Elbox have spoken

[seer]

What was very worrying, though, was the fact that Elbox did threaten ANN.lu's Christian Kemp with legal action and wanted him to remove any discussion of this matter.

Could have something to do with the reputation ANN has these days (sorry Chris, it's just not what it used to be :-( , I know you chose not to introduce registered posters, but..)... No company would like to see a whole thread on a news page with negative comments based on some news from a rather unreliable source..

I for one will pay for honesty any time over deception. We all make mistakes. Admitting and making up for it is where the difference is made.

But Elbox don't believe the made a mistake... They say they are a victim here to.  Funny thing is, on ANN they call Elbox Judge Dredd because they think Elbox is playing personal police  judge and jury... Whatever happened to the right to defend yourself  ;-) , or fair trial ?

Anyway, I still think this is lots of hot air 'bout air. I don;t own any Elbox products, I don't care about them, but every story can be rread from multiple angles.

[Balti]

@zadoc

1st: Chris is tricked into an non-OEM-deal by ELBOX
(They made him belief their driver would work with off the shelf cards).

2nd: They start a campaign against E3B

3rd: They put a F***ING virus into their driver.

4th: Chris said "I can't cooperate under these coditions, let them
try to to live without my USB-stack"

5th: ELBOX throws some more mud.

Now compare that behaviour to the CGX/P96/W3D-issues and
you might note a pattern.

I don't let ANY company put a trojan on MY computer.Thats
why I will never use Win for more than games (no online) and never
update it above Win98, and thats why I will never buy a ELBOX
product. It doesn't matter how big or small the danger and damage
is, I just don't want any VIRUS.

[Zadoc]

@ Tickly

You misunderstood me a bit.  I don't have a problem with Chris Hodge's reaction and how he handled his position (as far as not-supporting suspicious code).  The problem is that he PIRATED the drivers, and this was a bit before LEGAL Mediator users began confirmed finding the code within their own drivers.

The problem I have is that who knows where these drivers came from as they were illegally obtained.  At the time, there was no way to verify if these were previously hacked drivers coming from illegal sources.  It reduces credibility in my eyes, even after Elbox has come public with confirming this.

[Balti]

@seer

or fair trial ?  

You mean the fair trial those got you meesed with the driver
(maybe just be accident or out of curiosity) ?

No one except the state (and parents  ;-)  eh and wifes  :-o ))
has the right to punish, and surely not an obscure polnish
company.

[Elektro]

@ Seer

I am not aware of any code in windows that deletes your RDB (or whats it called on windows MFT?) but if there is its just the same #### that elbox did and it is by all means illegal.

[xeron]

Well, seeing as Elbox didn't give him a copy of the drivers for his own USB stack, what else could he do but obtain a copy from a Mediator user?

If I was Chris, I would have done exactly the same thing, because I would see it as important to investigate for myself something which could reflect badly on my image and reputation.

[platon42]

> Well, it's hard to really judge evils based on where your perspective is
> on this issue, but Chris Hodges (Poseidon author) illegally obtained Elbox
> drivers

I do think that I've got the  right  to  obtain  a  copy  of  the  material
distributed  (which  also  contains  /my/  stuff, therefore legally being a
co-copyright holder) to see, if Elbox conformed to my proposed distribution
terms (to which they actually didn't right to the detail, but who cares).

> and championed the campaign against Elbox in public forums.

Did you read my posting? The driver was a  trojan.  This  is  illegal.  The
driver  is  used together with my software (and currently only my software,
as there is no other usb stack which is compatible with the hardware driver
system  so  far) I have to take care of the legal status and users possibly
being harmed.

> While I
> fully understand those who LEGALLY owned Mediator drivers and verified the
> RDB problem themselves, the fact is that I think Mr. Hodge's behaviour was
> rather unwarranted.

You're free to have your opinion and I that's okay. I just don't think that
my behaviour was not appropriate.

