231–240 of 315 posts
Feel free to ask "Suzhou Supereal Microelectronics" for a working driver for your counterfeit device.
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You completely missed the point. The driver cannot possibly know the difference between a chip falsely sold as being an FTDI chip, and one that is compatible without being mislabeled.
I got your point now. But then my comment was trying to point out that a "compatible chip" isn't really competing if its branding is deceitful. Whether it's possible for a driver to tell the difference between counterfeit and legitimate compatible chips isn't really relevant here. Besides, any legitimate compatible chip vendor will need to have their own VID, which also means they need to develop their own compatible…
Unless there's a valid patent at issue (and nobody's mentioned a patent at all), there is nothing about the chips themselves that violates any law.
Defending vigilantism is disgusting enough when you have a colorable argument that the target of your act is the only one harmed, and is actually guilty of some sort of legal violation.
Here, however, you're defending vigilante destruction of the property of end-users who bought a product with a chip in it that, without the user's knowledge, may or may not have passed through the hands of someone who may or may not have labeled or described it deceptively.
The deceptive party may not even exist, and even if they do, they are not the victim of the vigilante justice. A user who may not have even heard of FTDI is the victim.
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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…
It shouldn't matter what their intent was. If the new version of a network driver accidentally started DDOSing servers, it should also be pulled, regardless of whether the vendor did it on purpose.
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Honest question: are you participating in this thread as a greenbean because you want to hide your identity from harassment from those who disagree with your unpopular opinion, or because you want to hide the fact that you are affiliated with FTDI?
Honestly? I rotate accounts on most major sites periodically. It is a tinfoil-hat foible, a way to distance myself from the exceedingly dumb things I have almost certainly said in years past. Unfortunately for me, I chose today to rotate. I don't work for FTDI; I'm not even British. But I did build that Adafruit altoid tin MP3 player eight years ago, which used a FT232. Why am I wasting my time on this argument? I do…
Let's take this from another point of view:
You purchase a device or some piece of hardware for a project which becomes useful to others and you decide to make the project marketable and release your own line. You source your components and one of them happens to have an FTDI chip that you believe legitimately came from the company. Your project is accepted by others and everyone is happy.
Then one day, your supplier decides to switch out a source for the chip in one of the components of your project to one that's cheaper (the supplier may not suspect these are counterfeit). You don't see any difference either as you haven't tested it with the latest driver, which may not be out yet. The project is now shipped.
A new driver is released. An overwhelming number of customers now hit your support system saying the update has stopped your project cold. Rolling back the update has no effect. You don't know which component caused the problem as your project uses several from different suppliers. It may take days or even weeks to track down the problem, but meanwhile, your customers grow angry.
This is now your fault and you're left holding the bag.
This scenario need not be hypothetical, as this is just the same as GM "fixing" a problem with their ignition switch that has already claimed lives, but leaving the part number the same. This makes recalling a nightmare as there's now no way to tell which cars are affected until the switch fails or someone dies again.
Just the same as there's no way to tell which one of your project's components carry counterfeit chips and you need to issue a recall for potentially 100K units since you don't know which ones carry a counterfeit and there's no software fix anymore as the chip is bricked. Your project is also potentially being used in mission critical infrastructure that cannot be shut down to do a test without costing a lot of money. Better hope no one follows "best practices" and updates the driver as it may also contain a security fix.
FTDI is well within their rights to protect their product. But are they doing the ethical thing by costing unsuspecting customers and potentially hundreds of other businesses that rely on their product valuable time and money? All for not knowing that somewhere along the supply chain, someone cut a few corners and got their chips from a counterfeiter? Should they be victims twice; once by the counterfeiter and again by the company?
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It shouldn't matter what their intent was. If the new version of a network driver accidentally started DDOSing servers, it should also be pulled, regardless of whether the vendor did it on purpose.
If the counterfeit FTDI chips are using FTDI's registered USB vendor ID (I assume they are, otherwise the driver wouldn't recognize them?) I think the blame falls solely on the counterfeit chip makers.
