Just before the new year, a team of hackers managed to dump the Wii's encryption keys allowing custom code to have full access to the console's hardware. However, you still needed a modified (i.e. chipped) console to run such code via writeable media such as DVD-Rs. Now, someone else has managed to run custom code without the need of a hardware mod. In other words, you don't have to open up your Wii to run it!

Apparently with a copy of Zelda Twilight Princess, Segher and Bushing have discovered a new exploit that crashes the Wii so that it allows them to run their own code. The good news is that all they used was a modified save file for the game. The bad news is, the save file isn't so easy to create because once you've changed its contents, you have to sign it with three encryption keys, one of which is unique on everyone's console. Furthermore, only four lines of code has been successfully run using this method so I think they're still some time away from creating anything useful with this exploit.

Still, I think this is good progress towards a software mod. I'm not exactly an expert at this sort of stuff but I say this because I think the encryption key dump from the last hack was what made this exploit discovery possible. After all, the keys were needed here to re-authenticate the modified save file.

However, the "problem" with the last hack is you still require a chipped console but now we're sort of pass that hurdle too with this latest software hack. So very good progress is being made thanks to the hard work of these guys. I'm sure this will save a lot of time for anyone trying to come up with an accessible software hack.

Hopefully they or someone else will manage to make the Wii region free with this new exploit. Homebrewn software is pretty much fully open on the Wii now after the keys got dumped with the help of a modded console but, someone has yet to come up with a fully working software exploit or make the Wii region free so perhaps there will be a team looking at that next. Who knows.

So until there's more news about what this exploit is capable of, don't sell those copies of Twilight Princess! Or at least until Nintendo decides to patch the firmware to prevent this.