Deviants EUR PSV PSiCO
Code:
                     ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

     
                   Little Deviants (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


          Store Date...:   22.02.2012     |     Filename..:   psi-lid.0**
          Release Date.:   16.06.2016     |     Size......:   24 * 47,8 MB
          Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
          Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   English
          Genre........:   Minigames      |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00017

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


          The Little Deviants have crash-landed on the Whoman world and
          theyТre in big trouble. To save them from the evil Botz,
          players will need to use their PlayStation Vita system in loads
          of clever and quirky ways.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/


           And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!

    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
Tearaway_EUR_MULTI5_PSV-PSiCO / Tearaway EUR MULTI5 PSV PSiCO
Code:
                      ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____                        /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      ____/                 |                   |            /  ____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \     __               \__     //        /    __     //
             __   /       ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  ___//      /   ..//         /
             /     ///           /      //                _
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / __        _/ _     / __        /         __//...
             /___/     ______/     ___/     ______/   ______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          ___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O           __  ___/
            _ _____/  _____/                       _____/  __ _

      
                    Tearaway (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 _______/           /_______/


        Store Date...:   22.11.2013     |     Filename..:   psi-tea.0**
        Release Date.:   16.06.2016     |     Size......:   31 * 47,8 MB
        Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
        Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   Multi 5
        Genre........:   Adventure      |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00214

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           ___________/   /_________/          ____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


        In Tearaway youТll journey through a vibrant, living papery world,
        with a plucky messenger who has a unique message to deliver Ц to you.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   _ NOTES: ______________/                  __________/


           This release is Multi 5 (Eng, Fre, Ger, Ita, Spa)

           And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!


    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       _____            _______________/       _______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               ____________/          __/     ___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
FIFA_Football_EUR_GERMAN_PSV-PSiCO / FIFA Football EUR GERMAN PSV PSiCO
Code:
                         ____                       ____
__ __      __    __ ____\   \                     /   /__ __   __      ______ __
      \____/  \               |                   |            /  \____/
          ..___:_________ ____:_____ ________  ___:____  _____:_____ ..
           \\     __     \          \\__     //        \/    __     //
             \__   /      \ ___     // /    /     _____/     //    /
              /   /_______/__  \___//      /   ..//   \      /     \
             /     ///       \   \ /      //           \     \_     \
            /      //            //       /            /            /
       ...//__    / \__        _/ \_     / \__        / \        __//...
             /___/     \______/     \___/     \______/   \______/
     _____     :              :                   :           :     ______
          \___/     __       /    P  S  i  C  O    \       __  \___/
            _ _____/  \_____/                       \_____/  \__ _

                
                            FIFA Football (c) EA Sports

    _____                 _________________         ___________         ___ __
        /___ RELEASE INFO:                 \_______/           /_______/


          Store Date...:   22.02.2012     |     Filename..:   psi-ffo.0**
          Release Date.:   19.06.2016     |     Size......:   59 * 47,8 MB
          Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
          Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   German
          Genre........:   Soccer         |     Game ID...:   PCSB-00053

    __ ____             ____          __________                         ___ _
           \___________/   /_________/          \____ RELEASE NOTES: ___/


        EA SPORTS FIFA Football on PS Vita delivers the first true next
        generation football experience in the palm of your hands.
        Enjoy the award-winning FIFA console gameplay, HD graphics, and the
        largest feature set ever created by EA SPORTS for a handheld device.

         ___                         __________________            ___________
    _ __/   \_ NOTES: ______________/                  \__________/


           And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!
   
