Hi Abd ulRahman, >Consider how a pirated board might be used. A corrupt employee of the >fabricator knows the name of the company ordering the board. He looks >up competitors to this company and, through anonymous means, attempts >to find a buyer for the IP. At the very least, the PCB file (even >with programmable parts) could reveal the technologies being used by >the original company.
Hmm, to reveal the technology used it normally is just sufficient to visit the website of the company and check all the info on this product that is found there. Mostly you will find a nice photo of the board with all parts to be identified easily. And, ;-), there is an even easier way to get at this info: Buy one of these products and take it apart. This will reveal the technology at once. But it is a long way from identifying the technology used to reengineering a product of some complexity. I've always been wondering about the rigid way some, especially some US companies "protect" their IP asking customers for silly NDAs. What do they want me not to disclose? (They never tell, by the way.) How they designed this chip? I have no idea anyway, as they never will let me have the source codes. What it does? They promote that loudly on every reachable channel, as they want to sell it. But if I ask for absolutely necessary, basic info on how to implement their product into my design, I have to go through a lengthy NDA procedure. I have been through this process with Intel several times. They threaten you with I don't know what they will sue you for, if you disclose the secret of e.g. the pinning of a controller, that you can buy implemented in a taiwanese product for 2 years already. This is ridiculous. Some weeks ago I received a letter from them, allowing me to dispose some documents that they sent to me under NDA 2 years ago. The product is already discontinued by now. Shall I laugh or cry? I don't know. If someone took the effort to reengineer my designs, I'd take it as a compliment. ;-) If he understands the technology, he need not copy. For someone with the respective know-how, a new design takes less time than to reengineer some board from scratch. If he does not understands the technology, he won't be able to finish and sell it anyway. There's more to a design than just gerber files. Kind regards Gisbert Auge N.A.T. GmbH www.nateurope.com ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
