ELBOX New Spider device

[Heiroglyph]

Piru and I weren't the ones caught putting potentially damaging software on the market.  It's their PR blunder.

It's a legitimate concern that I'd like to at least get confirmation on before paying 9x cost for a driver that is locked to one USB card.

If the Deneb died, I understood that replacement cost was for custom hardware.

It hurts to pay $80 for driver development (which I'm fine with BTW) and then have to pay again if the $10 hardware dies.

Adding the worry of the driver going haywire and trashing my RDB is just a step too far to ask.

[Darrin]

Well it looked like as if you wouldn't have. Thanks for setting the record straight.

So, can we take that as "there is no RDB trashing code in Elbox's drivers that Piru knows about and he just hates to think of them selling rebadged USB cards to Mediator owners"?

[Piru]

Has it been confirmed that it no longer has the RDB code in it?

There's no way to know unless if someone reverse engineers the code. At least in earlier driver versions Elbox employed encryption methods to hide the code from simple disassembly dumping (hence elboxdecrypt).

I might take a look if I find some spare time.

[Piru]

So, can we take that as "there is no RDB trashing code in Elbox's drivers that Piru knows about and he just hates to think of them selling rebadged USB cards to Mediator owners"?

More like "This vendor has placed malicious code in their driver before, publicly denied any wrongdoing rather than apologizing, and thus cannot be trusted unless any software from them is manually checked against such code."

[matthey]

No, I'm just being childish like you are as you try and undermine Amigakit and Elbox sales.

Piru and Chris Hodges (Poseiden author) may rub people the wrong way sometimes but they aren't the bad guys here.

I think Elbox is very "unprofessional" for...

1) Releasing a driver that could potentially destroy HD information (Confirmed by Chris Hodges).
2) Rebadging a generic card as their own and writing a driver for it instead of writing a universal driver that works with any NEC USB card.

I think Elbox is somewhat unprofessional for...

1) Using a pirated copy of Poseiden.
2) Advertising the PPC Shark forever with no intention of bringing it out.
3) Having the worst e-mail management of any company I have ever seen.

Elbox deserves to have their Spider driver hacked/patched to work with a generic NEC card. Hmm, Maybe I should buy a $7 card and give it a try. I better back up my hard drive first though :/.

[buzz]

I'd go as far to say it was criminal.

and only somewhat unprofessional for shipping/selling pirate software with the device? that should go under criminal too

There is no excuse for software designed "under certain conditions" to secretly destroy data, and anyone defending such practices is surely an idiot.

[stevee617]

So are these cards still rebadged NEC 720101 USB cards with a modified PCI ID? (They sell for $7 or so)
Does this particular driver erase RDB if you're unlucky?

Does this mean that any USB card using the NEC 720101 chipset will work? If so, I found USB cards with this chipset for even less at $4.98!

[Piru]

Does this mean that any USB card using the NEC 720101 chipset will work?

No. Elbox has locked the driver to this "Spider" card. There's no reason why it wouldn't work though, other than this artificial lock-in.

If so, I found USB cards with this chipset for even less at $4.98!

I'm afraid you have to buy the Spider II. It's about $77. You get a nice yellow Elbox Spider II sticker though!

[buzz]

I'm afraid you have to buy the Spider II. It's about $77. You get a nice yellow Elbox Spider II sticker though!

According to the elbox site, you will have to fork out 83 euros or $ 91.95 from their non eu store. bargain!

[jj]

So are these cards still rebadged NEC 720101 USB cards with a modified PCI ID? (They sell for $7 or so)
Does this particular driver erase RDB if you're unlucky?

 
Damm beat me to that was exactly questions I was going to ask.

[psxphill]

I think Elbox is very "unprofessional" for...
 
2) Rebadging a generic card as their own and writing a driver for it instead of writing a universal driver that works with any NEC USB card.

You'd probably be suprised how often this happens then. I've seen generic graphics cards with custom roms sold for treble the price of the generic ones, you're paying for the whole package & not just the raw materials.
 
Like all companies, they are here to make money. If writing the software was free then someone else would have done it by now. Using the hardware as a dongle is the only way they can protect their investment from rampant piracy (which you have to admit is what would happen if they tried to recoup their costs and didn't protect it).
 
I don't think corrupting the hard drive is good practise though. Putting random read/write errors on usb device access should be enough. If you don't think thats professional then you probably don't want to pirate nero burning rom, as they have had code that corrupts your cd/dvd burns.

[billyfish]

Well it looked like as if you wouldn't have. Thanks for setting the record straight.

Off topic: "if you wouldn't have"?! If you're attempting to pick holes in someone else's grammar, make sure you get your own correct...

[Crumb]

Well, why not try out ArakAttack and let Guido know how it performs?
http://geit.de/stupid/ArakAttack.readme

http://www.geit.de/stupid/ArakAttack.lha

It should work with most USB PCI cards. Perhaps the author needs some feedback about how it performs with OpenPCI.

[alexh]

How do they change the PCI ID of the card? Jumper a few pins on the ASIC? Can someone  mod their own $4 board so as to not require software patches??

[ddniUK]

alex, I reckon you KNOW you could do it

[Crumb]

@alexh

perhaps they reflash the small 8KB flash or eeprom chip. Depending on the chip model perhaps they update it using software (like uniflash) and they don´t need to modify anything of the hardware.