[NCARC] FTDI serial driver crippling devices

[tim at timannable.com]

I don’t blame them for their motives, but most users aren’t intentionally buying them as counterfeit.  I know with the prolific drivers for years Prolific has made the current driver not work with cloned chips, but to brick it is a whole different level of counter-counterfeiting.  I admire them for their gusto!








Sent from Windows Mail





From: Bill Abbott
Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎October‎ ‎24‎, ‎2014 ‎12‎:‎31‎ ‎PM
To: ncarc at mailman.qth.net





I found a couple of interesting write ups on this problem.
 
The first link says they admit to doing it and most observers say they did it in an unethical way.  The second article says they are fixing the "silent" update so it won't damage anymore end-user devices, but they still don't think they are wrong.  It sounds like Microsoft made them stop.
  
http://www.zdnet.com/ftdi-admits-to-bricking-innocent-users-chips-in-silent-update-7000035019/
  
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/10/24/1330252/ftdi-removes-driver-from-windows-update-that-bricked-cloned-chips
  
 Bill Abbott
 WB0ZVE 

 > Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:32:16 -0600
> From: d.kalmbach at gmail.com
> To: ncarc at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: [NCARC] FTDI serial driver crippling devices
> 
> Since we tend to have a lot of serial involved in ham radios, this is a
> very pertinent article for us.
> 
> Apparently FTDI is going on the offense against devices using counterfeit
> chips.  The latest driver actually disables the peripheral:
> 
> http://www.csoonline.com/article/2837851/supply-chain-security/chipmaker-deliberately-cripples-user-devices-with-driver-update.html
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