    ___      _____________                 _______                       __ __
       \_____\            \_______________/       \_______ GREETINGS: __/

           ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL
        _______________              __________    _____                    __
    ___/               \____________/          \__/     \___ PSiCO - 2016 _/
Invizimals_The_Alliance_EUR_PSV-PSiCO / Invizimals The Alliance EUR PSV PSiCO
Code:
P  S  i  C  O

Invizimals: The Alliance (c) Sony Computer Entertainment

RELEASE INFO:

Store Date...:   30.10.2013     |     Filename..:   psi-ita.0**
Release Date.:   19.06.2016     |     Size......:   37 * 47,8 MB
Platform.....:   PS Vita        |     Format....:   .psv (BlackFin)
Region.......:   EUR            |     Languages.:   English
Genre........:   AR/Card Battle |     Game ID...:   PCSF-00164

RELEASE NOTES:

Tiny and mysterious, the Invizimals live all around us but only
your PS Vita can see them. In this exciting new PS Vita game,
players will have to guide the Invizimals to a new safe-haven
following the arrival of a dangerous new enemy. Using the
intuitive controls of the PS Vita, players will have to help
the Invizimals construct a new village and defeat their evil
new foe.

NOTES:

And as always, if you like this game - please buy it !!

GREETINGS:

ECHELON  -  LIGHTFORCE  -  KALISTO  -  STRiKE  -  PROTOCOL

PSiCO - 2016 _/
Download: psvgamesd-master.zip / PSVGameSD GIT via motoharu-gosuto / gamecard-microsd-master.zip / GameCard MicroSD GIT via xyzz
Download: SD2VITA_Gadorach_GerberX2.zip (8.9 KB)
Cobra BlackFin.png
 

Comments

I get the "free and open source" for the scene, but if wasnt cobra team, I would never have been able to run backups on my 3k ps3.
would anyone release something like an ode for free? I dont think so.
 
There are two types of sceners... those who do what they love purely out of enjoyment with no ulterior motives (such as greed) sharing it freely with everyone unrestricted, and those whose primary goal is to profit- and should it benefit the scene afterwards so be it.

In general, scene philosophy encourages sharing knowledge for the betterment of society as a whole, rather than putting the needs of the individual first similar to the proverb:

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

If the Cobra Team didn't peddle ODE's someone else would have figured out how to run backups 3k PS3 consoles and shared the knowledge... if man can make it, man can also break it and no single team is smarter than the rest of the world combined when everything is shared freely and openly.

Of course not all scenes operate this way, with the console scene being one of them that got corrupted by shady companies led by con-artists profiting from others work and then leaving their paying customers high and dry after making their cash grab... as evidenced on Cobra's defunct site team-cobra-ode.com.

The decision is left to the end-user whether they want to pay to get what they're seeking without doing it themselves, or to help the free and open-source scene thrive by not taking the easy way out, learning and then passing along the knowledge to the next person in need without anything in return. :lovewins:
 
out of all due respect I respect psxhax opinion but on the other hand I also respect closed source as well.

what people don't notice is that you can take closed source hardware and use it for a more ultimate motive and making a better open source by using the hardware from close source.

so while people always have a tendency to judge and don't think so much we all need to sit and think can this be a double blade edge?
 
That could happen, but remember ODEs have long been made useless for recent firmwares and no such jailbreak have arrived since.

also the first ps3 cfw only arrived because teams like cobra were trying to sell usb dongles, and devs decided they didnt want that to happen.

maybe thats what the ps4 scene needs, people trying to sell stuff, so others release what they have.
 
Well, the PS4 scene had the for-profit MTX modchip so far... it wouldn't surprise me if another temporary gimmick device comes along until Sony patches it and the cycle repeats. :unsure:
 
MTX is nothing more then mirror image flasher it's nothing special about it nor is it anything like e3 flasher.

there is other ways out there all it takes is the right person understanding the system and knowing hw and how to use it correctly.
 
Last month we saw Part 1, and here's Part 2 via Wololo for those following, to quote:

Download: release2.zip

Vita Reverse Engineering Leak (Cobra Blackfin) – Part 2

Note from Wololo: About a month ago I was contacted by a person who states they are the main tech person behind the Cobra blackfin device (and have pretty much confirmed it by now, given what they have released). I have agreed to publish this person’s work and announcements, unaltered. You can see details of this agreement, as well as the first release, in the original article.

