Intel used fake FTDI chips for their Gen 2 Galileo?
That's beyond funny
I do have a Galileo 1st gen, I wonder if it has a fake FTDI chip as well. Not that it matters much because the Gen1 Galileo is pretty useless since their GPIO is via I2C (or was it SPI) anyways this is hilarious.
At least Intel will probably roll out a firmware update with their own VID and PID with their own drivers to support the fake chips.
That will be a huge PR problem for Intel. If that was true and I was Intel CEO, I will buy the company (FTDI) and silent it.
For a year after the first "FTDIgate" I think they did nothing to educate the suppliers and designers about how to be sure they are buying genuine parts. Refusing to work with counterfeits or sending some warnings through the chips must be THE FINAL STEP of a long educational/certification process - not the first step!
I also think that this attitude will turn people away from using FTDI.
Yep, all FTDI is accomplishing is causing consumers to doubt the reliability of anything with an "FTDI" chip.
For someone like me who feeds his electronics hobby with various cheap boards and do-dads interfacing with USB, I now actively avoid anything that claims to use an FTDI chip since I have no way of knowing authenticity before hand.
Most of the consumers don't have any knowledge about what's inside a device.
And people who bought fake chips and got burned and because of that start to avoid FTDI chips,
well, they don't make any difference for FTDI because they didn't buy genuine chips in the first place.
The point is, FTDI has nothing to loose.
Thus given a choice I am no longer buying anything that could turn out to have a fake chip in it -
Most of the consumers don't have any knowledge about what's inside a device.
Guys, let's tone down on throwing around words like "illegal" and talking about legal action. It's a bit melodramatic and undermines the legitimacy of our complaints and position as a whole.
What FTDI is doing is legal and while they could get sued, it's unknown what the outcome would be. So, instead of being wildly speculating internet lawyers, I think we should focus on, as Sgt. Joe Friday once never said, "Just the facts, ma'am."
If someone's life support equipment failed due to FTDI gate(s), no matter who is really responsible for, FTDI is doomed, both legally and in their PR.
Let's take one step further, if the failed equipment's OEM got FTDI's consent on using it in a life support equipment, and FTDI's authorized distributor screwed up the supply chain, then it is even worse.
From my experience, that will definitely make FTDI headline of headline in all major newspapers.
Being said, the chance of that happens is narrow, but if it happens, no one can save the company. I hope their legal dept and marketing dept used their brain before making a decision.
If they do not want to get cloned, then sell it cheaper. At one pcs, FT232RL is $4.50, while its competitor, CP2104 sells for $1.43. Both are crystal less, both are full UART, and both have internal ROM (EEPROM vs OTP).
Oh Wow, FTDI did push malware to Windows drivers again.
For my part, I switched to MCP2221 when the original FTDIgate was out.
Guys, let's tone down on throwing around words like "illegal" and talking about legal action. It's a bit melodramatic and undermines the legitimacy of our complaints and position as a whole.
What FTDI is doing is legal and while they could get sued, it's unknown what the outcome would be. So, instead of being wildly speculating internet lawyers, I think we should focus on, as Sgt. Joe Friday once never said, "Just the facts, ma'am."
Yep, FTDI are blocking people who mention it, including some guy with 310,000 Youtube subscribers and a propensity to rant...
They blocked you too, that's pathetic. So you can't comment directly under their tweets, but by now they should have heard of the Streisand effect.
Just added FTDIGate 2.0 to Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTDI
Wikipedia page updated.
Updated. Subjective adjectives and adverbs are removed. I also added the exact string it send or reads, "NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!".