Elbox have spoken

[Zadoc]

Personally, I think this whole ordeal is just crap.  Some hacker attempts to crack the usb.device driver, gets his RDB ruined and tries to blame Elbox.

I had no fear over my Mediator killing my harddrive as I am not doing anything illegal, and since I have switched to PFS3 I have not corrupted any executables on my harddrive.

I do understand the concern that legal Mediator users have/had over this ordeal, but I personally think this has all been blown way out of proportion.

I'm sure there will still be a bunch of people slagging Elbox even after this explanation and new drivers without the RDB trashing anti-piracy code.

[Zadoc]

@Balti

I'm even more annoyed by
the allegations the spread out against competition products.

(E3B being the target this time, but it's not the first of those)

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 and championed the campaign against Elbox in public forums.  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.

[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.

[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.

[Zadoc]

Zadoc, you must be kidding.

I'm afraid not.

Don't you know who Chris Hodges is? He's the man behind the Paula 14-bit DeliGenie. He's the man that made possible for Elbox to make their friggin USB driver compatible with his universal Poseidon stack.

I don't care if he worked beside Jay Miner, the fact is the driver he used to make his conclusions from was PIRATED and therefore reduces any credibility I have over his findings, and also doesn't look very good about his reputation.

I'm sure having much more confidence in this guy than in any Elbox PR out there. At least he didn't try to wipe my HD out with hidden and illegal trojans.

If you've actually read what I have written in earlier posts in this thread, including a few posts to Mr. Hodges himself, I AGREE with him aside from accepting a pirated driver and posting his findings from a driver which has no credibility due to piracy.  I simply think this was unnecessary and undermines his credibility, which otherwise I agree with him in his other decisions concerning the matter.

Personally, if obtaining a copy of the driver was something Mr. Hodges felt justified in having he should have demanded it from Elbox from the start - no driver, no support for the Spider under Posiedon.  And upon hearing about the RDB code, instead of ripping apart a pirated driver (which may or may not have been hacked/cracked) he should have just went ahead and pulled support for the Spider card until Elbox fixed the situation themselves.

[Zadoc]

Whoa whoa whoa!! insinuating Chris Hodges is a pirate IMO is uncalled for and wrong.

Wow, I don't see how everyone is misunderstanding what I have expressed in previous posts.  According to Mr. Hodges he obtained the driver from "a Mediator owner at his request" which is not the best way to go about the situation, and regardless of whether Chris Hodges has the right to own the driver the 'kind Mediator owner' did not have the right to supply it.  How is anyone to know if this driver hasn't been cracked/hacked or even used legally and corrupted by a bad FFS error?  As I said in my last post if obtaining the driver was important he should have demanded it from Elbox from the beginning.  If they failed to deliver a driver then no Posiedon support for the Spider card.

This is serious, any potential lawsuits against Elbox could also affect him!

Which is why I agree with the rest of his decisions concerning Poseidon support for the Spider driver.

Besides considering his stack is part of the MMCD, he's by default co-copyright owner of it. The industry standard would be for Elbox to send Chris a CD when published, but obviously Elbox does not conform to any industry standards or laws for that matter.

Exactly.  Which is why this probably should have been taken care of in writing in the form of a contract.  If Elbox fail to oblige their side of the bargain to deliver the driver he has a recourse and should have dropped all support for Elbox's spider card.

Before anyone else misunderstands what I am trying to say, I am not trying to defend Elbox nor lead a personal attack on Chris Hodges.  I am simply saying that obtaining the driver in that method is not wise legally, or credibly for proof of the RDB code.

[Zadoc]

IT'S PIRATED!? OH SHOCK HORROR!
HE'S ONE OF IT'S COPYRIGHT HOLDERS YOU SHEEP!

Wow...you don't read english very well do you?  I never discredited him from holding copyright...go back and read my posts again I am am tired of repeating my argument.

For some reason I almost feel like I've stumbled on to Ann.lu...