E3B - press release regarding potential software problems

[Dr_Righteous]

Just to be clear, these elbox bashers do not represent the Amiga community as a whole. I whole heartedly support Elbox, and am a very happy customer.

Now this thing with E3B not supporting the use of a particular piece of hardware is what I consider to be childish. Even if it requires a seperate registration, the fact that it works is reason enough to support it... For the sake of US, the Amiga users.

[Kronos]

@Dr_Righteous (what a fitting nick .... )

So you are also on the list of people thinking Chris Hodges is employeed by E3B ??

Tell you he is not, and the problem was (and still should be) between him and Elbox.

It wasn't him who sold rebadged 5Euro cards for a fortune.
It wasn't also him who left costumers in the dark bout the unregistered nature of the Poseidon-stack with said cards.

It was surely not him putting RDB-trashing code into drivers running on a MP-free OS.

And no he didn't advocate prirating like someone else.

People who bought a Spider in the past (and were honest enough to register Poseidon) can still use it. People buying them now should complain to Elbox cos they didn't get told beforehand that Elbox can't deliver SW to make them of any use.

Why Elbox (again) insist on bringing E3B into it is beyond me.

[Argus]

humppa wrote:

Can anybody already confirm this for the Mediator 1200 LT4? If yes, it would be a great alternative.
-

As soon as I get my ALi card, I'm going to try it on my Mediator 1200LT4.  Stay tuned....

[AJCopland]

@ALL
Can someone please summarise this into a sane newspost?

Something along the lines of why using USB with Elbox products is a problem? And Who is causing the problem?
Is it Elbox drivers? The Poseidon USB stack that was at the heart of all those arguments between Elbox and Chris? Or something from E3B.

Because i'm too hungover and confused to think it all through.

Andy

[Rob]

I think it goes something along the lines of.

Elbox made USB drivers for the Spider card which work with the Poseidon USB stack.  Chris Hodges confirmed the existance of malicious code in the Elbox driver, which some other guy found by reverse engineering the device.
According to Elbox this code would only become active if the drivers were hacked and pirated.

A big argument ensued and Chris Hodges decided to limit his potential customer base by cutting Elbox users out of the deal.

Now Elbox have allegedly decided to help Chris in his mission not to make money from Poseidon by stopping other people's USB hardware working when the have Elbox's drivers on their system.

Disclaimer.

"This may or may not be an accurate representaion of what really went on."

[platon42]

> Chris Hodges hacked the drivers

I never "hacked" those drivers. I merely confirmed the existance of the malicious code in the Elbox driver which some other guy found by reverse engineering the device and later on, the pci.library.

[Rob]

Okay I changed my post to reflect that.  Would you ever reconsider supporting Elbox hardware, for the sake of Amiga users.

Would I be able to use Poseidon with Amithlon if get it registered.

[Piru]

Elbox customers need to talk to Elbox about the USB stack.

[AmiGR]

@Rob

According to Elbox this code would only become active if the drivers were hacked and pirated.

Or if any random code in the system accidentally jumped there, or if something in the system corrupted the driver enough to execute the code, or, or, or, or, AmigaOS is a system without any Memory Protection, these are scenarios entirely possible to happen. The "only if the driver is cracked" stuff is a wish, not reality.

[Tomas]

The way to sort Elbox out once and for all, is STOP supporting them.

So what then are the alternatives? Elbox is one a very few who still produce hardware for the classic, without them the amiga market would have been much more dead than now.

[Rob]

@AmiGR

Or if any random code in the system accidentally jumped there, or if something in the system corrupted the driver enough to execute the code, or, or, or, or, AmigaOS is a system without any Memory Protection, these are scenarios entirely possible to happen. The "only if the driver is cracked" stuff is a wish, not reality.

Did this ever happen to anyone?  Didn't Elbox remove the code due to public pressure anyway.

[AmiGR]

Who knows, if my RDB suddenly disappeared, I wouldn't be thinking that a driver erased it, it's pretty hard to make the connection. They did remove it, the problem is their whole stance during that period, towards Chris Hodges and pretty much everyone else who dared talk about this.

[Piru]

Did this ever happen to anyone?

It's impossible to tell. The destruction code does not show any message or other indication that it has wiped out the RDB. All partitions are just lost on next reboot.

If your HDD just suddenly lost all partitions, how would you know to blame some driver? Wouldn't you just assume the HDD has died horribly?

[Akiko]

@Piru

It's impossible to tell.

Yes it's all very theoretical, no proof the code was ever prone to being accidentally released or indeed nothing to say it hadn't neither.
Probably in the end why Elbox bowed into criticism and removed the code to rule out such possibility's.
If indeed no RDB code is still being used in Elbox software, it's all rather sad that it still made into such a big issue by some.

[Piru]

If indeed no RDB code is still being used in Elbox software

Well, here lies the problem: Elbox drivers are encrypted. There is no way the end customer can check for this, without breaking the license (which says decompiling is prohibited).

So you are forced to trust Elbox's word.

If you trust elbox's word on that, then this must be taken seriously aswell:

This option is not excluded, that in revenge for not registering the Poseidon stack for Mediator/Spider users all our products will refuse working when any of competitive USB controllers using Chris Hodges' Poseidon stack are present in the computer. This would apply to E3B USB cards (Highway, Subway, Algor). But, if any other USB solution will use Chris Hodges' Poseidon stack, this solution would be affected as well.

[Akiko]

If you trust elbox's word on that

I see no reason not too, unless you know something?


I have included the rest of the message so it may be seen in it's full entirety.

But this is a last resort. I still hope that Chris Hodges will restore  registrations of the Poseidon stack for Mediator / Spider users. His current posistion is absolutely mindless and is counter-productive, to everyone, most of all to users.

It's so sad that Elbox and Chris Hodges need to have these tit for tat exchanges at all. :roll:  
I can however understand why Elbox might take such action, after all isn't it the Poseidon author that is so morally apposed having his stack associated with Elbox hardware?

Well hopefully they can both come to some sense and and set aside their egos and pride.