1. FTDI detects that the chips are counterfeit, however the process of doing this bricks the counterfeit chips. The copy is not functional equivalent to the real FTDI chip and therefor stops working.
2. After this detection process the chip is left in a undefined state. Is it really the task of FTDI to clean this up?
3. If they choose to do the test and restore the content of the eeprom it will also result in a massive failure of devices. Because frequently programming and erassing an eeprom will certaintly destroy it. Keep in mind that the FTDI device eeprom is not programmed using this detection circuit.
FTDI is only preventing user from using their driver with counterfeit chips. There is nothing wrong with this.
For now this works.
The question is also how good do these chips work and are they fully compatible.
The USB vendor id and product id are reserved for and by FTDI.
Using them results in a non working plug and play system.
The chips are sold as counterfeits and therefor they should not be used.
This is very simple and is valid in the whole of europe. A fake Rolex will also be destroyed and the buyer is responsible for this. Actually buying counterfeit products is a crime.
If you can find a single clone that is not marked as FT232, then maybe. But I'm not aware of such existing, as they are mostly prolific clones. Anyway now people are yelling about bricking devices where are chips with FTDI and FT232Rx written on them indeed. I'm not big supporter of such tactics, but i think that technically it is OK to do in legal aspect.
Comparing INTEL vs AMD is not a good comparising in this case, because they have cross licensing deals. AMD did not reverse engineer the chips, but had a license to produce the design from INTEL for INTEL. AMD manufactored copyright by INTEL and so on
This is incorrect. FTDI doesn't actually detect that the chips are counterfeit at all. The driver, instead, uncoditionally, and without feedback, issues a set of commands that have been carefully and meticulously crafted to do nothing to a real FT232RL (and only FT232RL - they'd almost certainly brick other FT*** chips!) while bricking a counterfeit chip. The driver doesn't even check if the device was bricked/modified/a clone. In fact, I believe the driver will work fine with a clone the first time it's plugged in - until the device is reset, the new EEPROM content is applied, and the brick becomes evident.
This is unquestionably a deliberate act by FTDI to brick clone devices. It's not a "clone detection that unfortunately bricks them". They went for the kill, going as far as reversing their own checksum routine to be able to bypass the checksum in a way that only takes effect on clones. I suspect someone at FTDI might think they're safe because "well, we issue the same commands to all chips, it's not our fault that only clones are affected!!!!", but that's not going to stand up in court when it is evident and unquestionable that the code has been designed for the sole purpose and effect of bricking clone chips.
Uh, no. FTDI's driver makes the victim device not work with *any* driver. FTDI did not write the driver that Linux uses. Plugging a clone into a Windows box running FTDI's driver will make it stop working on a Linux box which has nothing to do with their intellectual property. This is deliberate destruction (or at least damage) of property, and almost certainly illegal in most reasonable jurisdictions.
You mean for now this doesn't work and people's devices are now broken.
They were until FTDI decided to latch onto implementation minutiae to destroy them. There's a difference between a functional clone and a 100% perfect bug-compatible replica.
If you want to use the USB logo.
No, using them results in their driver being loaded. Or someone else's driver for FTDI chips (like the one in Linux). Nothing more, nothing less. In fact, I would strongly consider using their VID and PID if I were writing USB-serial firmware for something and wanted it to work anywhere (though I'd probably end up going for CDC if that works out of the box on Windows these days). And it would be perfectly legitimate. It's a number, and FTDI have no legal protection from others using it.
Agreed. This, unfortunately, has nothing to do with the unlucky manufacturers and especially end-users who unintentionally ended up with counterfeits.
Nope. Only in France and Italy. Buying counterfeit products is legal in the rest of the world. You're even allowed to knowingly import one counterfeit item per class into the US. *Selling* counterfeit products is illegal. Buyers/end-users have no fault in any of this, and destroying their hardware because it's counterfeit is *WRONG*.
FTDI doesn't have to guarantee that there code works with chips of someone else. Many manufactors warn for non-functioning equipment when their drivers are used with products, which are not produced by them.
I understand there are a lot of angry people out there. But I have some remarks to think about.
1. FTDI detects that the chips are counterfeit, however the process of doing this bricks the counterfeit chips. The copy is not functional equivalent to the real FTDI chip and therefor stops working.
And would you like a tin hat to go with that ? I've never had problems and use paper bags
And would you like a tin hat to go with that ? I've never had problems and use paper bagsI've bought some ATtinys off of eBay, and they arrived stuck in a piece of styrofoam packaged in a ziploc bag. They seem to work, but I would not use them for anything I would sell, or was in any way safety-related.
Franky i don't understand why the counterfeiters don't just release their own driver and separately Id the chip,.........
QuoteFTDI doesn't have to guarantee that there code works with chips of someone else. Many manufactors warn for non-functioning equipment when their drivers are used with products, which are not produced by them.
If I wrote a virus which was piggybacked along with another piece of software, and it completely takes out your computer; wipes your bios (attempting to flash and re-flash it to the point of exhausting the write-life), knocks out your boot sector, and deletes your windows folder, then claim "if you didn't want that to happen, you shouldn't have run my software on any machine but ones I sell" would you say that's just fine and legal?
