Fake FTDI chip Problem (This May Be Urgent)

Goeytex

Senior Member
Rendering a device inoperable because it's not yours is not ethical FOR THE CONSUMER who UNKNOWINGLY purchases a product with a fake chip.
It is not simply because it is not theirs. These are cheaply made counterfeits, illegally labeled as a genuine FTDI and depend upon genuine FTDI drivers to work. As an illegal counterfeit it has no legal right to exist. While FTDI's decision was certainly heavy-handed, not in the best interest of some end users, (and probably unwise), it was neither unethical nor illegal.

If I were hiding behind the the Great Wall of China and cloned a PIC12F1840, stamped it as a PICAXE -08M2+ and then somehow got firmware on it that works with the Program Editors. What do you suppose Rev-Ed would do when thousands of these started showing up on Flea Bay & Ally Babby priced at 25 percent of a genuine 08M2?.
 

Hemi345

Senior Member
I don't know what planet some of you folks are from, but you clearly didn't grow up in a world dominated by IBM PC clones and etc. How do you dump on one manufacturer of computers that is growing with leaps and bounds without seeing the irony of the IBM PC dominated world of mismatches and resets?

For that, you get the "three finger salute" also known as the CTRL-ALT-DELETE keyboard combination for PC support. <GRIN>
I went through some horrific IBM clones starting with an 8086 and MS DOS 5.1 and it didn't get much better till the Pentium revolution and Windows XP. But you cannot say that at the same time Apple was any better, heck they were almost extinct at that time and had maybe 5% of the market share and an extremely niche one at that. They didn't start getting any traction in the personal computer sector till they started using Intel inside. I'll see your irony and raise you five. haha

Goeytex said:
If I were hiding behind the the Great Wall of China and cloned a PIC12F1840, stamped it as a PICAXE -08M2+ and then somehow got firmware on it that works with the Program Editors. What do you suppose Rev-Ed would do when thousands of these started showing up on Flea Bay & Ally Babby priced at 25 percent of a genuine 08M2?.
Not really a good comparison, in my opinion, but then again, I don't know if Rev-Ed sells millions of PICAXEs to large corporations that are embedding them in 'everyday' devices. If they are, they'd be in the same conundrum as FTDI. But if I personally bought them and Rev-Ed disables them because they're not theirs, then shame on them for not protecting their IP better, but also shame on me for being a cheapskate and buying them from a shady source. The difference is I knew what I was buying and I know what I'm putting them into.

My daughter: "Dad, can we load the new Scooby Doo software on my Fisher-Price iXL?"
Me: "Sure sweetheart, but you might be stuck with what's on there depending on what happens when I plug this cable in...."
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member
Apple is Apple... unfortunately Jeremy didn't know their asinine practices and found out first hand why I haven't nor will never own one of their products.
Very true, I had absolutely no idea they routinely operate like this, never having owned anything made by them before. We've learned the lesson now though!
 

Circuit

Senior Member
I am quite astonished at the apparent ambivalence shown here by some regarding counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is theft - purely and simply. The counterfeiters are stealing intellectual property and committing a crime. It is reasonable and lawful to destroy counterfeit goods; the fact that some purchaser down the line is innocent of the knowledge of the crime does not justify the continued existence of the counterfeit item. When the counterfeit item is destroyed then the purchasing end-user has lost out, of course. But it is not the original manufacturer who has "stolen" from the end-user, it is the counterfeiter! The end-user is as much a victim of theft as the lawful manufacturer is and has no moral right to exempt himself from the outcome. The end-user suffers loss as does the lawful manufacturer, both victims of theft. The end-user can only be aggrieved with the thief; not with the lawful manufacturer who is jointly a victim of crime. I cannot understand how in a lawful and civilised society anyone can try to bend clear moral values to get around these facts.

Goeytex gives wise (very wise) advice to this forum on technical issues; his good counsel on this issue is also to be admired and listened to. He sets a good example in electronics; in programming and now in human morality!
 

