I've seen this argument, but I strongly suspect that it's a cope argument. "We couldn't get in... because... we didn't care to! Even though we've hacked literally every other object on the planet just because."

The proof in the pudding of this will be when the Nintendo Switch 2 reaches 2035 with no cracks. That's my prophecy; that this time around the cat actually will catch the mouse. Between NVIDIA's heavily revised glitch-resistant RISC-V security architecture and Nintendo's impeccable microkernel, there's nowhere left to hide. DRM may turn out to have been a very slow long battle to "victory," not a "this will always be defeated."

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selectively 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have my doubts. I suspect that Nvidia have made mistakes.

Anyway, situations like the one you describe are one to be solved by legislation requiring certain devices be sold as open devices that put power in the hands of the owner.

	▲	genewitch 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		my nintendo switch is "rootable" by shorting two pins in the controller interface, with a previously set up SD card inserted with the homebrew bootloader. My PS3 and PS4 were both jailbroken/rooted. I don't remember the ps3 routine, but the PS4 was loading the "system -> help" page while connected to a ESP32 wifi AP running a simple web server that replied to requests with the jailbreak for PS4. I give it about a year, especially if nintendo has to change the specs or otherwise tampers with customer expectations. there's bound to be some way to reload firmware on a "dead" device without pulling chips, and that's all it takes.

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mikepurvis 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, and these systems are also designed with ratchet-type measures in place from the get-go, where holes are plugged, fuses are burned, and newly released titles will only decrypt/run on the latest OS.

So even if Switch 2 doesn't make it all the way to 2035 with zero cracks, there's a strong likelihood that any exploits found will be short-lived.

	▲	joseda-hg 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Which incentivizes people to hold on to exploits for as long as possible, ideally past the console life cycle, just to make sure it can be used, which already is a thing

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ls612 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When you extrapolate out the political economy consequences of your hypothesis being correct the future looks very dark indeed. If you can make an unhackable game console it should be obvious to people on this site what sorts of dystopias you could also create.

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genewitch 11 hours ago | parent [-]

unhackable subscription ignition interlock device?

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ls612 11 hours ago | parent [-]

unhackable brain-computer interface required for most daily activities (like phones are today) and with a killswitch "for the public safety" and 24/7 cloud monitoring. Obviously this is pretty out there science fiction today but will it remain so in a century? And if it doesn't, what kinds of political systems are likely to dominate? What will happen to those political systems that for one reason or another decline this capability? I leave these questions as an exercise for the reader.

	▲	bitwize 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Before we even get there, within 5-7 years new PCs will be Xbox-like, locked down devices. Only approved OS and apps may be installed, as it is a felony to run an OS that doesn't meet federal and state KYC ID requirements or even own a copy of one without a license, and no PC manufacturer wants the liability risk of being found complicit in the commission of such crimes. General purpose computing will be a thing of the past for the masses (who didn't really want it anyway). Server hardware will be exempt from these requirements, but to purchase it you need a D-U-N-S number and a statement of intended use in the purchase agreement. Even if it were possible to find a vulnerability in the hardware, doing so without attracting the attention of law enforcement will be profoundly difficult, as Windows sends telemetry back to Microsoft about every instruction that runs on your hardware. Apple will claim to be more privacy-focused, at least for a year or two, but the M9 chip's NPU will just perform local inference on your activity and report you to Apple and the FBI if it detects attempts to break security.