QuoteFTDI doesn't have to guarantee that there code works with chips of someone else. Many manufactors warn for non-functioning equipment when their drivers are used with products, which are not produced by them.
If I wrote a virus which was piggybacked along with another piece of software, and it completely takes out your computer; wipes your bios (attempting to flash and re-flash it to the point of exhausting the write-life), knocks out your boot sector, and deletes your windows folder, then claim "if you didn't want that to happen, you shouldn't have run my software on any machine but ones I sell" would you say that's just fine and legal?
How would you detect that I am using the machine you sell?
err surely they had to spend time reverse engineering an FTDI then making something to "look" like it. They could have done what the arduino did and just programmed an MCU with a usb and serial port to work as a converter or made their own ASIC
So FTDI comes up with a method of detecting that it is counterfeit, However, this damages the fake product.
Keep in mind that this is not a virus. It does not go out and find all fake FTDI chips and destroys them.
Franky i don't understand why the counterfeiters don't just release their own driver and separately Id the chip, i mean having to accept "non signed" windows drivers is not something that has stopped major manufacturers and software houses.
QuoteFTDI doesn't have to guarantee that there code works with chips of someone else. Many manufactors warn for non-functioning equipment when their drivers are used with products, which are not produced by them.
If I wrote a virus which was piggybacked along with another piece of software, and it completely takes out your computer; wipes your bios (attempting to flash and re-flash it to the point of exhausting the write-life), knocks out your boot sector, and deletes your windows folder, then claim "if you didn't want that to happen, you shouldn't have run my software on any machine but ones I sell" would you say that's just fine and legal?
How would you detect that I am using the machine you sell?
In this case, I don't have to on the grounds that my machine is not subject to "suffering" from my code's actions. So, again, would you say this is just fine and legal?
Franky i don't understand why the counterfeiters don't just release their own driver and separately Id the chip, i mean having to accept "non signed" windows drivers is not something that has stopped major manufacturers and software houses.
Do you tried that on a Win7 x64 system ? Good Luck...
So FTDI comes up with a method of detecting that it is counterfeit, However, this damages the fake product.
Keep in mind that this is not a virus. It does not go out and find all fake FTDI chips and destroys them.This seems like that old favorite: "plausible deniability".
But I asked this question before. I do not know if FTDI had an another method of detecting the clone.
Because they are basically very good. I understand from this forum that many people use them without knowing. And printing FTDI on a counterfeit IC makes it even harder. FTDI did not make an open standard with a fixed VID and PID that can be used by a default driver. They do not maintain a driver for a product type, but only for their own device. P.s. I beleive it is a little bit more complex than only the VID/PID for selecting a device group like a keyboard etc.
Franky i don't understand why the counterfeiters don't just release their own driver and separately Id the chip, i mean having to accept "non signed" windows drivers is not something that has stopped major manufacturers and software houses.
Do you tried that on a Win7 x64 system ? Good Luck...
I have windows 7 64bit, any cheap peice of hardware generally comes with a non signed driver that i have to accept.
But I asked this question before. I do not know if FTDI had an another method of detecting the clone.
Because they are basically very good. I understand from this forum that many people use them without knowing. And printing FTDI on a counterfeit IC makes it even harder. FTDI did not make an open standard with a fixed VID and PID that can be used by a default driver. They do not maintain a driver for a product type, but only for their own device. P.s. I beleive it is a little bit more complex than only the VID/PID for selecting a device group like a keyboard etc.
They could have shown a messagebox to the end-user (or refuse to start the driver) and revert the PID back to what it was instead of leaving it zeroed out. It's easy, they could just have checked if the write has worked by reading the EEPROM back and if yes, refuse to start the driver and rewrite the original PID. It's probably only 10 more lines of code in the driver.
They intentionally break the clones and they could have done it another way. This is reckless.
The question here is, is it possible for FTDI to detect if the chip is counterfeit in another way?
I do not think so! They probably spend a lot of time figuring this method out.
FTDI doesn't have to guarantee that there code works with chips of someone else. Many manufactors warn for non-functioning equipment when their drivers are used with products, which are not produced by them.
Actually they just erase the product id. That is all you can easy reprogram it.
I mean that counterfeit IC cann't be used for now with the new drivers.
No, they are not. They do not pass the new test system to detect if they are a clone. Therefor they are not compatible. Many PC compatibles in the 80 where also not compatible.
No, these ID's are used to assign a driver to the chip through the INF file. For instance in the PCI system if you chose to use 8086 as vendor id and 8259 as product ID I am sure you end up with a non functioning PC.
The same applies also for the USB. This is the only way for the OS/BIOS/EFI to detect new hardware and assign the right driver. They should be unique ID's. You pay $5000 so that you are ensured they are unique.
Try assigning some random numbers to your USB devices and see what happens on Linux also. You need a VID and PID and the system works by uniqueness of these numbers.
It is the responsibility from the manufactor to check their sources.
I think here in the Netherlands you can leave it behind on the airport and may be lucky when you do not get a fine.
P.s. How many non-functioning devices you got?