Viva Xocolatl
Senior Member
Seeing the panic that has spread about people hacking animal crossing I feel I have to clarify some things to you.
Hacking in the animal crossing games has existedsince forever. If you are old enough you probably remember Wild Wolrd. I was a ?hacker?myself in City folk. And in new leaf it has existed for a while now, don?t know why people began with the panic so suddenly.
So what really means hacking? Well, people with enough knowledge can do anything, but the truth is most people don?t know much about hacking and only use premade tools that use exploits to modify the save files of the game. Not the game itself. And of course you can only modify save files to which you have access to. Let me explain to you how it works. There are two methods.
In the first one they download and copy the tools to their sd card, they activated the tools using the spider exploit, these tools creates a save file you can manage, they take the save file from the sd card and then upload it to their computers, modify it and inject them again in the sd. With this method they can pretty much do everything they want with the save file.
Or in the other method you just activate the tools and directly while playing modify the game using the spider. But so far the tools that can be used with this method are limited and harmless, and usually they have to reload the game for the changes to appear. So I?m pretty sure they can?t even do it while playing with someone.
The spider exploit was a bug that allowed to load files from the sd card using a vulnerability in webkit browser of 3DS. Nintendo already fixed this bug in the last update. So if you updated recently is impossible so far to use these tools because there is no way to remove this update. *sobs*
So how they modify their save files? Usually you just dupe items, move stuff in your town, spawn items, max bank accounts and medals, modify neighbors. And the only risk is probably corrupting or ruining your save file. Hacking with this method usually doesn?t harm the software or the hardware, just the save files that you are modifying if you mess up. And there are not viruses, so you can?t get a thing playing with people.
So is almost impossible, and it has never happened in any game that people can actually erase or mess other people?s save files. Back in wild world there was something called seeds(that worked like flower seeds exactly) that were modified items that ?planted? unwanted objects in other people towns. But Nintendo fixed that issue long ago, any strange object is instantly removed from your pockets, so hackers have not being able to create something similar to those seeds. So hopefully they never will.
Now about the dream addresses that can be downloaded and used as town. Apparently is possible, but not for everyone, just experience hackers. And again is just a copy of a save file. Not your town. And I?m pretty sure they can?t erase the dream town because those are uploaded to a server that has to be managed by Nintendo. They will have to hack the servers to do such thing, not an easy task. They can download the dreams because, well, we can all download the dreams technically. The difference is that they can save them and play with them. Probably if they find some harm in what the hackers are doing, Nintendo will do something. So far is pretty harmless. So yes it pretty much sucks to have your town copied and used by someone else. But that is it.
About the items that can?t be removed from your inventory it is true that it was discussed.
So far no one has done it! The discussion pretty much ended like this. Even the comment was removed.
If they are wise they won?t actually do it. Because as they say Nintendo is going to force them to update so they won?t be able to hack anymore. But still, just try not to pick up any strange objects when going to someone?s town. You are safe in the island because duh! If the item can?t be dropped how are they going to give it to you? Again it is very limited what they can?t and can do.
I?m not an expert, so if you want to look about this issues yourself I strongly recommend you to read the discussions where you can download this tools.
Hacking in the animal crossing games has existedsince forever. If you are old enough you probably remember Wild Wolrd. I was a ?hacker?myself in City folk. And in new leaf it has existed for a while now, don?t know why people began with the panic so suddenly.
So what really means hacking? Well, people with enough knowledge can do anything, but the truth is most people don?t know much about hacking and only use premade tools that use exploits to modify the save files of the game. Not the game itself. And of course you can only modify save files to which you have access to. Let me explain to you how it works. There are two methods.
In the first one they download and copy the tools to their sd card, they activated the tools using the spider exploit, these tools creates a save file you can manage, they take the save file from the sd card and then upload it to their computers, modify it and inject them again in the sd. With this method they can pretty much do everything they want with the save file.
Or in the other method you just activate the tools and directly while playing modify the game using the spider. But so far the tools that can be used with this method are limited and harmless, and usually they have to reload the game for the changes to appear. So I?m pretty sure they can?t even do it while playing with someone.
The spider exploit was a bug that allowed to load files from the sd card using a vulnerability in webkit browser of 3DS. Nintendo already fixed this bug in the last update. So if you updated recently is impossible so far to use these tools because there is no way to remove this update. *sobs*
So how they modify their save files? Usually you just dupe items, move stuff in your town, spawn items, max bank accounts and medals, modify neighbors. And the only risk is probably corrupting or ruining your save file. Hacking with this method usually doesn?t harm the software or the hardware, just the save files that you are modifying if you mess up. And there are not viruses, so you can?t get a thing playing with people.
So is almost impossible, and it has never happened in any game that people can actually erase or mess other people?s save files. Back in wild world there was something called seeds(that worked like flower seeds exactly) that were modified items that ?planted? unwanted objects in other people towns. But Nintendo fixed that issue long ago, any strange object is instantly removed from your pockets, so hackers have not being able to create something similar to those seeds. So hopefully they never will.
Now about the dream addresses that can be downloaded and used as town. Apparently is possible, but not for everyone, just experience hackers. And again is just a copy of a save file. Not your town. And I?m pretty sure they can?t erase the dream town because those are uploaded to a server that has to be managed by Nintendo. They will have to hack the servers to do such thing, not an easy task. They can download the dreams because, well, we can all download the dreams technically. The difference is that they can save them and play with them. Probably if they find some harm in what the hackers are doing, Nintendo will do something. So far is pretty harmless. So yes it pretty much sucks to have your town copied and used by someone else. But that is it.
About the items that can?t be removed from your inventory it is true that it was discussed.
So far no one has done it! The discussion pretty much ended like this. Even the comment was removed.
If they are wise they won?t actually do it. Because as they say Nintendo is going to force them to update so they won?t be able to hack anymore. But still, just try not to pick up any strange objects when going to someone?s town. You are safe in the island because duh! If the item can?t be dropped how are they going to give it to you? Again it is very limited what they can?t and can do.
I?m not an expert, so if you want to look about this issues yourself I strongly recommend you to read the discussions where you can download this tools.
