Merry christmas everyone!

It’s been a (very) busy year on my end and I’ve barely got any time for myself to post. I actually had things to talk about, like a small Nintendo Switch research paper that I published or some very specialized Z/2Z polynomial factoring code that I wrote but most of my articles just kinda went on the backburner. I have more than 10 in a draft status now!

But that’s not what we care about today because today I went back to Kingdom Hearts 2. Again.
I time-limited myself to a week this time around though because I ain’t crazy enough to go back into this rabbit hole but you don’t have to take my word on it, you can read back my article on how I reverse engineered KH2’s 3D Model format or simply the reaction of people modding the game when I announced my project.

Recently I learned about the existence of what is known as Google Foobar also known as “Google secret recruiting program” or “How much bunnies can you rescue before wanting to kill someone” and being the stubborn me that I am, I decided to force my way in and try the challenges!
…
I didn’t expected to be able to get in but it seems I did, so I guess I’m indebted to do a writeup or something? Oh well, I won’t cry over easy and interesting content for my blog.

Before this article truly begins I’d like to explain what I’ve done in the last few months and what this article truly is about: As some of you may know, I worked on WireGuard as a part of the Google Summer of Code for the last 3 months, which basically is contract work for students, giving you a stipend while you work for an organization of your choice, in my case the Linux Foundation, in the open source world if selected. This article will explain the work I’ve done and some other stuff related to it. While I am making this article as a part of the program, for which I need to showcase the work I did once the work period ended, I was not forced to make it a blog article or had anything particular to say apart showcasing my work, hence I’ll organize it this way:
At the end of this post is going to be a crude list of the tasks I’ve accomplished during this summer and a conclusion about the GSoC et cetera, while everything before it will be about WireGuard and the Linux kernel itself, larger in scope, and my GRO research overall, explaining more stuff, so that this blog post is interesting even to the people not having an in-depth knowledge about networks or WireGuard.

Well, looks like I’m late again!

I haven’t been posting as much as I wished lately because studies got in the way, but I still did some cool stuff out of this blog, being a video explaining current object recognition in AI or a KH2 Model importer (this time fixed and working!)
Since I wanted to avoid posting a rant here and just fill my blog with “useless” content I’m going to write an article about the latter but I’m still doing other stuff outside of the public scope, and even planning for even bigger stuff publically (hint: Linux Foundation) ! But anyways let’s get started with a quick backstory about KH2 hacking.

As I explained in another blog post I started a side project to hack my Piano on my free time and oh boy do I have a lot of things to say on that…

Well let’s first begin with the obvious: I made a video about the whole project, using it as an example to try to explain Hardware Hacking!

Now that this has been taken care of let’s talk about it, shall we?

A version of this article was published in the research paper “Methodically Defeating Nintendo Switch Security” along with a complete overview of the security concepts of the Nintendo Switch, available here.

Intro

My finals being now a mere week away and myself just getting off the CCC I had a great idea, as always!

Working a bit on the Nintendo Switch.

For those unaware the 34C3 happened to host a talk about the Nintendo Switch, which led to an announcement from a modchip team of a new product ,rapidly answered by one of the speakers that was at the 34C3 giving a release date for an homebrew launcher followed by yet again another reaction from another team, showing off a coldboot exploit for the Switch.
Talk about a crazy week in this scene.

Hey!

I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to post more in this blog for the past 2 months, personal projects, exams, life and work came up, it was pretty overwhelming.

Let’s talk about one of them now, shall we? Piano Hacking.
I’ve spent on what I thought would be a cool one week off project some time up until I’ve proposed a talk to the CCC! Unfortunately…

I got rejected.
So why was I? I have a few theories, as I can already say, a talk about Hacking subways and voting machines have both been rejected, from people with work I can trust.

As it turns out, I’ve always avoided CTFs out of fear of just not being good enough to solve even the most basic problems, so when one of my friends talked me about the RHme3 CTF qualifications going on I thought, “yeah, not for me,” and just moved on. However, at 3AM the day after, when I thought while half asleep, “Oh wait, that makes easy content for my blog, jfc.”

Everyone knows the PS2, right? Well okay, not EVERYONE, but a good majority of those who are reading this article I bet. The PlayStation 2, continued from the PlayStation and launched by Sony in… wait. I’m not wikipedia am I? Just browse there if you want the usual info.

So what I’m going to talk about today is how the PS2 itself was designed and how it is used by developers with both smart and un-smart tricks.

Wow I’m really bad at keeping things on time.
Well here it is, the new website, with less acid irony and more sterilized content!
I’ve settled on a static website generator named Hugo, like my old website but with less useless scripting and perl scripts.

For the matter of the old website, it’s gone, poof, disappeared! I’ve kept only the KH related stuff you can find into the Projects section a bit above where you’re looking.
“So what about the past things you’ve put on your website They were so useful!!” I hear some of you saying, and well, I got you covered! (Not)
Just use web archive.