FTDI removes counterfeit-bricking driver from Windows Update

Post by deelowe » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 5:41 PM UTC

nraynaud wrote: post #41

That's a good lesson for people always wanting the famous brands. FTDI chips are more expensive and not better than the other ones, they need a special driver and they are subject to counterfeiting. You take a no-name one, and you have a standard stuff. It's a stupid USB to RS232, not a rocket control system, there should be no famous brand, it's the lowest of the commodities. That said, I do have an FTDI USB to seri…

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #84

wpietri wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. This looks like media coverage to me: http://www.zdnet.com/ftdi-admits-to-bricking-innocent-users-... The line of argument "I, as some random anonymous person on the internet, can't see X" doesn't do much for me. Lots of people can't see lots of things, but most of the time that turns out to be about failures of knowledge or imagination, not evidence that that what they're talking about is impossible. Further, I…

Not entirely sure what your argument was here, you sort of drifted into the weeds a bit. I think you meant to argue: "There is one source of media coverage, although it's largely just twitter comments. And just because something is difficult to prove doesn't mean it's not provable." Both are valid arguments. I don't count ZDnet as a very credible source of news, and in this case, some googling seems to show they are…

Post by technomancy » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 5:59 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #56

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

Good for them. I mean that. If they want to redesign their driver so it fails to work with non-genuine FTDI chips, go for it. Nobody will judge them. Heck if they want to show a message that informs the user they're using a fake, that's fine too. I think most people seemed to agree that bricking fakes was too far (and also could be considered illegal in some countries/areas). It also negatively impacted innocent part…

> and also could be considered illegal in some countries/areas Is there some country where it's legal to break somebody's property because you have a beef with a third party? Certainly in the US if somebody produced a virus that did this nobody would even blink at a federal prosecution. That FTDI slipped a bit of text into a document nobody reads doesn't strike me as relevant. If a piece of malware also popped up an…

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:04 PM UTC

HNaTTY wrote: post #89

otikik wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the limit there, then? Would it be ok for the chip to, say, install spyware to look for my credit card data and steal money from me? That is also "unwanted behavior". I would be ok if the driver simply refused to work. But making hardware unusable on purpose is too much.

Since the "making the hardware unusable" step is just setting the PID to 0, the slope doesn't seem too slippery to me. If the manufacturers of the counterfeit chip had their own PID and Windows drivers, they wouldn't have used FTDI's. FTDI here is merely enforcing that chips which are not theirs don't use their PID. I agree that their updated driver will probably continue to not work with these counterfeit chips, and…

Post by potatolicious » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:19 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #78

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.

In the US there isn't a legal way to purchase counterfeit goods. It may be different in other countries. Similar to stolen property, the person left holding the bag gets in trouble too. Edit: after actually looking up the issue instead of guessing it turns out that in most places (other than France and Italy) there isn't much at stake for the end user, and almost all of the laws are written to stop the sale or manufa…