This second part of the leak was send to me a few weeks ago already but I delayed this article for no good reason.

Today’s release contains the actual Blackfin software. Following on my commitment, below is the developer’s announcement and their notes. I haven not modified anything except for potential formatting to fit the blog’s design/constraints.


Announce

My second release. This is a much bigger one, and while it’s the BlackFin software itself (with some info on the BT dongle), it will be very useful for many things other than controlling BlackFin hardware. You get a GObject Serial communication library, a Bluetooth implementation for the TI chips, a simple API wrapper for libftdi/libftdxx, a patch to libexfat to add support for GC filesystem, a lot of information on the filesystem used and communication protocol. This is simply massive with about 33k lines of code total, and I’m sure it will take some time for the community to go through it and extract all the things it can find useful in it.

The code was started in 2013 and finished in 2016, I always meant for it to be released as GPL, but was prevented from doing so at the last minute. It already had a README file which has a lot of explanations on the files, design, protocols and filesystems, but those might be slightly out of date.
See the notes for more details on the code release and an update to the existing readme data.
The g-serial files are released under MIT license as they are the GObject port of an existing MIT-licensed project. The libexfat files retain their license and copyright, and a patch against upstream is provided for review. Everything else, apart from DirectC, is to be considered GPL licensed.

I’ll use this announcement to say something to Yifanlu who was very vocal against me, delighting in joyful bitterness and enjoying the fact that I was not paid for my work. Bashing someone for the simple joy of bashing them is ridiculous, you think that motoharu got further than “a pirate contract in 4 years” and you say “real skill doesn’t compare” [1] when you so clearly haven’t even read the released files is pathetic.

What motoharu has done is amazing, it is a lot of work and in some aspects he achieved more than I did, but he also achieved it 4 years after me, and in a completely different way. He reversed the authentication protocol through kernel/ASM reverse engineering while I used the Vita as a black box and reverse engineered it through analysis of exchanged data, logic analyzers and brute forcing commands and arguments. Just like he achieved more than I did, I have also achieved more than he did, but both did it in a different way.

I think we both complete each other’s work and I am happy to see what he has done and I am happy to share my findings with him to help complete the bigger picture. I am a human being, just like you, I need to pay my bills and survive in this world, just like everyone else. I work on a contract, and (usually) get paid for it. I’m not responsible for what people do with the code, just like you’re not responsible for people using Henkaku (your work) to pirate games, so drop down from your high horse and don’t use your “on the internet? LUL” [2] argument for being a bully. The internet does not justify being rude to people.

The BlackFin device does have legitimate uses, and whether or not it was promoted or even sold as a backups device, it is irrelevant to me. I was simply happy to be provided high end hardware and be financed to crack the mystery of the Vita. I’ve been had by an untrustworthy person, and that is not cause for celebration.

Especially if you hate Cobra and backups-enabling devices, why are you celebrating that the only person benefiting from the situation is the owner of the Cobra business? Haven’t you done the same thing by the way ? You just crowd-funded your efforts instead, and now you’re selling a device which you know and can’t deny is being used by people to enable them to pirate more easily. Let me be sarcastic and just point out how non-hypocritical you are.

Here is a story for you. I had reversed most of the GC protocol and authentication even before the US release of the Vita. I have here a video timestamped May 8th 2012, showing me running a full game being streamed entirely from my PC through an FPGA emulating the Vita GC protocol and proxying commands/receiving data over a serial connection with the PC. That proof of concept is beyond what was achieved by anyone else at that time, and maybe even today, and it would not have been possible without the proper hardware and financial backing necessary.

The four years that followed were what was necessary to go from that proof of concept to an actual working product. Have you ever actually seen a BlackFin device? I may be *** at Cobra, but I am still amazed at what we have achieved. The BlackFin GCEmu (Game Card Emulator) is such a ridiculously small device. It’s a 15x15mm PCB, of 0.4mm thickness, which packs an FPGA, a Bluetooth module microcontroller, a security microprocessor, an antenna, and battery (in the form of capacitors, able to keep the device running for over a second).