[seer]

You mean the fair trial those got you meesed with the driver

Why mess with drivers if you don't know what you're doing ? Like telling a win98 user to open regedit and delete a few keys to see what happens, then blaiming M$ then Win98 is a bad OS (I hate the way the registry is used in any Windows version, but the idea itself isn't so bad... But why does the registry have to contain info about "shortcuts?") . Besides, it's in the EULA that you are not allowed to mess with the drivers. (I know EULA means sh*t, but still)

(maybe just be accident or out of curiosity) ?

Curiosity killed the cat ;-).. If this code is triggered by accident most HDs would still boot I think. Like Elbox said, there isn't any vital info stored in the part of the RDB that gets erased.

No one except the state (and parents  ;-) eh and wifes  :-o)) has the right to punish, and surely not an obscure polnish company.

Neither do the users who either don't own any of the drivers and/or hardware from Elbox, or aren't affected by the (unproven AFAIK) unsave code. The ones who are infected have a right to acuse them, offcourse Elbox will probably want them to prove they didn't mess with their drivers. (User wins ;-))

[seer]

@Electro

I am not aware of any code in windows that deletes your RDB (or whats it called on windows MFT?) but if there is its just the same #### that elbox did and it is by all means illegal.

It's called MBR (master boot record) in windows/MS-DOS.

AFAIK Windows doesn't contain any similar code, tho Win98 and even XP did thrash some of mine RDB's.... Reading Elbox statement, neither does their scheme delete your RDB, just some data on the hardrive type/heads/cylinders. Done that myself a few times when my A4000 was still working, no probs really. HD toolbox just reads them back from the drive without any pain.

[Elektro]

yeah MBR...

anyway... all you have written is besides the point. elbox (or anyone else for that matter) is not the authority with legal right to mess with your HD. they can sue you if they know you hacked / pirated their stuff but thats all there is to it.

[ikir]

Elektro wrote:
I really hope they go out of business and go live under some bridge... bastards deserve this..

.......

Have you read the article?

I personally agree with Elbox.

[Zadoc]

Did you read my posting? The driver was a trojan. This is illegal.

Yes, and as I said in an earlier post, I agree with your position and stance protecting your software and/or reputation.  I don't blame you at all in that aspect.  I probably would have done the same :-)

I just don't agree with of obtaining the driver by piracy- that is illegal.  As I said, how were the end-users to be aware that the driver you tested been hacked/cracked?  I certainly understand you wouldn't want to reveal 'where' you got the driver, but it doesn't look good to the outsider.

I just don't understand why you had to take that step.  Why not just discontinue support for "usb.device" until Elbox answered up about the RDB code?  If there was/is a dispute with Elbox over having the driver, why didn't you refuse to allow the "usb.device" to work with Poseidon in the first place? I just don't see pirating the driver as a necessary step towards protecting users of Poseidon, that's all.

[olegil]

all registered users have received appropriate updates.

Complete BS. I didn't get any update. I have gotten all the updates up to now, at least.

[Ponos2D]

I think there is no law that says that this what Elbox did is illegal,
it is better to say it is unmorale.

But either the way, I don't care. I have Mediator and SpiderUSB,
and everything works OK.

[Radfoo]

Complete BS. I didn't get any update. I have gotten all the updates up to now, at least.

Me neither, I have never had problems receiving them before so I guess they havent released them yet!

Not sure if I should install them or not, even if they do release them. What kind of new "safeguard" could they have added.

[seer]

all you have written is besides the point. elbox (or anyone else for that matter) is not the authority with legal right to mess with your HD. they can sue you if they know you hacked / pirated their stuff but thats all there is to it.

Just try to keep things a little fair. Looks like Elbox is the only bad party here. I'll never trust a anom. Hacker, even if what he said seems to be true for some part.

I do agree that such should never be in any driver or other OS stuff... Mind, I have yet to see from both sides any proof of what the code does or doesn't do. (The "hacker" -> Driver destroys RDB and data when something goes wrong; Elbox -> driver destroys unimportant bit of RDB no data is ever lost.)