Gen VI Pokemon File format discovered

[Heredity]

What are you even arguing here? They already figured out most of the format: it's largely the same as the old format. C structs are not wizardry.

He wants people to 'just do it.' It's not magic. Being largely the same as another format doesn't mean the rest of it will just unlock through brute force, they're going to need more information first. Or else we wouldn't be here in this thread, throwing around conjecture.

It honestly just sounds like a couple of guys up to no good, making trouble in this here neighbour.

I have it on good authority that some of the best technical advances start this way.

I never argued against that.

Stallman is the last person I expected to be referenced here. If you actually erred on RMS' stance, you wouldn't be pro-hacking or cracking.

...Basically 'I bought this, I'll do what I want with it' isn't RMS' 'philosophy.'

"The right of an individual to study the functioning of any technological product that she owns or rents, and to publish what she learns about it, shall not be limited by any law, or by any contract agreed without individual negotiation." — Richard Stallman, "Suggestions for National Constitutions"

Notice how it is from an article of his focused on suggestions. RMS has a lot of things he wishes to be a legal right, but he doesn't use underhanded methods to achieve this now.

He'd actually probably get pretty pissed off at someone for suggesting he supported such actions, or that he feels entitled enough to do this now with our current laws.

1. file extensions don't mean anything. they went with .pkx for convenience
2. pkx aren't compressed. They're raw data; 232 bytes long.
3. you have no idea what compressed means
4. what the hell are you talking about being able to read them. you don't need some magic program; you just need to edit bitwise. you know with a hex editor or something; hell you can do this with notepad if you want
5. you think encryption is a big deal thats unsolvable; hell no its not. there is nothing magic about that. i have no idea how send/response over wireless is done thats why i said 'maybe' and 'just figure out the encryption', for all i know, the connection might be unencrypted. its like the difference between http and https.

1. File extensions are used for recognisability, both by humans and software.
2. I wasn't aware that specific file size meant they weren't compressed in any form. The 232 byte size in relation to Pokemon games is apparently new information to this team. Nothing is mentioned about compression at all, just the file format and content size contained within the file.
3. Just because I wasn't aware of any lack thereof compression on the .PKX file format doesn't mean I know nothing about compression.
4. RAR was an example. Although hex editors and text editors are still programs.
5. Encryption is a big deal, or else the floodgates on information would be sort of open by now. We haven't actually got anything proper yet, just a 'this goes here and should have that' analysis.

you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. funny considering you said this in the same post:

Ad hominem will get you nowhere.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

There's some anecdotal evidence that already is hacking fairly deep in the world of 2ch (Japanese version of 4chan). I know some buddies who swear on Random Battles they've spotted unobtainable Pokemon like the Therian trios.

I'd have to go digging a bit to find it, but someone on TvTropes posted pretty legit-looking screenshots from somewhere showing Infernape and Regigigas in a Gen VI battle, on the player's side. So that goes further than anecdotal, I guess.

 

[jpmouz]

Yay! I guess this means that we will atleast be getting some clearer Pokemon sprites and all that jazz. All I really need.

 

[Stratelier]

Seeing a file is a lot different to reading it and/or decompressing it. I can sure see a WinRAR file, but unless I have the method to actually be able to read and unpack it, I sure as hell can't do shit with it.

Gen V Pokemon data structures weren't exactly protected with AES level encryption.... the various data blocks were shuffled around a little and obfuscated with a few bitwise operators, but that's about it. Easy to figure out, easy to break.

it does mean that depending on what else has to be broken they can generate lists of items (based on attempts to insert those items into the player's inventory), unrevealed Pokemon and/or formes (based on attempts to insert them into the party or PC box storage), and so on.

Assuming they can write Pokémon structs back into the game, which I'm not terribly confident about.

It starts by first spoofing the GTS server and imitating XY trade communications until they can make the game successfully trade a Pokemon with their server. Once that's working (presumably with a copy of a legit Pokemon's datafile), then they start tweaking specific bytes in the file to verify what each value corresponds to (level? IV's? EV's? PP Ups?). Ultimately, once everything (or almost) is figured out and documented, interested users can design user-friendly applications for creating arbitrary ("hacked") Pokemon data and importing it into their game.

And all of this why...?

 

[Genwunner]

He wants people to 'just do it.' It's not magic. Being largely the same as another format doesn't mean the rest of it will just unlock through brute force, they're going to need more information first. Or else we wouldn't be here in this thread, throwing around conjecture.