RexLan

Senior Member
I am quite astonished at the apparent ambivalence shown here by some regarding counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is theft - purely and simply. The counterfeiters are stealing intellectual property and committing a crime. It is reasonable and lawful to destroy counterfeit goods; the fact that some purchaser down the line is innocent of the knowledge of the crime does not justify the continued existence of the counterfeit item. When the counterfeit item is destroyed then the purchasing end-user has lost out; of course. But it is not the original manufacturer who has "stolen" from the end-user, it is the counterfeiter! The end-user is as much a victim of theft as the lawful manufacturer is and has no moral right to exempt himself from the outcome. The end-user suffers loss as does the lawful manufacturer, both victims of theft. The end-user can only be aggrieved with the thief; not with the original manufacturer who is jointly a victim of crime. I cannot understand how in a lawful and civilised society anyone can try to bend clear moral values to get around these facts.
How about the brakes on your car and lets say they failed because the pads separated and you are seriously injured as well as innocent people. The bake pads turn out to be counterfeit, unknown to the manufacture of the car or dealer, but got in the supply chain somehow. Apparently the car manufactures should have something in place to "test" the brake pads prior to allowing the car to move, especially since it is safety critical. Once a counterfeit product is detected the car manufacture is obligated to disable the car .... really? I think you will never drive that car again.

Then of course you will NOT be seeking any satisfaction from the car manufacturer after your accident because they too are a victim just like you .... not likely. The consumer is owed a reasonable expectation of performance as is in the case of a USB port ..... which is exactly that ... a USB port. Apple sees it differently.
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member
It's a question that goes deeper than the very simple "counterfeiting is wrong" argument. In this case, there are chips that have the same outward functionality as the FTDI FT232 chips, but which use completely different silicon and don't use copied FTDI hardware. This is legal, up until the point where someone decides to label and sell them as FTDI products, when they then become counterfeit.

However, a fair few of these chips will be buried in devices and may well not carry any FTDI markings at all. It's very common for manufacturers to fit unmarked chips into products, even from legitimate sources, to make the job of copying their product a bit harder.

So, at this point we have the perfectly legal case of a company that has produced a totally different chip, but one that shares the same functionality as the FT232 from FTDI. Where it gets dodgy is with Windows, and only with Windows, as an operating system. FTDI produce the only Windows driver that allows the FT232 to work under Windows. If you run Linux or whatever then there are other drivers that will work with either an FTDI FT232 or with a functionally similar device using different silicon. There is absolutely nothing illegal in using a non-FTDI chip with a non-FTDI driver, or with using an FTDI chip with a non-FTDI driver; either of those cases is completely legal, and doesn't involve counterfeiting, as long as the non-FTDI chips aren't marked with the FTDI logo.

What is illegal is using an FTDI driver (over which they have rights) with a non-FTDI chip. This is what Windows users have had to do, as the only driver that works within Windows is the FTDI one.

Like others here, I suspect, I run a mix of operating systems, from XP on a couple of old PCs, Windows 7 on this PC and Linux Mint on my laptop. If I were to plug a non-FTDI USB to serial converter into the Windows 7 machine, the chances are that the new driver will brick it. This means I can't then plug the same, perfectly legal, USB to serial converter into the Linux machine and use it (well, with a bit of faffing about it seems I might be able to by finding a way to reset the EEPROM inside the chip).

If the non-FTDI chips were counterfeit copies of the FTDI silicon (which they aren't) then I could understand the outrage, as I'm as much against counterfeiting as anyone else. This isn't the primary issue though, the primary issue is that FTDI are trying to stop the use of their proprietary Windows driver with non-FTDI products. This is fine, I wholeheartedly support them in this wish. However, should they have the right to brick a device and so stop it working with drivers written by anyone else?

This is the core of this particular problem, in that FTDI chose to effectively destroy a device that could perfectly legitimately be used in any operating system than doesn't use the FTDI proprietary drivers.

There are a plethora of other issues, surrounding the whole traceability of supply chains. Even the really big and reliable distributors can end up with "fake" products in their legitimate supply chain, without their knowledge. It's even happened to major aircraft manufacturers, where components traceability has been of a very high standard for decades (and orders of magnitude more rigorous than many small electronics manufacturers).

FTDI have acknowledged they have stepped over the line and withdrawn the Windows drivers. My guess is that they realised pretty quickly that a group of, say, Linux users, could sue them for rendering legitimate hardware unusable. What FTDI should have done is use their method for detecting the Supereal chips as being non-FTDI products and stop their driver from working with them. A third party would then have to come up with a Supereal driver, removing the problem (except for those Supereal chips that have been marked up as pretend FT232s).

What will happen now is that, just as with Linux, someone, or a group perhaps, will come up with an alternative Windows driver that works with the Supereal chips. As long as those Supereal chips aren't badged as FT232s there won't be a problem with FTDI.

