3DS System Flaws

Exploits are used to execute unofficial code (homebrew) on the Nintendo 3DS. This page is a list of known 3DS-mode exploits.

List of 3DS exploits

There are currently no known 3DS-mode exploits.

Failed attempts

Here are listed all attempts at exploiting 3DS software that have failed so far.

• Pushmo (3DSWare), QR codes: level name is properly limited to 16 characters, game doesn't crash with a longer name. Only possible crashes are from out-of-bounds values and are not exploitable.
• Pyramids (3DSWare), QR codes: no strings. The LZ10 compression can't be exploited either. Only crashes are from out-of-bounds values (like background ID) and are not exploitable.
• 3DS browser, 2^32 characters long string: The behavior of this crash is not well understood. The crash may or may not be done on purpose (Webkit contains code that triggers 'crashes' on purpose). Anyway any attempt at exploiting this has failed so far.

Current efforts

There are people working on finding exploits and documenting the 3DS. Here's a list of some current efforts being made to make homebrew on the 3DS possible:

• Neimod has been working on a RAM dumping setup for a little while now. He's desoldered the 3DS's RAM chip and hooked it and the RAM pinouts on the 3DS's PCB up to a custom RAM dumping setup. Recent photos show that the setup is working quite well, with the 3DS successfully booting up. Pictures of neimod's work can be found on his Flickr stream.

Tips and info

Information on the 3DS's internals is scarce. There is little information on programming the 3DS available, other than basic information found by taking the 3DS apart, leaks and reverse engineering.

What this means is if any exploits are found, it would be very difficult to do anything useful with them. Work is currently being done to find out how the 3DS ticks and to aid in finding exploits. See the current efforts section of this page for examples and more information.