Petty BS. If they want to disable the competitors, rev the device to
have something that they can use to id their devices, and leave the
other driver alone. USB supposed to put the widest support in the host
end, and the secret sauce in the device.
If they have a problem, they will not produce anyone with a dead device
wanting to ever do business with them by disabling infringing devices.
If they put out a message or such, but still worked with their driver fine.
Else I will expect a generic unsigned driver to be out, which can be
installed and will again work with all. That isn't desirable for
anyone, but if that is what it takes to get going, most will install
the unsigned driver, then mark FTDI devices forever off their list.
They aren't the only ones with the secret sauce. I've seen several
others, and had I known about them planning to do this would have gone
with them, and not FTDI. There are only a few things that I have that
have incorporated FTDI in, and I'm going to look at dumping that code
and device now.
Jim
On 10/23/2014 8:01 PM, Paul Berger wrote:
Unfortunately the issue that FTDI is trying to combat is
counterfeiters, and I think you will find that the counterfeit devices
will report the same product and vendor id as the genuine ones. The
product and vendor ids are how the OS identifies a device and how they
decide which device driver should be used. Apparently at least some
of these counterfeit devices are not perfect copies or else a device
driver would be unable distinguish them from genuine. It is like a
number of years ago when cable TV companies where having a lot of
trouble with counterfeit cable descramblers, they found a flaw in the
code used in them and transmitted what became know as a "magic bullet"
that caused them to fail.
Paul.
On 2014-10-23 11:30 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:
On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 7:05 PM, paul swed <[email protected]> wrote:
Umm I think its profoundly hard to know one way or another what chip
you
have in a widget.
Before you buy it yes, you can't know. But it's trivial to find out
after you own it. For example click the Apple logo then choose "about
this Mac" and the data is there. For example it says this random USB
thumb drive I have is
Product ID: 0x3260
Vendor ID: 0x0aec (Neodio Technologies Corporation)
Version: 1.00
Serial Number: 20040602032741578
This same exact information is logged every time the device is
inserted to my Linux system too. I assume MS Windows will tell you
all the vendor info as well.
The vendor IDs are handed out to manufacturers by an outfit at
"usb.org".
So, check your devices. It's not hard to find out about the ones you
have.
This is pretty insane actually.
I buy products that I believe are legit no way to know just as if
the cpu
in my acer or emachines not legal. Heck I have no idea.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL
On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Bill Dailey <[email protected]>
wrote:
Well..if they didn't properly license the technology... They
should be
disabled.
Sent from my iPad
On Oct 23, 2014, at 8:45 PM, Mark Sims <[email protected]> wrote:
Happened to a friend of mine. All his Arduino stuff died. This
could
be the reason:
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/ftdi-driver-kills-fake-ftdi-ft232
Short story: FTDI released a new version of their USB driver (via
Windows automatic updates no less) that bricks other vendor's
compatible
versions of their interface chip. They also updated their license
file to
indicate that this may happen... except you never get a chance to
decline
the new license with automatic driver updates. I can just hear the
class
action lawyers drooling...
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