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I got your point now. But then my comment was trying to point out that a "compatible chip" isn't really competing if its branding is deceitful. Whether it's possible for a driver to tell the difference between counterfeit and legitimate compatible chips isn't really relevant here. Besides, any legitimate compatible chip vendor will need to have their own VID, which also means they need to develop their own compatible…
VIDs are not legally protected marks. Unless there's a valid patent at issue (and nobody's mentioned a patent at all), there is nothing about the chips themselves that violates any law. Defending vigilantism is disgusting enough when you have a colorable argument that the target of your act is the only one harmed, and is actually guilty of some sort of legal violation. Here, however, you're defending vigilante destru…
Again, I'm merely trying to express my opinion that this way of making compatible chips is a very shady practice (and unlike that original comment I replied to was implying, typical market competition). Most users didn't choose the chip just because it's compatible and cheaper. They bought it thinking it's the legitimate FTDI chips with (very specific) guarantees from its manufacturer's datasheet.
I'm designing an Arduino-compatible board[1] that supposed to have an FTDI chip for ease of design. This whole thing makes me reconsider it, what would be the best way to replace it some other solution? Do I have any real option if I want to stay within the Open Parts Library[2]? [1]: https://www.hwtrek.com/product_preview/VTZUZV9k [2]: http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Open_parts_library
Best way would be designing it with GENUINE parts instead of planning to populate your own boards with ebay specials.
So I'd rather not use FTDI altogether, if I can avoid it.
I'm yet to see someone who does mass production from ebay sourced components (bad price, not enough quantity). If I get parts from Digikey or Mouser, how can I check that they are genuine? I trust them more, but is there really a logical reason to trust any reseller in this sense? Screwed either way.
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If the counterfeit FTDI chips are using FTDI's registered USB vendor ID (I assume they are, otherwise the driver wouldn't recognize them?) I think the blame falls solely on the counterfeit chip makers.
Why? The counterfeits aren't seeking USB compliance certification, they're just trying to provide 100% compatibility. Are you saying that reverse engineering and spoofing for the sake of compatibility is wrong? Or do you think that USB vendor IDs are covered by some trademark?
The only law broken by the counterfeiters is trademark violation for printing the FTDI logo on their chips. That's it! Everything else they did was legal. Otherwise, Intel and AMD would be bricking CPUs right now.
Reverse engineering is legal. Emulation is legal. Creating hardware that's compatible with another vendor's software is legal. Flashing your hardware with another vendors firmware is legal. Modifying hardware you purchased from a vendor is legal. Modifying software you purchased from a vendor is legal.
etc... etc...
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They change the PID to zero, which means Windows won't associate it with FTDI or any other driver. You have to jump through some manual hoops to undo it, which is something most people can't do. So for all intents and purposes it is bricked, a.k.a "locked out".
Most HN'ers seem to agree it is OK for FTDI to prevent their own drivers from working with the fakes, right? The fact that there are no OTHER drivers that are compatible (no matter what the pid is) with the fakes isn't their problem, is it?
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VIDs are not legally protected marks. Unless there's a valid patent at issue (and nobody's mentioned a patent at all), there is nothing about the chips themselves that violates any law. Defending vigilantism is disgusting enough when you have a colorable argument that the target of your act is the only one harmed, and is actually guilty of some sort of legal violation. Here, however, you're defending vigilante destru…
I agree that punishing the users of the product that contains the fake chip is a very bad idea. Again, I'm merely trying to express my opinion that this way of making compatible chips is a very shady practice (and unlike that original comment I replied to was implying, typical market competition). Most users didn't choose the chip just because it's compatible and cheaper. They bought it thinking it's the legitimate F…
Eh....... Lots of people knew/know they are/were getting counterfeit chips. It's certainly shady, but if I were a chinese company making these, I'd simply not use the logo anymore and then sue the pants off FTDI.