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Some sources on Twitter have shared Nintendo has issued multiple DMCA takedown requests to GitHub, which includes the popular Lockpick tool. Lockpick is a tool that allows users to dump keys from their own Nintendo Switch consoles. It’s claimed that other repositories have been taken down, but further information is yet to be shared.

We’ll provide further updates on this matter as more information is made available later.

[Twitter]

About videocookies

videocookies

Gamer by day, gamer by night as well, (I guess), and occasionally GoNintendo writer by like the evening (Eastern Time, maybe it's by night for you, who knows!)

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Comments (5)

conangiga

11M ago

Google didn't help me so: What even are keys?


the_crimson_lure

11M ago

@conangiga

I was also curious and tried to find out, but wasn't able to easily find much info about what you would do with keys.

I found one explanation saying they could be used to basically store your games off the switch but still keep them playable.

I found other info stating you could use keys to copy the firmware off the switch, and decrypt game files.

It's strange that it's easier too find posts up-in-arms about this than it is to find out why you would want to do this.

Either way, as far as I can tell this software didn't do anything illegal, but at the same time it's not hard to figure out why Nintendo wouldn't like it.

Edit: Ooookay, so I found out both keys and firmware are needed to emulate Switch games. No, pirates wouldn't be dumping keys from their own Switch, but keys would need to come from *some* Switch and someone also needs to dump them.

Seems like a disingenuous tweet by Simon Aarans.

Edited 1 time

kuribo

11M ago

Private keys are still the property of Nintendo, even if you own the hardware.

“pirates aren't gonna be sourcing keys from their own consoles”
Yes. Yes they are and do.


yoshi747

11M ago

Misinformation in these comments Hurt my brain so much I made an account just to comment.

For 99% of people emulating switch yes this does nothing. You do not need your own private keys. It's insanely easy to find someone else's which will work perfectly fine for your emulation needs. Every tutorial you find will give you the keys. This stops nothing. Not to mention none of nintendo's code is being used so these dmca's will eventually fail.

Simon is 100% right, for anyone who wants to pirate through emulation this stops nothing. Not disingenuous at all.


kkirbatski

11M ago

Also wanting to add further clarification. When you download a game from the eStore, it's encrypted with a key unique to your switch. In order to play the game, you need this key. That's why you can pre-order and download the game ahead of release, but not play it. Your console doesn't have the key. So when the game does come out, all you have to grab is the key. This means that if you want to backup your games, you'll need the encryption key. Lockpick gives you the encryption key that Nintendo gave to you to play the game.