Hello Martin On 1 May 2012, at 16:37, Martin McCormick <[email protected]> wrote:
• That sounds quite plausible. The hardware platform for that box is probably sold all over the world to lots of different providers running many different versions of firmware that use some or all of what is present in the hardware. If they don't have drivers for the USB ports, for instance, the only thing you might possibly get out of them is 5 volts to charge your iPhones or whatever you want to charge. The data lines aren't read or written to by the processor as there is no code that is even aware there is a USB port. I think you're probably right. There is another USB port which the technical engineers use just to the right of the viewing card slot. When we tried to get information regarding this stuff nobody would talk. :) • It is also possible that this usb port is very special and used by service technicians to attach a keyboard or test equipment or that it comes to life when the system is reset and could be used for firmware upgrades if they need to modify the system in any way. Very likely. • I believe something like that happened here, also. It was in the days of dial-up modems and a bunch of customers of one of the big ISP's of the eighties or nineties were shipped installation software that dialed up a toll call for them instead of the toll-free call they thought they were making. Two big companies, one of whom was NTL, got into a lot of trouble over here with that about 10 years ago. In fact, NTL now has such a bad PR over here that they've had to re-brand the entire operating using Richard Branson's "Virgin Media" brand. NTL did a deal with him; they bought all of his communications operations, including Virgin Mobile and they now have an 11.5% share in the company. In return, he licensed out the franchise; but the public isn't as stupid as they seem to think. Customers are leaving Virgin Media in droves, much to the delight of Sky, BT, Carphone Warehouse and other carriers. It is a real shame actually because had it been done properly the cable provider could have scooped a large market share. Lynne ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
