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The Nintendo Switch Switch

329 points| bitcynth | 6 years ago |blog.cynthia.re

78 comments

order

ollien|6 years ago

At my college, we have an airgapped network for security classes, and when assignments are due, we often run out of ethernet cables. I had just mentioned I would bring a switch with me the next day and people were confused why I'd be goofing off with a Switch so close to the deadline.

Now we can avoid that kind of confusion! :)

thaumasiotes|6 years ago

> when assignments are due, we often run out of ethernet cables. I had just mentioned I would bring a switch with me the next day

As I understand it, a switch will solve a shortage of ethernet ports, but will make the cable problem worse by requiring one extra cable. What's the purpose of the switch here?

SenHeng|6 years ago

Similar story, I've been looking into getting ethernet switches to wire up my home and my initial search for switches turned up the console.

It is annoying when companies name their product after a commonly used word. Even more so if both are equally popular.

bitwize|6 years ago

Yeah, I saw a story titled "The Nintendo Switch" on Hackernews back in October 2016 and thought, "Nintendo is getting into network hardware now?!"

walrus01|6 years ago

If your college has any proper security on access ports, they'll be limited to one MAC address per physical port, and hopefully a decent 802.1x setup

lonelappde|6 years ago

Does your college teach security before networking? Probably a smart choice.

anon9001|6 years ago

I'm surprised to not see anyone talking about how Switch homebrew works and which devices are compatible. There's both hardware and software patches to worry about.

Here's the most up-to-date guide with version numbers and bootloader choices and such: https://nh-server.github.io/switch-guide/

afandian|6 years ago

I'm [vaguely] interested in unconventional Android devices.

People often talk about "plenty of android devices with X" where x is e.g. a keyboard. But a search of Google, Ali Express, etc don't yield much except for conventional phones.

Is there a list or other source where I can discover these mythical interesting devices?

wtracy|6 years ago

This is probably not quite what you're talking about, but:

I'm convinced there's a bunch of interesting single-purpose Android devices that simply aren't available to the general public. The manufacturers are large companies that you've probably heard of that don't do business on places like AliExpress. Unfortunately, the devices in question are "enterprise" products, and sold accordingly.

For example, the self-service kiosks at Taco Bell seem to be Android-based, though I can't confirm this. Good luck finding a supplier who will sell you those in lots of less than a thousand.

Swinging around to your original question, I occasionally hear about MIPS-based Android tablets made for Indian or Chinese markets. I'm sure they're on AliExpress, but I doubt they're clearly labeled as MIPS.

strbean|6 years ago

Could those people be referring to Chromebooks and other ChromeOS netbooks? They apparently run any android app, although they aren't really running android as the OS.

core-questions|6 years ago

Cute project! Sometimes it's nice to see a simple hack that elucidates perfectly just how amazing it is to actually be able to run our own software on a variety of devices. With Linux support, these devices will be useful for decades to do random things.

bitcynth|6 years ago

thank you :) I have other evil network related ideas for this in the near future :p

mercora|6 years ago

i am a bit disappointed that what has been done is basically installing linux and setting up a bridge using usb ethernet dongles. not what i was expecting. its still somewhat amusing though.

bitcynth|6 years ago

yeah, tbh, I wanted to do it with the it still functioning as a game console. However I realized that it would be way too difficult for me and would never get done :/

pfundstein|6 years ago

Yeah, and only two ports so it's not useful as a switch. It could be useful as a router though.

rjeli|6 years ago

Woah, didn’t realize you could install Linux on the switch now. Got me thinking about the uses for a portable tx2 tablet...

Lammy|6 years ago

There is a hardware vulnerability in the first ~18 months of Switch systems produced. It’s a USB boot mode (like DFU mode in iPhones) from the underlying Tegra chipset and is triggered by pressing the Tegra “Home” button (not the Switch Home button!), one of the Volume buttons, and Power while injecting the software you want to boot over USB. That button is exposed as one of the pins (#9, iirc?) of the right-side Joycon rail, so all you have to do is short that to ground with anything you like. 3D printed jigs are cheap and common.

Your system will get banned from Nintendo online services if you run any Switch-mode homebrew—for good reason since piracy and online hacking have unfortunately become rampant—so the most I’ve done with mine is run the standalone Hekate to dump my system’s unique keys and internal storage a few times. I’m still enjoying the system for its intended use too much to want to go offline forever, so I’m just holding on to an exploitable system for a few years until the Next Big Thing comes along.

As for obtaining an exploitable system, all you need is one manufactured before July 2018. I keep the following in the Notes app on my phone for when I see a used system for sale in the wild:

Exploitable Switch Serial Ranges

Serials beginning with XAW1:

- XAW1007XXX and below are safe to buy

- XAW1008XXX not safe to buy, probably patched

- XAW1009XXX and above definitely patched

Serials beginning with XAW7:

- XAW70017X and below are safe to buy

- XAW70018X not safe to buy, probably patched

- XAW70019X and above definitely patched

Serials beginning with XAJ4:

- XAJ40052X and below are safe to buy

- XAJ40053X not safe to buy, probably patched

- XAJ4006XX and above definitely patched

Serials beginning with XAJ7:

- XAJ70042X and below are safe to buy

- XAJ70043X not safe to buy, probably patched

- XAJ7005XX and above definitely patched

Happy hunting!

saagarjha|6 years ago

Only on certain Switch devices.

aidenn0|6 years ago

Living in the US, I'm a bit jealous of the 100mbit upload...

Yetanfou|6 years ago

Living on a farm in the Swedish countryside with 1Gbit/1Gbit fiber I'll probably make you even more jealous...

bitcynth|6 years ago

I have 250/250 but the usb dongle was only 100mbit lol

filoleg|6 years ago

US is weirdly bipolar when it comes to internet. In some areas, you can barely get a DSL connection from a single ISP, and it will be some astronomical price of like $70+/mo (if you are lucky). If you don't like it, suck it up, because you have no other providers servicing your area. In others, you have like 4-5 ISPs, all offering fiber and at reasonable prices.

It definitely feels like it is getting better, though. Moved to Seattle and am happily paying ~$40/mo for symmetrical non-capped 1Gb fiber (both up and down). Even my family still living in suburban GA (way outside of the perimeter, not some within-the-city suburb) got fiber recently, and at a fairly ok price for the area (tho definitely way more expensive than $40/mo, and they only have a choice between Comcast and AT&T, unfortunately).

kube-system|6 years ago

If you're in a Fios area, Verizon's running a deal on 940/880 Mbps right now for $74.99.

littlecranky67|6 years ago

The author's main motivation is probably the cool name "Nintendo Switch Switch" but a bridge is not a switch, so it should be called a "Nintendo Switch Bridge".

whalesalad|6 years ago

Being a little pedandic here aren't we? For all intents and purposes a bridge is basically a switch with two ports. At the end of the day this is running on a Linux kernel so it can basically be any networking device you want it to be, even a router.

VectorLock|6 years ago

Putting PiHole on this would have been wonderful.

bduerst|6 years ago

Bravo. So is the Fast (megabit) Ethernet speed bottleneck with the USB ports?

Do you think you could get gigabit Ethernet speeds?

jcmontx|6 years ago

No one:

Absolutely nobody:

A Nintendo Switch that works as a switch

gotoeleven|6 years ago

Thats nothing I turned my playstation into a space station.