Hi guys,
Yesterday I fixed a device - a 3000 EUR piece of gear that got stuck during a firmware update and got bricked.
It was a simple matter of taking a working one apart (fortunately they had one), removing the memories (I was quite scared, I didn't want to have 2 dead piece of equipment instead of one) and reading out the 2x16MB of serial FLASH on board (they were not protected against reading at all) with a cheap programmer, making a .bin image and burning it into the bricked ones memories.
I did this quite reluctantly however - there was a chance that I might kill the good device. Before we contacted the manufacturer and asked whether he would be kind enough to send the .bin files for the memories. He didn't, saying it was "their proprietary information". The device was two months out of warranty.
Seeing as the memories were not even protected or anything, nor was the firmware image (a linux file system image) encrypted, nor were any steps taken to avoid what I did implemented (encryption, memory locking, take your pick), it seems like an asshole thing to do of them. Particularly when the device was sent to their local service provider for service and they said it was not repairable.
If this was your device, and you were in this situation, would you send me the .bin files?
I probably would send such an image to my customer if he requested it.
Thanks,
David