Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

eevblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 131 posts

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#31

Post by nnnnni »

mwill wrote: post #25

It's interesting watching this play out with reputable, legal companies. Something similar happened earlier in the year with Nintendo 3DS flashcards, however the software was not just disabling the flashcard, but would brick the users 3DS. Their response was essentially, "Yeah? What are you going to do about it?" and promising to replace the 3DS of anyone who could prove they were using a legitimate card.

...which is a really great way to get budding hobbyist programmers to move to a different piece of hardware.

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#32

Post by serf »

kstrauser wrote: post #5
Igglyboo wrote: post #4

Good, destroying a device you legally purchased is unacceptable, whether you knew it was a counterfeit or not. It's not their job to police that kind of stuff. Failing to work with counterfeit devices is completely fine and would have been a much better approach than straight up bricking them.

And that's assuming it's actually counterfeit. Can you imagine the storm if "isCounterfeit()" turned out to be less than 100.000000% accurate?

Yeah, but looking at the physical differences between the chips it's probably not something that difficult to ensure. The counterfeit chips are built in a totally different fashion, with different size and materials, on a different process tech.

http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/FTDI-FT232RL-real-vs-fake-supere...

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#33

Post by drzaiusapelord »

jameshart wrote: post #19
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have already damaged my equipment. I don't give two shits about hurting a corporation's feelings. They've already hurt my physical items. Once they've gone down that path, it's now an actionable tort. I can't believe their legal team approved of this. They need to be made an example of.

What specific piece of equipment was affected? (not doubting - just curious, as I've not come across specific examples of people being affected by this driver)

This guy in /r/sysadmin claims 35 devices nuked:

http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2k6wjk/fyi_ftdi_de...

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#34

Post by serf »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #27
hollerith wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No equipment was destroyed by the old driver: the old driver set a word in the firmware of counterfeit devices to zero. All that needs to happen to reverse what some comment-writers are calling "bricking" is to set the word back to its original value. The new version of the driver could probably do that.

I'm not an expert on USB protocol, so I'm not sure how your suggestion would work. The driver bricks it in the sense that the Product ID of the device is wiped (zero'd). As a result, the OS doesn't know what to do with it or what drivers to connect it with. Is there some signature to the USB device that would allow the OS to know what to do with the affected gizmos? Or do you have to explicitly tell the system "no, r…

It's an eight step process.

http://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/2k0i7x/watch_that_w...

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#35

Post by mwill »

nnnnni wrote: post #31
mwill wrote: post #25

It's interesting watching this play out with reputable, legal companies. Something similar happened earlier in the year with Nintendo 3DS flashcards, however the software was not just disabling the flashcard, but would brick the users 3DS. Their response was essentially, "Yeah? What are you going to do about it?" and promising to replace the 3DS of anyone who could prove they were using a legitimate card.

...which is a really great way to get budding hobbyist programmers to move to a different piece of hardware.

Or try to, anyway.

At the time they were the only functioning solution (They may still be? I'm out of the loop now) and everything else on the market were clones of their cards.

It was almost like a hostage situation with the community, a lot of people hating on the company, while hyping up their next update.

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#36

Post by Alupis »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #21
expr- wrote: post #12

I disagree with the consensus. It's their driver, it operates in a specific way, perhaps responding to possible device output. Using it with non-compatible parts advertising themselves as compatible and any resulting behaviour, including unwanted, is the responsibility of the user. To play it safe, don't use any drivers with incompatible hardware.

That's reasonable, until they start deliberately destroying my property. Then its a civil case. Do we have any evidence either way, deliberate or accidental?

Just playing devil's advocate:

Do you have any evidence specifically that their driver destroyed your chip, or could there be reasonable doubt that your counterfeit chip died? For a class-action suit that a lot of people seem to be talking about, you would have to have evidence that this was what did your chip in. And getting enough people (who appear to be mostly end-users) to submit the necessary evidence could be quite the task (most probably will just assume the device croaked one day and toss it out).

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#37

Post by [deleted] »

nnnnni wrote: post #31
mwill wrote: post #25

It's interesting watching this play out with reputable, legal companies. Something similar happened earlier in the year with Nintendo 3DS flashcards, however the software was not just disabling the flashcard, but would brick the users 3DS. Their response was essentially, "Yeah? What are you going to do about it?" and promising to replace the 3DS of anyone who could prove they were using a legitimate card.

...which is a really great way to get budding hobbyist programmers to move to a different piece of hardware.

[deleted]

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#38

Post by serf »

Alupis wrote: post #36
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reasonable, until they start deliberately destroying my property. Then its a civil case. Do we have any evidence either way, deliberate or accidental?

Just playing devil's advocate: Do you have any evidence specifically that their driver destroyed your chip, or could there be reasonable doubt that your counterfeit chip died? For a class-action suit that a lot of people seem to be talking about, you would have to have evidence that this was what did your chip in. And getting enough people (who appear to be mostly end-users) to submit the necessary evidence could be…

It's very easy to spot, as the driver 'bricks' the chip by resetting it's PID.

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#39

Post by userbinator »

It's also important to keep in mind that the driver bricked not only counterfeits that were illegally marked with FTDI's name, but legal clones (reverse-engineered reimplementations which are not marked as being from FTDI) that had the same slight difference in behaviour from the original.

Re: FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

#40

Post by smtddr »

Alupis wrote: post #11

Seems a lot of the posts on that thread are from HN visitors, many may not even have the equipment/chip in discussion. While it's great FTI reversed their decision (I'd hate to see this sort of thing become wide-spread), it's a little off-putting that so many non-users of the chip could force a company into something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

(funny that I kinda end up invoking Godwin law)

Post reply on HN