FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s • Hacker News Board

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#251

Post by Tomte » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 7:46 AM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #30

spiritplumber wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they have to say is "We write our drivers to support our chips, if it messes with other chips that incorrectly identify as ours, that's just the way it went, it'd cost us extra to support them and why should we help our competitors". Practically impossible to prove otherwise.

"All they have to say is "We write our drivers to support our chips, if it messes with other chips that incorrectly identify as ours, that's just the way it went, it'd cost us extra to support them and why should we help our competitors"." Buzz, thanks for playing. :) That won't get them out of discovery for various torts, and the discovery (emails, code, etc) is likely to show they did this on purpose. It's not prac…

I wish German civil law had something like your discovery process.

Over here the claimant probably would not be able to peek into the defendant's stuff.

Especially if he can't specifically claim "on march 10th, Mr. Meier sent an email to Mr. Schmidt discussing topic X".

A simple "hand over your mails about the matter at hand" would be ruled a "fishing expedition", not admissible as a motion to discover.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#252

Post by zem » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 7:46 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #55

13 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the case here. Fake FTDI chips are going to be used in absolutely everything, products from Alibaba to name brand professional stuff. It's pretty much guaranteed not everybody has complete control of their semiconductor supply chain, and even if they do there's an incentive for all companies to cut costs where they can. A consumer buying a product doesn't make an informed decision about the type of ser…

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…

and one can only hope that sony et al manage their supply chain by switching to a different chip entirely

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#253

Post by sigterm » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 7:47 AM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #240

sigterm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. 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.

Really? I can understand people might want to cheap out for personal projects. But there's no way I'll use it knowingly at work.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#254

Post by simias » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 7:59 AM UTC

npsimons wrote: post #124

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.

We're talking about bricking a serial to USB chip, not something worth shedding blood really. We're talking infrastructure: if this was a civil engineer designing a road to spontaneously create potholes that would flatten tires on certain brands of vehicles, they'd be put in the slammer post haste. FDTI has no idea where their chips and drivers will end up, and as designers of such low-level infrastructure type devic…

> Destroying other people's hardware to try to ensure your profits? No, not unethical or noteworthy at all.

I said it was unethical.

I say it might not be noteworthy when you compare it to business who are actually hurting human beings right now: companies who destroy ecosystems, companies who employ underpayed workforce in sweatshops to increase their profit margin. Companies who sell tools and weapons used to oppress people in authoritarian countries. I could go on for a long time enumerating the list of unethical behaviors in the industry before I hit the "releasing drivers that willingly brick IP infringing copies". So yes I find your reaction a bit over the top even if you're right that they deserve to get some backlash for this type of shoddy behavior.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#255

Post by dspillett » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 8:06 AM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #134

geographomics wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They basically admit it on their license page: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/FTDriverLicenceTerms.htm "Use of the Software as a driver for, or installation of the Software onto, a component that is not a Genuine FTDI Component, including without limitation counterfeit components, MAY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE THAT COMPONENT."

A statement being in a license does not imply intent, it is there to protect them if they accidentally do damage. "may damage rip-offs" doesn't mean "will intentionally damage rip-offs", it means "we won't care if it accidentally does damage rip-offs, we can't test out code against every rip-off on the market, you paid your money you took your choice".

Of course if they have deliberately broken people's hardware that is a different matter, that clause in the license does not give them permission to in any way (either by my reading of the wording, or my understanding of how the law usually works in such cases).

Of course they should roll back the drive and investigate, but what if the problem is due to a new feature that can't be implemented some other way, and there is no way to detect a "genuine" chip? Should users of their chips do without a feature (or have to mess around opting in) because some other manufacturer's chip has a problem with it?

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#256

Post by igmac » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 8:16 AM UTC

Sounds like a company about to loose very badly in court, and who will shortly have to write out an apology on their cheque book.

Intentionally sabotaging customer equipment will lead to all sorts of data loss and consequential damages issues.

As @Someone1234 said below, FTDI needs to pursue legitimate channels to protect their IP.

Ouch...

Time for the CEO to reach for that third envelope and write to his successor.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#257

Post by Aissen » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 8:22 AM UTC

So how does this work ? Hector Martin gives us a glimpse:

Commented reverse engineering assembly: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525126731431038977

So they are rewriting the USB Product ID in EEPROM, only on "fake" chips, hence the Windows USB driver doesn't recognize the device anymore. It should be reprogrammable using the right tools. (https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525134266112303104)

What allows them to do things differently on different chips: "Figured out the real/clone FTDI difference: EEPROM is written in 32bit units. Even writes are ignored (buffered), odds write both halves." https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525194603746426881

And some wisdom:

"For those unfamiliar with embedded engineering: most USB (and other) devices can be bricked if maliciously attacked." "Assume ALL devices are brickable by evil code unless proven otherwise. This isn't news. Most devices make no attempt to protect themselves." (https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525137221431463937 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525137463107272704)

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#258

Post by sigterm » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 8:27 AM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #238

wtallis wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Seems like there's a few people who don't seem to understand the difference between copyright, trademark, criminal and civil law (op above you included). 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. Cr…

Going with your example, if AMD uses "Core" or "Xeon" in the name of their chip, it is most likely infringing the trademark of Intel. But in this case, it's more like AMD is simply branding their chip with exact Intel product name and sold as if it's from Intel. I don't think this is a trademark issue any more, it's more like fraud.

Does anyone even know what entity designed and made the fake FTDI chip?

I find many people don't seem to understand what making compatible chip means. It's very common to have legitimate, drop in replacement for popular ICs. But this fake FTDI chip is certainly not the case here.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#259

Post by rasz_pl » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 8:39 AM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #242

rasz_pl wrote: post #231

Those devices are NOT bricked/broken! They are ABSOLUTELY FINE. You just need to use proper driver straight from the _real_ manufacturer - Supereal Microelectronics (or whatever). Feel free to ask "Suzhou Supereal Microelectronics" for a working driver for your counterfeit device.

You realize reverse engineering is legal and actually protected by law right? Tampering with other vendors' computer systems is not (in the software world that's called maleware). The "counterfeiting" issue is a trademark problem only. In other words, the only thing wrong here is that the Chinese manufacturer stamped FTDI on their chips. There's nothing in trademark law that says it's OK to use these tactics to comba…

Someone reverse engineered FTDI driver on the EEVBlog forum and its not specifically detecting fakes. Its doing EXACTLY SAME procedure without discrimination - it is issuing illegal (and ignored on real chip) write to eeprom.

There is no detection, just some fuzzing with illegal instructions.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#260

Post by rasz_pl » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 8:44 AM UTC

Vendan wrote: post #226

rasz_pl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best way would be designing it with GENUINE parts instead of planning to populate your own boards with ebay specials.

People are allowed to choose the parts they want to use. I call it voting with your wallet. Maybe FTDI will realize that people don't want to use their products when they pull stunts like this.

So basically "we will show FTDI by CONTINUING to not use their parts at all". People affected didnt want to use FTDI parts in the first place, they wanted fly by night $2 with free shipping special.