The miniaturization efforts were enormous, getting the FPGA code to actually fit in such a small FPGA footprint was a challenge, having to rewrite the code in order to decrase the bitstream to less than 10% its original size when it was running on a full-sized FPGA. Getting the Bluetooth to work even though the Vita card holder is shielded was a challenge, keeping the device powered while the Vita shuts off the power to the device was a challenge.

We actually wasted one year in testing out numerous batteries, various ultra slim (100 micron) thick batteries, and testing various components for power consumption, because the Vita will shut down the power to the device if you don’t authenticate after 2 seconds and it’s not enough time for a user to choose which game they want to play.. we eventually had to fall back on using capacitors that are capable of holding the device powered for over a second, just enough to keep the INS line asserted long enough for the Vita to timeout on the ‘card ejected’ signal and allow us to ground the INS line again once power runs out of the capacitors and the Vita picks up on the new ‘card inserted’ event, allowing us to keep the card powered for an indefinite amount of time, with 1 second lapses every 15 seconds during which the device goes into low power mode, asserting INS and the vita thinks the card was ejected and reinserted.

We also had to include a microSD inside of such a device, have both an MMC client implementation, and an SD card host controller, as well as Bluetooth communications and encryption support to fit within a 3x3mm footprint FPGA. Of course, we also had to discover micro injection molding in order to make the plastic casing for the device with under 0.1mm thicknesses in some areas, with baffling accuracy and error margins (which forces the use of ultrasonic wielding since we can’t glue the pieces together). We couldn’t even put a sticker with the logo on the cards because it would make it too thick, so the card had to have the logo printed on the plastic instead.

Now that’s just a quick GCEmu summary of challenges, I’m not even talking about the challenges for the GCReader, on getting a custom made card slot designed for us, or the hardware challenge in getting the GCReader to detect when a GCEmu is inserted in it without allowing a Vita to discover that the inserted card was a GCEmu, or the software challenges of writing the Bluetooth embeded firmware, how to improve throughput and exchange data between the device and the PC using Bluetooth Low Energy, which was never meant for high throughput data exchanges.

Also, do you realize that we had to define a good and usable filesystem for the games and implement the filesystem support in the FPGA while making sure it takes a minimum amount of gates and doesn’t impede on the performance either ? Obviously an NTFS or FAT32 implementation alone would have busted our gates threshold in the FPGA.

The entire story of the BlackFin would be too long to tell, at least for today, but I think that your saying “real skill doesn’t compare” when you didn’t even read the notes of the release (which clearly stated that information was from 2012 and was a first of many releases, and you thought it was the culmination of 4 years of work) is showing a poor character on your part. You judge and try to deliberately humiliate and make fun of other people’s misfortunes. I had respect for your skills before, but today I am sorry to realize the kind of person you are, behind those skills.

I will also take this opportunity to say something to wololo as well as others like him, who, while being against backups, have not let that taint their opinions, and have shown empathy for my situation. You didn’t have to but it is appreciated and it shows your good nature, so thank you.

My final announcement is for everyone who is hoping that these releases will somehow unlock 3.61+ firmwares. I do not think that to be the case, however, with the work of motoharu and others in the community, the entire authentication algorithm could soon be reverse engineered and game backups running on the latest firmware should be possible. This release would cut down a huge amount of time in setting up the foundation for the software controlling a potential open source device that would work similarly to the BlackFin device but without the P2P aspect of it.

[1] [2]
Notes + Contents of the archive

This is the entire BlackFin software. You must build it on Linux. I don’t think I ever managed to properly build it on Windows, even with mingw, but you can cross compile it with mingw on Linux.
Note that libftdi (open source library) works great under Linux but very poorly in Windows, while the libftd2xx (official proprietary library) works great on Windows but crashes constantly in Linux. That’s why the program can be compiled either against libftdi or libftd2xx, and if you’re running linux, it’s best to have libftdi installed so it gets picked instead of building against the static libft2xx library.

