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FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#111

Post by tptacek »

swamp40 wrote: post #97
lotu wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you realize that the counterfeiters operate in such a fashion and in regions of the world that make sueing them impossible. Which suck because it means FTDI really has no options to enforce their IP rights that don't hurt consumers.

Nobody would fault FTDI for releasing new drivers that don't work with counterfeit parts. That alone would cause enough inconvenience to manufacturers to make sure they use legitimate parts. It's the (unethical) bricking of the parts that has everybody up in arms.

Tangentially: people totally would fault FTDI for releasing drivers that don't work with counterfeit parts. See: Apple detecting and rejecting counterfeit iPhone cables.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#112

Post by osivertsson »

simias wrote: post #104
npsimons wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this causes a major and publicly visible malfunction in some important device/installation/machinery, of course with no harm done to any persons I actually hope that this does cause an event drastic enough so that FTDI will have blood on its hands that ends in jail time for management and engineers. I don't want to see anyone hurt, especially not innocent third parties, but fuck FTDI, fuck the management who o…

Come on, take a deep breath. We're talking about bricking a serial to USB chip, not something worth shedding blood really. As far as unethical behavior by corporation is concerned I really not think it's even noteworthy.

What if this chip is part of the maintenance interface on a medical device at your local hospital? Meaning regular maintenance can no longer be done, rendering the device unable to help people?

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#113

Post by glibgil »

geographomics wrote: post #107
Someone1234 wrote: post #38

Microsoft should revoke the driver's signature via their next CRL update, so that it refuses to install (effectively making the drivers unsigned). It is acting maliciously and will break consumer's hardware, even hardware which doesn't contain any FTDI chips. If FTDI have an issue with a company ripping off their IP then go sue that company. But what they're doing is catching consumers in the firing line, who will wi…

Can we be sure that FTDI has programmed their driver with malicious intent? It may be that this an accidental side-effect of using counterfeit hardware with a genuine driver. Without access to the source code or a well-reversed disassembly of the FTDI driver, and a good grasp of the logic used in the counterfeit chip, one cannot be certain about this. And surely not to the extent of urging Microsoft to revoke driver…

I don't know if you can be sure, but almost certainly MS can.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#114

Post by msandford »

nitrogen wrote: post #81
smilekzs wrote: post #45

FT232 isn't very stable to begin with. CP210x is a much better alternative from my experience with FT232, PL2303 and CP210x.

Does the CP210x support operation at exactly 250kbaud? I've previously recommended FTDI-based adapters for DMX-512 control of lights. The other adapters I tried can only do 232k or 256k or some fixed number, not 250k.

Looks like it: http://www.silabs.com/products/interface/usbtouart/Pages/usb...

USB 2.0 compliant, full-speed (12 Mbps)

No external crystal required

Up to 1024 Bytes of EEPROM or OTP ROM

User-programmable custom Baud rates

Supports all modem interface signals

Baud Rates: up to 2 Mbps

Industrial temperature –40 to +85 °C

Datasheet:

http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/CP21...

UPDATE: On this PDF (page 18) it talks about how to set the baud rates. I think it defaults to "normal" serial baud rates but there's a way to modify the baud rate choices. At least that's how it reads to me.

http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/AN14...

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#115

Post by FigBug »

a1k0n wrote: post #87
FigBug wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if it supports non-standard baud rates on OS X> (Maybe Linux too?) I use FTDI because I can easily run comm ports at 3 Mbit/s. OSX (and I think Linux too) does support comm ports at non common baud rates. I'm looking for a way to add decently quick USB comms to a device without writing my own drivers. FTDI seems like the only option. Using HID is limited to 64KB/s.

You could always just use libusb to talk to your device (e.g., an AVR w/ V-USB or another microcontroller with actual USB support) from user space, instead of fooling around with fake COM ports.

That's probably what I should do. I bought a book on usb and started learning a bit about the protocol. Are there any good Libusb projects that would be a good example? Most I was were for using libusb to talk to an existing device class. I'd like a sample that contains both device and host?

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#116

Post by cschneid »

Can somebody give me the background here? What is a FTDI FT232s?

It appears to be a fairly low level USB controller chip? Is this chip (or its ilk) in every kind of usb device? What is the impact of this?

Most of this article dives in with a fair bit of preexisting knowledge - can somebody fill me in?

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#117

Post by anigbrowl »

osivertsson wrote: post #112
simias wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, take a deep breath. We're talking about bricking a serial to USB chip, not something worth shedding blood really. As far as unethical behavior by corporation is concerned I really not think it's even noteworthy.

What if this chip is part of the maintenance interface on a medical device at your local hospital? Meaning regular maintenance can no longer be done, rendering the device unable to help people?

Then the manufacturer is responsible for using junk parts to save money.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#119

Post by 0x0 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #117
osivertsson wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if this chip is part of the maintenance interface on a medical device at your local hospital? Meaning regular maintenance can no longer be done, rendering the device unable to help people?

Then the manufacturer is responsible for using junk parts to save money.

As mentioned elsewhere, it's almost impossible to make sure parts like these aren't counterfeit. And the parts aren't "junk", they're just unlicensed.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#120

Post by michaelt »

wtallis wrote: post #73
sliverstorm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shares the critical element of diffuse responsibility . Everyone can half-reasonably shrug their shoulders and say, "Well it isn't MY fault". If a Sony product happens to have a fake FTDI chip in it, this is FTDI's way of incentivizing Sony (via angry customers) to manage their supply chain, because as you say there's an incentive even for Sony to cut costs where they can- perhaps by turning a blind eye when they…

> Everyone, in demanding the lowest price no matter what (all the way up the supply chain) bears part of the blame. Your use of the word "blame" implies that you think there's some wrongdoing on the part of someone other than FTDI. As far as I can see, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the production and use of these clone chips except that they are being labeled with FTDI's trademark. They're piggybacking on FTD…

  Your use of the word "blame" implies that you think 
  there's some wrongdoing on the part of someone other than 
  FTDI.
I don't see it as particularly controversial to say that, when someone selling an item claims it's a certain brand, I expect that to be the truth.

For example, if I buy an apple iphone I expect to get an apple iphone and if the supplier instead sends me a fake I regard that as wrongdoing on the part of the supplier.

Likewise, if a designer has specified an FTDI part and someone in the supply chain has substituted a fake, I'd regard that as wrongdoing.

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