It honestly just sounds like a couple of guys up to no good, making trouble in this here neighbour.

I have it on good authority that some of the best technical advances start this way.

I never argued against that.

Stallman is the last person I expected to be referenced here. If you actually erred on RMS' stance, you wouldn't be pro-hacking or cracking.

...Basically 'I bought this, I'll do what I want with it' isn't RMS' 'philosophy.'

"The right of an individual to study the functioning of any technological product that she owns or rents, and to publish what she learns about it, shall not be limited by any law, or by any contract agreed without individual negotiation." — Richard Stallman, "Suggestions for National Constitutions"

Notice how it is from an article of his focused on suggestions. RMS has a lot of things he wishes to be a legal right, but he doesn't use underhanded methods to achieve this now.

He'd actually probably get pretty pissed off at someone for suggesting he supported such actions, or that he feels entitled enough to do this now with our current laws.

1. file extensions don't mean anything. they went with .pkx for convenience
2. pkx aren't compressed. They're raw data; 232 bytes long.
3. you have no idea what compressed means
4. what the hell are you talking about being able to read them. you don't need some magic program; you just need to edit bitwise. you know with a hex editor or something; hell you can do this with notepad if you want
5. you think encryption is a big deal thats unsolvable; hell no its not. there is nothing magic about that. i have no idea how send/response over wireless is done thats why i said 'maybe' and 'just figure out the encryption', for all i know, the connection might be unencrypted. its like the difference between http and https.

1. File extensions are used for recognisability, both by humans and software.
2. I wasn't aware that specific file size meant they weren't compressed in any form. The 232 byte size in relation to Pokemon games is apparently new information to this team. Nothing is mentioned about compression at all, just the file format and content size contained within the file.
3. Just because I wasn't aware of any lack thereof compression on the .PKX file format doesn't mean I know nothing about compression.
4. RAR was an example. Although hex editors and text editors are still programs.
5. Encryption is a big deal, or else the floodgates on information would be sort of open by now. We haven't actually got anything proper yet, just a 'this goes here and should have that' analysis.

you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. funny considering you said this in the same post:

Ad hominem will get you nowhere.

That comment is a bit hypocritical coming from you considering your past posts on this thread.
I think I have more faith in the technical know how of those who are actually working on this rather than yourself who has already been proven to have flawed understandings by the others here. I'd rather be honest and say I don't know much about the technical side rather than pretend I do and try to bluff my way through as you do.

The fact is there is huge demand for this, and people are working on supplying it. People were saying how 3DS was really hard to crack, but up until now you get the impression no one was really trying its only until Pokemon games came out the demand swelled and people really started getting to work.

And as others have said, I'm sure some have already cracked the code but just not made it public and kept the info for themselves.
I haven't seen Therian forms in battle yet, but I have seen people talking about typings of unobtainable Pokemon and and the fact they were disappointed certain Pokemon didn't have a Mega Evolution both of which no one can know for sure unless they've hacked the game or been told by someone who has.

 

[AmphBoss]

And as others have said, I'm sure some have already cracked the code but just not made it public and kept the info for themselves.
I haven't seen Therian forms in battle yet, but I have seen people talking about typings of unobtainable Pokemon and and the fact they were disappointed certain Pokemon didn't have a Mega Evolution both of which no one can know for sure unless they've hacked the game or been told by someone who has.

Or been told by someone who helped build the game. You know a leak...

 

[Heredity]

That comment is a bit hypocritical coming from you considering your past posts on this thread.
I think I have more faith in the technical know how of those who are actually working on this rather than yourself who has already been proven to have flawed understandings by the others here. I'd rather be honest and say I don't know much about the technical side rather than pretend I do and try to bluff my way through as you do.

Hi there, third year university near-graduate IT student here. One person in this thread has disagreed with me, and only one, about something completely unrelated (in regards to compression, which I apparently know nothing about because I assumed a file being sent by a rather underpowered console over WiFi might be compressed), so I am now some sort of pretender? Alright then. How about this?

The file type DOES matter, because it's what the games recognise. The encryption and decryption methods DO matter, because it's what the games recognise. Compression DOES matter (we have no idea what the size of the files are when used by the game, only when sent wirelessly), and you're obviously going to need a special method to read the file's content in the first place (even if it is a mere text editor or hex editor).

