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Some hackers start putting porn on their Switch profile pictures

Atheerios

Atheerios

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,172
As you may know Nintendo only allows selecting from a predefined list of images to use as profile picture. However, a certain tool was released yesterday that allows anybody to change their Nintendo Switch profile picture for any file you want.

Of course this is the internet so a few people started putting porn on their profile pictures.

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A concerned parent posted on Reddit about the situation telling about how he discovered the pornographic images on his child's game.

As this isn't supposed to happen, there's no way to report a profile on Nintendo Switch for their profile picture.
 
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Ferrio

Ferrio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,227
How does this even work? Something like this sounds like it'd be client side only. Like why would nintendo allow and upload/share feature when pictures were designed as a predefined list and only need to be referenced by id and not shared directly.

Is there even proof? That screenshot looks like it's the user's own profile.
 
Shark

Shark

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,126
Raleigh, NC
Buffum

Buffum

Member
Nov 17, 2017
193
Yikes. Hackers are really begging Nintendo to crack down even harder on hacked switches.
 
OP
OP
Atheerios

Atheerios

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,172
Ferrio said:
How does this even work? Something like this sounds like it'd be client side only. Like why would nintendo allow and upload/share feature when pictures were designed as a predefined list and only need to be referenced by id and not shared directly.
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Profile pictures are uploaded to the server. That's how you can see them on your phone with the Switch Online app.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
This pisses me off. I personally haven't played any online Switch games so I don't know if profiles are easily seen by all, but if they are, these people are possibility subjecting some really young children to this .
 
Pablo Mesa

Pablo Mesa

Banned
Nov 23, 2017
6,878
>people hacking stuff
>Going Online
I love that with every passing day dumb people gets the OG hackable Switchs banned. Natural selection works even for this
 
Ferrio

Ferrio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,227
Atheerios said:
Profile pictures are uploaded to the server. That's how you can see them on your phone with the Switch Online app.
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You wouldn't need to upload them though. it's a predefined list of images right, if that's so uploading them is just using up a ton of data for no reason. Extremely stupid design if so.
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
Smash-It Stan said:
What if their their being racist or something over voice chat?
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As far as I know, Switch games require you to report the person through the individual game in which the person was being abusive. Mario Odyssey, the example game, has no ability to report players because there is no way to directly interact with other people and the avatars aren't supposed to be user-generated. There is no way to report a person's profile from the Switch itself.

Remember, this is Nintendo we're talking about. Their online services are fifteen years behind the rest of the industry.
 

Deleted member 11370

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,494
That's not just "a tool". That's the devmenu.

It was leaked yesterday. It's the official Nintendo application to control the Switch from its very basic functions, like installing NSP apps. To say the Switch has been blown wide open is the understatement of the century. At this rate, we'll be seeing low-level access and control in the scale of the 3DS within a few weeks.

Needless to say, it's illegal to distribute that application (it's not homebrew!) and you'll get yourself banned as soon as Nintendo catches you toying with it.
 
The Pet of the Month

The Pet of the Month

Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
3,116
Amalthea
Good grief, I thought all profile avatars were just located in a .dll file but apparently the console uploads the client picture to the service?
Was Nintendo planning custom gamer pictures at some point?
 
Shark

Shark

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,126
Raleigh, NC
Imran said:
Oh, come off it. I'm not saying the results are good. It's just such an absurd thing.
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Yeah there's nothing to 'come off of'. It's disgusting. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're not a parent of a young kid so maybe you lack the perspective on this. People 'laughing' at something like this is why the behavior exists in the first place.
 
FrakEarth

FrakEarth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,327
Liverpool, UK
It probably exploits the Mii profile images, maybe those are calculated and uploaded client side based on your chosen Mii. They could move that server side to fix this easily.

Alternatively maybe this is evidence they were toying with the idea of custom avatars?
 
Smiles

Smiles

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,897
damn it Nintendo is going to over-react to fix this one, I mean they should fix it but they are going do something extra none of us want watch.
 
OP
OP
Atheerios

Atheerios

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,172
Smash-It Stan said:
Can't you just report their profile though? Is there no general report? What if their their being racist or something over voice chat?
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Splatoon 2 is the only game that supports voice chat for now so that's the only game with a report function (using the app).

There's no way to report people on the Switch itself.
 
Smash-It Stan

Smash-It Stan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,377
BDS said:
As far as I know, Switch games require you to report the person through the individual game in which the person was being abusive. Mario Odyssey, the example game, has no ability to report players because there is no way to directly interact with other people and the avatars aren't supposed to be user-generated. There is no way to report a person's profile from the Switch itself.

Remember, this is Nintendo we're talking about. Their online services are fifteen years behind the rest of the industry.
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So there's no like, clicking on a profile to even view it? No dashboard or friends list? I dont own a switch and never touched my Wii/Wii-U that much to know. I figured after 3 consoles they would've been up to date sans the voice chat thing.
 
Dark_Castle

Dark_Castle

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,147
Shark said:
Yeah there's nothing to 'come off of'. It's disgusting. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're not a parent of a young kid so maybe you lack the perspective on this. People 'laughing' at something like this is why the behavior exists in the first place.
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Dark humor. It's a kind of humor that shouldn't be funny but is for some people.
 
GuitarGuruu

GuitarGuruu

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,645
Oh man what a mess, hopefully Nintendo has some sort of self detection system about this kind of stuff.
 
Chettlar

Chettlar

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,604
Shark said:
Yeah there's nothing to 'come off of'. It's disgusting. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're not a parent of a young kid so maybe you lack the perspective on this. People 'laughing' at something like this is why the behavior exists in the first place.
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It is possible to laugh at something you find disgusting.
 
FrakEarth

FrakEarth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,327
Liverpool, UK
Smash-It Stan said:
So there's no like, clicking on a profile to even view it? No dashboard or friends list? I dont own a switch and never touched my Wii/Wii-U that much to know. I figured after 3 consoles they would've been up to date sans the voice chat thing.
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There's a profile page you can get to from your friends list.. but there's no way to pull this random balloon mode users profile up from Mario Odyssey as far as I'm aware.

Other games do allow you to jump to profiles though - Fortnite does
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
Smash-It Stan said:
So there's no like, clicking on a profile to even view it? No dashboard or friends list? I dont own a switch and never touched my Wii/Wii-U that much to know. I figured after 3 consoles they would've been up to date sans the voice chat thing.
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No, there's currently no way to view a person's Switch profile from an individual game. (Edit: Apparently you can do this in Fortnite) I believe it's possible to send a friend request to someone in certain games, but Mario Odyssey isn't one of them, because you don't actually interact with the other players (their avatar simply appears on the balloon they leave for you when you play their balloon hunt). And once you are friends with someone, there's no way to report their profile. You have to report them in a specific game, like Splatoon 2, and "abusive avatar" isn't a reporting option in any game because avatars aren't supposed to be customizable. It's not clear if Nintendo can even see the person's avatar if you were to report them for something else.
 
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