Before I dig deeper into the Blackfin software, I’ll talk about the BT Dongle. When Blackfin was released, it came with a dongle, and I saw a lot of angry posts about “death to the DRM dongles”. I found that to be very funny because the BT dongle that came with the BlackFin was actually NOT a DRM dongle, it was nothing more than a Bluetooth Dongle. Due to having to use BTLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) which was not yet very popular, at least, back then, we had to release a USB dongle for people to have BTLE capabilities. The dongle is the exact same as the TI CC2540 USB Evaluation Module Kit that is being sold for 49$ USD by TI: http://www.ti.com/tool/CC2540EMK-USB#Technical

Documents

You can find the schematics, BOM, CAD, PCB, and gerber files for the Dongle here : http://www.ti.com/tool/TIDC-CC2540-BLE-USB

The only difference between those files and the actual BT Dongle sold with the Blackfin is that the PCB was made slightly larger in order to fit into an existing plastic molding that Cobra had, and the programming header is not soldered.

As for the firmware running on those dongles, it’s the standard firmware that comes with the TI USB module kit, of which you can download the sources if you download the TI BT *** for the dongle. I believe the firmware was a sample called ‘HostTestRelease’ in the ***.

I’ve attached the full TI BLE Vendor Specific HCI Guide which lists all of the commands and specifications of the BTLE Dongle. The dongle is not encrypted in any way, and you can re-program it with your own firmwares if you wish to. You would need a TI programmer though and to solder a header on the PCB to connect the programmer to it.

There are a few subdirs which I’ll explain first :

* libexfat: This is the libexfat subdir from exfat : https://github.com/relan/exfat/tree/master/libexfat
More precisely, it’s an old checkout that I never bothered to update, it is based on commit d1370b2cc7cc986b712e1a27a49b23a9eadb3cec from April 3rd 2012 (https://github.com/relan/exfat/commit/d1370b2cc7cc986b712e1a27a49b23a9eadb3cec). All modifications have been extracted and explained in the libexfat_blackfin.patch file that I placed in that subdir. The patch does not need to be applied, it’s just a diff between that commit tree and the directory here.
The patch can be reviewed for what exactly was changed in the library. It does a few things :
* Makes use of Glib’s macros if USE_GLIB is defined (which it is)
* Fix/Port it to get compiled for Windows with mingw
* If CUSTOM_IO_API_PREFIX is defined, will replace all I/O API calls (open/read/close/seek/etc..) with a custom API for use within a GC iso partition
This is used to replace all I/O calls with gc_fs_ex_io_*, see LIBEXFAT_CFLAGS in the Makefile.am
* Don’t abort() the program if an exfat error is encountered
* Fix printf format to be cross platform
* Add support for TexFAT (read-only) which has 2 FAT tables instead of 1 as all GC images are in TexFAT format
* flasher: This was a standalone flasher app to flash the GCReader with updated firmwares. It’s still here but its code was merged into the main application itself (see gc_reader_flash_firmware API in gcreader.c).
* directc: This is the DirectC library by MicroSemi, it implements the FPGA flashing protocol. The only modified files are dpuser.h and dpuser.c which make use of the FTDI to send the JTAG commands
* libft2dxx: Binary library for compiling against libftd2xx
* drivers: Simple rules.d file to allow access to tty devices for everyone. BlackFin reader is an FTDI which is a tty device, and without it, you need to sudo to be able to access the reader. This is for linux only. The windows drivers are in the official release.
* firmware: This to be the latest GCReader FPGA firmware, it’s encrypted of course. I don’t think I have the key for it.