I'm not pretending at all. I do, however, have faith that Nintendo didn't fuck up this time with regards to file security. Sadly, as every hour goes by I'm continually shown that they really need more specialists on staff with regards to software security.

Gen V Pokemon data structures weren't exactly protected with AES level encryption.... the various data blocks were shuffled around a little and obfuscated with a few bitwise operators, but that's about it. Easy to figure out, easy to break.

I'm sure it was probably tough when they were first figuring things out though.

Still, given the small amount we were ableto do with Gen V (and the fact that this info took at least 2 weeks to properly surface), Nintendo must be doing something right with their technology in order to keep us out. All we're honestly doing now is interception (with no real idea of what occurs prior to and after, people packet sniffing on /VP/ kept getting inconsistent file sizes for other wireless things like O-Powers mean it's not all uniform).

Serious question, are there any Gen V ROM hacks out there yet?

 

[ange]

I haven't seen Therian forms in battle yet, but I have seen people talking about typings of unobtainable Pokemon and and the fact they were disappointed certain Pokemon didn't have a Mega Evolution both of which no one can know for sure unless they've hacked the game or been told by someone who has.

Again, they were found by looking at GTS trade details on one's Global Link account.

 

[MetroLSD]

Seems Wonder Trade spoofing is closer to being possible.

 

[Stratelier]

The file type DOES matter, because it's what the games recognise.

Let's be clear that the file name and extension is just a text label used to identify the file at a glance (it also serves as a quick sanity-test to ensure that it's not obviously attempting to read the wrong file, because a correct file should at least follow the expected naming convention). Once received, the game still has to actually verify that the file's contents really are what's expected of it, and every manual for any programming language will outright tell you this when talking about how to read from a file stream.

The fact is there is huge demand for this, and people are working on supplying it. People were saying how 3DS was really hard to crack, but up until now you get the impression no one was really trying its only until Pokemon games came out the demand swelled and people really started getting to work.

They didn't crack the 3DS, they cracked the Wi-Fi and discovered what apparently looks like the file format used for transferring Pokemon. Still, they did crack what matters the most for competitive purposes, the potential to import custom-tailored (hacked) Pokemon into one's game without all the time and effort involved in catching/breeding/raising them properly.

The only people who've cracked the 3DS have done so by dropping it on the floor or bashing it with something

Sadly, as every hour goes by I'm continually shown that they really need more specialists on staff with regards to software security.

Is it Nintendo's fault that the 3DS has the ability to connect to unsecured/unencrypted Wi-Fi access points (and WEP, which is outdated and easily broken if you know how)? I'm sure that's how these guys were able to intercept packets and decode them in the first place....

Gen V Pokemon data structures weren't exactly protected with AES level encryption.... the various data blocks were shuffled around a little and obfuscated with a few bitwise operators, but that's about it. Easy to figure out, easy to break.

I'm sure it was probably tough when they were first figuring things out though.

Copy protection was a lot easier back in those days too.

 

[Ivysaur]

Best part of the game? Wonder Trading without any fear you might get something hacked in return. It'll be a damn shame when that's no longer possible. I don't compete in tournaments or anything, but even the thought something in my game may be hacked is enough to irritate and bother me. :/

 

[Eevee]

yesssss the ability slot is now part of the struct so I can totally get all the internal IDs of things.

Hi there, third year university near-graduate IT student here. One person in this thread has disagreed with me, and only one, about something completely unrelated (in regards to compression, which I apparently know nothing about because I assumed a file being sent by a rather underpowered console over WiFi might be compressed), so I am now some sort of pretender? Alright then. How about this?

The file type DOES matter, because it's what the games recognise. The encryption and decryption methods DO matter, because it's what the games recognise. Compression DOES matter (we have no idea what the size of the files are when used by the game, only when sent wirelessly), and you're obviously going to need a special method to read the file's content in the first place (even if it is a mere text editor or hex editor).

I would ask for a refund because the way you talk about all of this is really weird to me. I'd hardly even call a Pokémon struct a "file", let alone call the struct layout a "file type".

The size in-game is 260 bytes.

If a text/hex editor is a "special method" for reading data, what on earth is a regular method?

I'm not pretending at all. I do, however, have faith that Nintendo didn't fuck up this time with regards to file security. Sadly, as every hour goes by I'm continually shown that they really need more specialists on staff with regards to software security.

I do wonder why they haven't just slathered everything in TLS yet. Good news for me, I suppose.

I'm sure it was probably tough when they were first figuring things out though.

