The late 3DS game Swapnote gets a late update, purportedly to stop hackers

The defunct 3DS Swapnote app received a late update 7 years after its closure, purportedly for the purpose of stopping hackers.

the Nintendo 3DS request Swapnote It has had a murky history, but even though its online functionality is still disabled, it received a remastered update in December. Two months later, the reasoning for this mysterious update could have been discovered.

Swapnote was a 3DS application in which players drew pictures in letters and sent them to their friends. Players used to be able to send them to users on their online friends list, but these days it can only be done wirelessly via StreetPass. In 2013, the online functionality of Swapnote closed in response to some people in Japan sharing inappropriate images with minors. The app’s functions were relegated to the wireless-only function, and the app had not received any updates since then, until December of last year. The patch notes stated that the update “fixed some problems, “but only now are those exact problems known.

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Two months after the mysterious Swapnote update in December, the Twitter user OatsDome has posted the reason for this update. According to OatmealDome, Nintendo had offered a reward for a fix to a bug in Swapnote’s code where a vulnerability in the StreetPass functionality could allow hackers to run “any code they wanted. “This was later fixed in the December update, and user MrNbaYoh received credit for detecting this flaw and received $ 1k for the reward.

Though Swapnote has passed its heyday, her title character Nikki is still used today as an attendance trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Considering that Nintendo shut down very quickly Swapnote In reaction to the crisis, it is a pleasant surprise to see Nintendo recognize the game in Nintendo’s largest crossover game. The December update also hinted at the possibility that Swapnote It could potentially be remastered on the Switch, but whether or not it would have online functionality like the 3DS version is up in the air. The Switch doesn’t have a StreetPass functionality inside of it, so if it were to have online functionality again, the big question would be how to avoid what happened to its predecessor.

Whatever happens in the future, this will probably be the last update the app will receive, unless another incident like this happens again. Even if Swapnote being remastered for Switch, the legacy carried by this 3DS app remains tragic. Should Nintendo decide to release Swapnote once again hopefully it won’t follow the same path as the original 3DS the version did.

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Source: OatsDome

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