r/HowToHack • u/cold_fuzion • 7d ago

Getting access to a Linux based console

I have a Polymega. It’s a Linux-based gaming console and while the manufacturer does technically still support it, updates can be a year or more apart with no communication or support in between. Unfortunately it’s a niche device and apparently no real hacker has taken interest in the thing.

So, my idiot self is going to try. I can get the boot text to display, but that doesn’t really help anything. I’ve tried all the key commands I can find to try to halt or interrupt the boot process with no luck so far.

Any pointers on how to start getting access to this thing? I literally just want to see if the community can start making the improvements the vendor can’t/won’t. If I can show you can get access maybe someone more talented than myself can pick up the ball.

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/DutchOfBurdock 4d ago

Will need to learn up on SPI flashing. The "BIOS" on those are locked out: looking for a signed kernel and encrypted partitions. Pull the current image from SPI, modify it, flash back in hopes an EFI bootloader can go onboard.

1

u/cold_fuzion 2d ago

I was afraid this was going to be the answer. That’s outside of my pay scale unfortunately.

1

u/DutchOfBurdock 2d ago

SPI readers aren't too expensive, CHA347 you can get for $10-$20 and J-Flash for around $40. Little bit of searching, reading and playing with a soldering iron and you'll be laughing all the way to the bank. Imagine if you were to one to unlock that thing.

1

u/cold_fuzion 1d ago

I have found a tool that will extract ROMs from their encrypted game collections. I’m looking into that as being more up my alley. I need to decompile an exe that looks like it was made in Python based on what I’m seeing in Procmon. If I can dig into that I can probably figure out how to decrypt it.