Yes, it was.

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

Best part of the game? Wonder Trading without any fear you might get something hacked in return. It'll be a damn shame when that's no longer possible. I don't compete in tournaments or anything, but even the thought something in my game may be hacked is enough to irritate and bother me. :/

Yes this bothers me as well because there was an incident I experienced in an older game where I got what I thought was a normal Pokemon off the GTS holding a Master Ball and a short time after the game froze for a bit of time and I had to restart the game. I was paranoid that this Pokemon I got froze the game. I released it automatically. Hacks can occasionally harm your game, so I have a problem with them for that reason. I have a problem with hacks being unknowingly distributed to others but people do give hacks out knowing full well they are hacked. I wish this risk to not exist in Gen 6. I really hope they dont crack the code.

 

[BigBadBatter]

Best part of the game? Wonder Trading without any fear you might get something hacked in return. It'll be a damn shame when that's no longer possible. I don't compete in tournaments or anything, but even the thought something in my game may be hacked is enough to irritate and bother me. :/

Yes this bothers me as well because there was an incident I experienced in an older game where I got what I thought was a normal Pokemon off the GTS holding a Master Ball and a short time after the game froze for a bit of time and I had to restart the game. I was paranoid that this Pokemon I got froze the game. I released it automatically. Hacks can occasionally harm your game, so I have a problem with them for that reason. I have a problem with hacks being unknowingly distributed to others but people do give hacks out knowing full well they are hacked. I wish this risk to not exist in Gen 6. I really hope they dont crack the code.

Ack, that must stink. Look, from my knowledge of pokemon editing and legality, there are very few cases of illegal pokemon affecting your game. Legal pokemon are harmless but people are really dumb when it comes to proper hacking.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Oh wow so the file format has been discovered? It's pretty cool from a technical standpoint for sure. But I don't think anyone has to worry about "hacked" Pokemon being transported over since Nintendo plans on programming in certain checks to make sure the Pokemon's data comes up valid. (Because it's quite obvious a Magikarp can't learn Surf, for example. xD) The only way a cheater could even try to bypass that is if they exploit some oversight in the code or they figure out how to crack said code. I don't think we really have anything to worry about at this moment in time.

 

[Heredity]

Let's be clear that the file name and extension is just a text label used to identify the file at a glance (it also serves as a quick sanity-test to ensure that it's not obviously attempting to read the wrong file, because a correct file should at least follow the expected naming convention). Once received, the game still has to actually verify that the file's contents really are what's expected of it, and every manual for any programming language will outright tell you this when talking about how to read from a file stream.

Well, of course!

I would ask for a refund because the way you talk about all of this is really weird to me. I'd hardly even call a Pokémon struct a "file", let alone call the struct layout a "file type".

The size in-game is 260 bytes.

If a text/hex editor is a "special method" for reading data, what on earth is a regular method?

Just because I talk about it differently, coming across weird to you, doesn't need I need a refund when it comes to my education.. I mean, you've already misunderstood me with my referencing to the file's format. Quite clearly we're dealing with a digital file, the thing being sent wireless, and it has a specified extension (.PKX), which is evidently recognised by the game. The strict is inside that file. It's like you've gone and compared a whole car to its engine layout. You've kept understanding to a point, and then stopped for absolutely no reason. What's the point of that? Maybe you're the one who needs a little revision.

.PKX is obviously a file format, man.

And, don't go declaring things we don't know. We only know the size of the file during transmission. We haven't actually gotten into the game yet.

Any specified thing that needs a unique method of access is a 'special method.' There's no 'regular,' across the board method for anything. You can't just open up the PKX file by itself and presented with information, it needs a tool to access it.

 

[Eevee]

Retracting what I said before: looks like they do have writing. Nice. Wish my plate weren't full so I could get in on this.

Quite clearly we're dealing with a digital file, the thing being sent wireless, and it has a specified extension (.PKX), which is evidently recognised by the game. The strict is inside that file.

The extension is a fan invention, and offhand I doubt there's anywhere in the entire process that a Pokémon struct appears anywhere on its own. We just pull it out for convenience. It's more like a row in a database.

And, don't go declaring things we don't know. We only know the size of the file during transmission. We haven't actually gotten into the game yet.

PP's words, not mine. As I recall, the party struct was sent over the wire sometimes in gen 5, so I assume it still is now.