One slightly ironic thing is that the technology that has been used to make the Supereal chips is slightly better than that used by FTDI, apparently, so with an independent driver and with no FTDI markings on the chips they may well end up being a better chip to use.
 

Dippy

Moderator
I'm sure there are manufacturers who have been victims and manufacturers who knowingly buy counterfeit.
Equally there are consumers who have been ripped off and others knowingly buying dodgy goods.
And I'm also sure that there are other buyers who, to save a penny, turn a blind eye to probably-dodgy purchases because they got it cheap.

How to solve it I don't know but sometimes the actions can be heavy-handed - especially to the genuinely innocent buyer and sometimes to the genuine retailer.
If the SD card i-Pad thing had happened to me I'd give the retailer a chance to refund and, if not satisfied, be straight on to Trading Standards.
This is why we have consumer rights and if there is a legal issue then they have the bunce to carry it forward.
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member
If the SD card i-Pad thing had happened to me I'd give the retailer a chance to refund and, if not satisfied, be straight on to Trading Standards.
This is why we have consumer rights and if there is a legal issue then they have the bunce to carry it forward.
We did talk to Trading Standards, but their advice was that the retailer had acted in good faith, had even gone as far as to check that the device worked with the iPad in the shop, and so there was no case against the shop at all. The product itself wasn't counterfeit, or in any way illegal. It wasn't badged as an Apple manufactured part, either. It was being sold just like any other USB device, and we bought it on that basis.

What we didn't know at that time, was that Apple make their own proprietary hardware for reading camera cards. We also didn't know or understand that Apple pursues a policy of deliberately restricting the use of non-Apple accessories with their products (we do now!).

The only reason Apple stopped this non-Apple manufactured device working when they updated iOS was because they want to restrict the market and ensure that owners of their products can only buy accessories from them. Had we know this was their modus operandi at the time we bought the iPad I think we might well have bought something less restrictive, as since then there have been a plethora of minor niggles with not being able to do very simple things (like file sharing across our home LAN) that collectively add up to a considerable amount of hassle.

There's no doubting that, as a product, the iPad is highly desirable and intuitive to use, but for me, it is so restrictive in many of the areas where I might want to use such a device as to be effectively a paperweight.
 

wapo54001

Senior Member
Interesting discussion with support for both sides of the argument, it seems to me. FTDI has every right to refuse to support a bogus part, so could make their drivers refuse to work with fake hardware without causing their drivers to 'brick' it, and that would alert an end user and cause them either to replace it with a genuine part or cause the user to go out and find a driver that does work with the bogus part . . .
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member
It is interesting, not least because the parts may or may not be counterfeit.

Those Supereal chips that have been sold with an FTDI logo and part number clearly are counterfeit, no two ways about it, but it seems that there are also unmarked Supereal FT232 functional clones around and they may well be perfectly legal, as chips. What seems to have happened is that Supereal have created a functionally similar chip, using their own silicon, that doesn't have any FTDI proprietary hardware or firmware elements. This sort of reverse engineering is legal, and doesn't present a problem at the hardware/firmware level.

The problem arises when these chips then rely on using the FTDI proprietary device drivers in Windows (and it seems to be a Windows-only issue, AFAICS), or if the chips are knowingly marked as FTDI devices when they become counterfeit.
 

RexLan

Senior Member
What we didn't know at that time, was that Apple make their own proprietary hardware for reading camera cards. We also didn't know or understand that Apple pursues a policy of deliberately restricting the use of non-Apple accessories with their products (we do now!).

The only reason Apple stopped this non-Apple manufactured device working when they updated iOS was because they want to restrict the market and ensure that owners of their products can only buy accessories from them.
This has been a well known fact for at least 20 years right down to video cards, HDD, monitors and so on ... I am surprised that it comes as a surprise to you now. This is one reason the IBM PC platform was so popular. Almost anyone could make peripherals and then can a ton of SW development to follow. Even today it is a struggle to find much good SW for the Apple products or any at less that a mortgage price. If Apple and the Mac have not marketed and got a huge market share of our public schools in the USA (which is total stupidity on the taxpayers part) Apple would be zip, if even alive today.

The new policy in public schools now is that every child will have an iPad .... holy 10001100 batman !
 

erco

Senior Member
From FTDI: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/10/24/1330252/ftdi-removes-driver-from-windows-update-that-bricked-cloned-chips

We appreciate your feedback, comments and suggestions.