As for the code itself, it should be fairly easy to understand. It’s already explained in README but since that might be outdated, I’m re-doing it now. Here are some explanations for the weird files :

* DS – Dispatch Server, that’s the actual server that links two clients (emu and reader clients) together. The file was left as its old filename of ‘DS’ but the Makefile compiles this into a BlackFinServer executable
* EX – Exfat I suppose? this reads an iso, goes through directories and files to find the SFO and extract the game ID, title and file offset which holds the license file. **Not compiled by the makefile**
* FS – File system utility: Tool to print, format, add, delete isos from a microSD card. It’s hardcoded to use /dev/mmcblk0 so it needs to run as root and it needs to run on a machine with an SD card reader that maps to /dev/mmcblkX (USB card reader will sometimes map to /dev/sdX) **Not compiled by the makefile**
* OAD – TI’s OAD implementation. This will communicate with the GCEmu over bluetooth and perform Over-The-Air Firmware upgrade using the custom data exchange protocol defined in the GCEmu firmware. It also supports sending an FPGA update for getting the BTLE MCU perform JTAG firmware update of the GCEmu FPGA. Read the code to understand what it does, as I don’t remember the specifics. Also read this http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OAD
* build_win32.sh: script I used to build for windows with mingw

Here are the less weird files that are part of the software :

* blackfin.c: Main application, creates the UI and the reader monitoring routine, creates new reader tabs when they are discovered
* btcomm.c/h: Bluetooth communications framework. It talks to the USB BTLE dongle using the TI vendor commands and the API can be used to do most of the basic commands and send notifications about the BT status, it has no blackfin related code, so can be reused anyw ay you want.
* card_cache.c/h: Just writes/reads a cache file which stores a mapping between a card’s serial number and the game id/title/license so cards can be shared without being authenticated every time the app is launched, authenticate a card once and the data is cached via this API
* client.c/h: Base class for protocol client. It does the basic connection establishment and teardown (see gcemu_client and gcreader_client for subclasses)
* common.c/h: common GUI related utilities
* fakeserver.c/h: Implements a fake client/server implementation to allow the rest of the code to do the card authentication locally without the need to handle the case separately and without going through a server
* filesystem.c/h: This implements the microSD filesystem. This is the API used by the FS utility and the filesystem format itself is explained in the filesystem.txt file as well as the README file (both might be outdated, source code remains the best source of accurate information)
* fsio.c/h: The FSIO is an abstraction for Filesystem I/O operations. The fsio.c implements the fs_io_file API which is to access local files. The other FsIo implementation is in the gcreader.c file to implement read/write into a card on a GCReader. This allows to do things such as dumping a card into a file, or adding a file to GCEmu or adding a card from the reader directly to GCEmu, etc.. using the same FsIo API.
* ftdi_util.c/h: Abstraction API for accessing the FTDI chip using either libftdi or libftd2xx
* gcemu.c/h: GCEmu implementation. This is what uses the btcomm API to represent a GCEmu card
* gcemu_client.c/h: The client implementation to represent a GCEmu over the network to the Blackfin server
* gcemu_tab.c/h: The GUI implementation to represent a GCEmu object on the UI
* gcfs.c/h: The Game Card FileSystem. It just uses libexfat to read a game iso, list files, find the id/title, license file, etc…
* gcreader.c/h: GCReader implementation. This is what uses the ftdi API to communicate with the GCReader hardware
* gcreader_client.c/h: The client implementation to represent a GCReader over the network to the Blackfin server
* gcreader_tab.c/h: The GUI implementation to represent a GCReader object on the UI
* g-serial.c/h: A rewrite of William Woodall’s serial library into a GObject. Released here under the same MIT license. https://github.com/wjwwood/serial
The port was done in 2013, and was slightly updated throughout the years, but it might be outdated from upstream at this point.
* prefsdiag.c/h: Preferences dialog UI implementation
* progressdiag.c/h: Progress bar dialog UI implementation
* protocol.c/h: Protocol implementation for the server/client, this handles the low level protocol communication format and dispatches commands/responses to the actual implementors of the protocol
* server.c/h: The implementation of the Blackfin server
* settings.c/h: Settings class for get/set of various runtime configuration options
* sfo.c/h: SFO parsing API, returns SFO data as a hash table
* utils.c/h: CRC, hex_dump and time utilities
 
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