 

[lugia61617]

I don't mind hacked Pokemon that get through a legitimacy check. After all, the game and nintendo's high standards consider them real, so why care how it was created? Not to mention most hackers don't care to make them legit (i.e the infamous WG Spiritomb). Yes, people work hard to make their own perfect Pokemon but some people don't.

So Wonder Trade is only threatened if 'totally illegal' ones can be generated; ones that could not exist.
But back to the topic at hand...
I like that we know this much. It's nice to know someone is trying to dig as deep as possible to find out what lays beneath the surface of the games.

 

[randomspot555]

Best part of the game? Wonder Trading without any fear you might get something hacked in return. It'll be a damn shame when that's no longer possible. I don't compete in tournaments or anything, but even the thought something in my game may be hacked is enough to irritate and bother me. :/

Yes this bothers me as well because there was an incident I experienced in an older game where I got what I thought was a normal Pokemon off the GTS holding a Master Ball and a short time after the game froze for a bit of time and I had to restart the game. I was paranoid that this Pokemon I got froze the game. I released it automatically. Hacks can occasionally harm your game, so I have a problem with them for that reason. I have a problem with hacks being unknowingly distributed to others but people do give hacks out knowing full well they are hacked. I wish this risk to not exist in Gen 6. I really hope they dont crack the code.

Hacks can harm the game in that they can cause it to stop (in which case, power off, power on, and just re-start the game from the save on the main menu) but they can't cause save files to be deleted or anything like that. That being said, due to the way those types of hacks are produced (often times, by a botched, poorly made AR code), they'll automatically become a problem and there isn't even a chance of trading them because once the code is started it'll automatically freeze the game. Usually these AR codes aren't even for a single Pokemon, but something like 6+Pokemon generated at once, or the casue of multiple AR codes being used simultaneously. Basically these harmful hacks are completely self-inflicted and automatic and since they're automatic, there is an absolute 0% chance of them being traded. AND the harm isn't the Pokemon itself but in the action the AR is trying to make the game do, thus overloading it and causing the game to pause.

Games can freeze in completely normal circumstances. Closing the DS into sleep mode all of a sudden sometimes causes that to happen, if the system is dropped while the game is playing, if a disconnection happens at the wrong time during wireless activities, etc... It is highly unlikely that that specific Pokemon, or any individual hacked Pokemon, that is able to be traded causes any actual harm to a save file.

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

Best part of the game? Wonder Trading without any fear you might get something hacked in return. It'll be a damn shame when that's no longer possible. I don't compete in tournaments or anything, but even the thought something in my game may be hacked is enough to irritate and bother me. :/

Yes this bothers me as well because there was an incident I experienced in an older game where I got what I thought was a normal Pokemon off the GTS holding a Master Ball and a short time after the game froze for a bit of time and I had to restart the game. I was paranoid that this Pokemon I got froze the game. I released it automatically. Hacks can occasionally harm your game, so I have a problem with them for that reason. I have a problem with hacks being unknowingly distributed to others but people do give hacks out knowing full well they are hacked. I wish this risk to not exist in Gen 6. I really hope they dont crack the code.

Hacks can harm the game in that they can cause it to stop (in which case, power off, power on, and just re-start the game from the save on the main menu) but they can't cause save files to be deleted or anything like that. That being said, due to the way those types of hacks are produced (often times, by a botched, poorly made AR code), they'll automatically become a problem and there isn't even a chance of trading them because once the code is started it'll automatically freeze the game. Usually these AR codes aren't even for a single Pokemon, but something like 6+Pokemon generated at once, or the casue of multiple AR codes being used simultaneously. Basically these harmful hacks are completely self-inflicted and automatic and since they're automatic, there is an absolute 0% chance of them being traded. AND the harm isn't the Pokemon itself but in the action the AR is trying to make the game do, thus overloading it and causing the game to pause.

Games can freeze in completely normal circumstances. Closing the DS into sleep mode all of a sudden sometimes causes that to happen, if the system is dropped while the game is playing, if a disconnection happens at the wrong time during wireless activities, etc... It is highly unlikely that that specific Pokemon, or any individual hacked Pokemon, that is able to be traded causes any actual harm to a save file.

I more have a problem with people trading hacks to those that do not know they are hacked, but that was just my paranoia over the circumstance, no Idea if the Pokemon was really hacked but its long gone. Im very careful with my games and systems as well. I did not drop the system or anything. Hacks still should not be put on the GTS or Wonder Trade.