As you are probably aware, the semiconductor industry is increasingly blighted by the issue of counterfeit chips and all semiconductor vendors are taking measures to protect their IP and the investment they make in developing innovative new technology. FTDI will continue to follow an active approach to deterring the counterfeiting of our devices, in order to ensure that our customers receive genuine FTDI product. Though our intentions were honourable, we acknowledge that our recent driver update has caused concern amongst our genuine customer base. I assure you, we value our customers highly and do not in any way wish to cause distress to them.

The recently release driver release has now been removed from Windows Update so that on-the-fly updating cannot occur. The driver is in the process of being updated and will be released next week. This will still uphold our stance against devices that are not genuine, but do so in a non-invasive way that means that there is no risk of end user’s hardware being directly affected.

As previously stated, we recommend to all our customers to guarantee genuine FTDI products please purchase either from FTDI directly or from one of our authorised distributors. http://www.ftdichip.com/FTSalesNetwork.htm

If you are concerned that you might have a non-genuine device, our support team would be happy to help out.

Yours Sincerely
Fred Dart - CEO
 

geoff07

Senior Member
One solution is simply to use Linux. No stolen IP, no proprietary software, all source code provided, and it will even work with hardware 'bricked' by ftdi (since 22/10, '0000' id). And you won't have to buy it all over again every two years or so. And you get 30,000 free apps with it, many of which are quite good. And, if you must, you can run proprietary OSs under Virtualbox (also free) and access USB via Linux. If you do, try Ubuntu.
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member
This has been a well known fact for at least 20 years right down to video cards, HDD, monitors and so on ... I am surprised that it comes as a surprise to you now. This is one reason the IBM PC platform was so popular. Almost anyone could make peripherals and then can a ton of SW development to follow. Even today it is a struggle to find much good SW for the Apple products or any at less that a mortgage price. If Apple and the Mac have not marketed and got a huge market share of our public schools in the USA (which is total stupidity on the taxpayers part) Apple would be zip, if even alive today.

The new policy in public schools now is that every child will have an iPad .... holy 10001100 batman !
Sad fact, but I'd never, ever seen an Apple product until a friend of my wife's got an iPad. I've still never seen a Mac, only heard about them as being the kit used by artists, print layout people etc. I don't actually know anyone with an Apple Mac even now, and our schools don't have them, AFAIK.

I don't even think we have them in any of the PC stores nearby, whenever I've walked around them they seem full of PCs and non-Apple tablets. I had to buy the iPad online for my wife, as none of the stores in our local city stocked them.

Before I retired I'd worked with desktop computers for around 30 years, starting with the Acorn Atom, then the BBC Micro and Master, before the IBM PC, (then Dell clones) became pretty much the standard across the whole of UK government.
 

techElder

Well-known member
Sad fact, but I'd never, ever seen an Apple product until a friend of my wife's got an iPad....

That's amazing, Jeremy! How did you become so knowledgeable about all Apple products then? Enough to pepper this thread with these absolute comments about a manufacturer's methods of protecting their IP?
 

rq3

Senior Member
Again, expecting a manufacturer to support accessories that it has no control over is ... illogical.
Hope you're not running Windows XP! Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP, hence has no control over it. So it's OK if, tonight, they reach out to your PC and remove the operating system?

Rip
 

techElder

Well-known member
Hope you're not running Windows XP! Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP, hence has no control over it. So it's OK if, tonight, they reach out to your PC and remove the operating system?

Rip
What relevancy does that comment have? I'm confused now. Like saying, "Hope you're not eating a grape, because the bananas are on sale."
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member

That's amazing, Jeremy! How did you become so knowledgeable about all Apple products then? Enough to pepper this thread with these absolute comments about a manufacturer's methods of protecting their IP?
The sum total of my knowledge of Apple products is from trying to solve problems with my wife's iPad, purchased just over a year ago. These have primarily revolved around the desire to be able to move photos around between the iPad, the camera and the house LAN backup drive (running on a small Linux system). I know nothing about other Apple products at all, and have never once claimed to be knowledgable about them, so I'm not sure where you gained that impression.

Even now my knowledge is restricted to the way I understand the USB port is different on the iPad, and the apparent lack of any network file sharing capability, and that's simply because of the problem we had when the camera card reader suddenly stopped working and caused me to try and find a solution. At first I thought that the reader had failed, and as it was only a few weeks old went back to the shop. There we found that other card readers in the shop stock didn't work with the iPad any more, either. I then did a web search, found an Apple support forum and discovered that the iOS update had disabled several non-Apple accessories (as a fair few people were complaining about it). I then contacted Trading Standards, who gave further advice that there wasn't really anything they could do, as no laws or trading regulations seemed to have been broken.

