Printer Doom

Got a Canon Pixma printer? Now you can play Doom on it:

The background of this story is much more sinister than one might think. This isn't so much about porting a 16-bit classic to a device that wasn't intended for it. The reason this was done is to once again highlight the desolate state of security in the so-called "Internet of Things".

What made the hack possible in this case was a vulnerability in the printer's firmware. This allows any attacker to remote inject malware via a forged firmware update, thanks to a broken crypto and lack of user authentication.

Read the full story on Contextis.

Vermeer Translated to English

Goat of Laxity has translated Vermeer to English. What is this Vermeer, you may ask? While it may be virtually unknown to the English speaking world, in Germany it is known as one of the most popular C64 business simulation games ever made. Now, 27 years after it's release by Ariolasoft, non-German speakers can finally enjoy this awesome game, too.

The story goes as follows: We are writing the year 1917. One of the greatest collection of art has disappeared in the turmoil of war. The former owner, a wealthy man named Walther von Grünschild, promises to bequeath his global business empire onto the one who can bring back the collection. 

Your task as a potential heir (players - up to 4 per game) is to buy back the valuable paintings from various auctions. To raise the money, you'll build your own empire, planting and trading coffee, tobacco, tea, and coacoa around the world.

Long story short, grab some friends (up to 4 players total) and check out this gem of a classic. Download here.

Hacking by Playing: Arbitrary Code Execution in Super Mario World

So this guy Masterjun goes about hacking a couple of minigames into Super Mario World by simply playing it, finishing the game in about 100 seconds in the process.

Explanations of what you just saw can be found here and here.

Even More Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation

Yess! Natalie Silvanovich returns to Chaos Computer Congress with another great talk on Tamagotchi hacking.



Also don't miss Natalie's talk from last year if you haven't seen it already.

Final Fantasy VII (NES) Revisited

In 2005 a Chinese pirate company named ShenZhen Nanjing Technology released an unlicensed port of Final Fantasy VII for the NES. It was barely playable, and was universally panned by the gaming community.

However, over the past four years a ROM hacker named Lugia2009 laboriously revisited the code. Now we finally get to enjoy the fruits of his work - a completely reworked FF VII for the NES that is largely faithful to the original. Being a huge fan of the FF series myself, I'm quite happy to hear the news.

The hack comes in form of a patch, so you'll need the "original" ROM as well. 

Below you'll find a WIP gameplay video from the end of last year, which should give you a rough idea of what to expect.

Ahh crap, too much Nintendo this week. Oh well, this is still a pirate game, so I guess that's ok ;)