I now know that this is just the way Apple operate, and understand that it's well-understood by those who've owned Apple products for years. I honestly didn't understand this before about a year ago, when we first encountered our problem with the card reader.
 

grim_reaper

Senior Member
I don't actually know anyone with an Apple Mac even now, and our schools don't have them, AFAIK.
Jeremy, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my daughter's primary school has been using iPads for at least the last 3 years. She (thinks she!) knows all about them and says they use them a couple of times a week - although discussion with said 8 year old has not revealed to me exactly what they use them for...

Personally I have always steered clear of Apple as well; although I can't say I've got a just reason. I have enough trouble with my older kids bringing Android devices into the house!
 

Goeytex

Senior Member
Hope you're not running Windows XP! Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP, hence has no control over it. So it's OK if, tonight, they reach out to your PC and remove the operating system?

Rip
Hmmm ....

The argument above fails miserably due to the logical fallacy known as weak or (false analogy). That Microsoft no longer offers technical support for ally purchased copies of XP, is not analogous to existing copies being counterfeit or illegal due to the cessation of technical support. However they could (legally) whack or render the OS inoperable or even file a lawsuit for damages if they can determine that the copy in use is illegal or pirated.

My lab system is indeed a legal version of XP Pro with all of the updates until support was discontinued. However, the fact that it is no longer "supported" does not transform my XP into an illegal counterfeit or mean that the license is expired. Microsoft cannot legally or ethically reach out and whack the XP OS from my system. That would be akin to Toyota confiscating my RAV4 because the warranty is expired.
 

geoff07

Senior Member
Whatever the rights and wrongs of clone product development, the fact that ftdi have deliberately disabled client hardware because it triggered the use of the Windows ftdi usb driver by using the same product id as their own products is likely to do far greater harm to ftdi than to any clone manufacturer (whoever they are). It will also harm Microsoft as it was their mechanism that applied to changes. This is called cutting off your nose to spite your face, and is very much not recommended.
 

rq3

Senior Member
Hmmm ....

The argument above fails miserably due to the logical fallacy known as weak or (false analogy). That Microsoft no longer offers technical support for ally purchased copies of XP, is not analogous to existing copies being counterfeit or illegal due to the cessation of technical support. However they could (legally) whack or render the OS inoperable or even file a lawsuit for damages if they can determine that the copy in use is illegal or pirated.

My lab system is indeed a legal version of XP Pro with all of the updates until support was discontinued. However, the fact that it is no longer "supported" does not transform my XP into an illegal counterfeit or mean that the license is expired. Microsoft cannot legally or ethically reach out and whack the XP OS from my system. That would be akin to Toyota confiscating my RAV4 because the warranty is expired.
You're addressing the wrong comment. I was referring to the experience I had in which Apple reached out and removed a valid and legal application from a device I owned.

Rip
 

Goeytex

Senior Member
Early yesterday morning I logged in to eBeay (USA) and searched for "FTDI", I randomly selected three FTDI USB/TTL offerings Priced at either $11.50 or $10.50(US) from three different USA Sellers. Each was sent the following inquiry.

Can you confirm/guarantee that the FDTI Chip is genuine FTDI and not a cheap Chinese counterfeit ? It is important that the chip is genuine for my application. Thanks, William Roth​

Amazingly all three responded. Below are the responses.

Respondent 1:
"Dear billroth07,

The FTDI Driver Issue , affects certain Batch codes of the chip-sets , I don't check everyone of them to see , all the chips work with the older Driver installed , but can be a hassle if your not computer Savvy. Please purchase one from someone Else , Thanks From Tim "

Respondent 2:
"Dear billroth07,

I have no idea if it is genuine or not. I never any complaints if it had any problem.
Thanks,
Tung"

Respondent 3:

"Dear buyer,

Thanks for your mail,it's our honor to serve you.
The item is made in China,but the quality is good.

Regards, - fzeroinestore"


Note that non of the three could confirm a genuine FTDI Chip.
 

Haku

Senior Member
Did it not occur to FTDI before releasing the new drivers that they would be attacking the exact user base who know how to diagnose what FTDI's new drivers do to non-FTDI chips?
 
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