Elbox have spoken

[seer]

LOL I see my name mentioned alot in your post, I am sooo flattered

You're welcome. But with close to 2500 posts, I think we can safely say you are one of the better known A-Orgers here...

[redrumloa]

, and if you are backing his / this post as comming from Chris then I'll take you're word for it.

Well looking at his profile I'd say this is definately him, hard to fake a registered user's email address with A-Org's registration policy:-)

You have proven yourself as a reliable poster

Thanks for the compliment :-D

[Ponos2D]

OK! I have two Harddisks. All partitions are SFS.
I want to know how can I trigger that s**t! I want
to try that, and see what happens! I made backup!

I don't know why, but I have feeling that someone
wants to harm ELBOX, regardless of this RDISK thing!

Why is this world of amiga so unAmiga last years.
Lots of divided people!

If there was no mediator I would sure go PC way! I
could not stand slow AGA graphisc anymore!

I'm sad now!

[redrumloa]

@Ponos2D

If I were you, I'd just get and use the most recent "fixed" driver from Elbox. You already own the hardware.

As for testing yourself, the first thread on ANN has alot of detail how to do the test yourself.

[ikir]

I don't understand this caos.... The code was only dangerous for cracker, not for normal user..... it was a protection from other companies.....

I agree with Elbox in this point.

and then, Mediator change my amiga..... I can work with my amiga (in a internet point), only because i have a mediator with Voodoo3, Sb, and a very cheap ethernetcard!
Elbox had powered up old amiga, and bring them back to life in my opinion. See waht can offers other pci solution..... :-(

CLICK HERE for COMPARISON

[Tigger]

ikir wrote:
I don't understand this caos.... The code was only dangerous for cracker, not for normal user..... it was a protection from other companies.....

I agree with Elbox in this point.

Wrong, first of all what they did is illegal in several countries, including the US.   Secondly, it takes one stray pointer, one PCI misread etc, to set off a program that makes your drive unusable until (at best case) you run HDToolbox (Elboxs version) or permanently lose the data (everyone who's actually tested it).   If you downloaded a program that did this, and it became known, it would be killed from aminet, why should elbox's official drivers be held to a lower standard.
     -Tig

[Tigger]

seer wrote:

What elbox describes, wether this is true or not, is that their codes overwrites a part of the RDB called RDSK  in which hardware info is stored, the number of cylinders, numbers of drive heads etc, non vital info to boot the drive. This can be easily restored with HD-toolbox, and AFAIK is not even needed to boot from the drive, or at worse see and use the drive when booting from the WB disk.

You arent think clearly, and you are incorrect in your assumption.  Think about it, if you were correct and the first block of the RDB (There words for what they are messing with) was not needed for the drive to work correctly, then there code does nothing, and they have no reason to say it only takes 5 minutes to fix with HDToolbox if it doesnt need to be fixed, and noone on ANN would have realized that this was happening, because there computers would have booted fine, etc.   Can you fix this issue with HDToolbox??   Maybe, Chris Hodges wasnt able to, and I would not consider him a novice user by any stretch of the imagination.  I worry about all those with much less experience then Chris who are supposed to figure out how to save important date on there computer because they ran DPaint 4.5 (the Enforcer hit version) while having this elbox driver installed.  
    -Tig

[Doobrey]

ikir wrote:
I don't understand this caos.... The code was only dangerous for cracker, not for normal user..... it was a protection from other companies.....

I agree with Elbox in this point.

The code doesn`t stop anyone reverse engineering their drivers,( which according to Elbox is why they put the "protection code" in ).
 It only stops the average user trying to force Elbox`s drivers to work with other cards.
  Why didn`t they just use a simple error message or requester saying it only works with a Spider?

As for the code being dangerous ONLY to crackers..
bollocks..
 Any  virus or buggy/badly coded app could write into the memory used by the driver. Overwrite the driver at a certain location and the RDB code is triggered. OK, the posibility of that happening is VERY small, but it`s still a posibility.

As to your view that Elbox was right to do this..

1. Putting destructive code into a program and   executing it without users constent is illegal in Europe..even for "copy protection". As the saying goes "Two wrongs don`t make a right"

2. Elbox first denied any such code existed, saying it was a FUD campaign against them.

3. Elbox later admit to the code, but still don`t apologise or even recognise what they did was illegal. Instead, they said the code was removed because their was no/little point to it since it became public knowledge !

( I won`t even start on how they screwed the P96 guys + several others)

If you want to carry on supporting a company with morals like this, then fine, it`s your money, and it`s your choice.
 
I was seriously thinking of getting a mediator for either my 4000 or my trusty old 1200, but since this whole can of worms has opened up, I`ll be saving my money for either an A1 or PegasOS.

[Kaminari]

Zadoc, you must be kidding.

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'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.

[Piru]

The proof I want; a creditable person stating that he tried to hack said driver and as a result lost all partions and data on his main HD, or that it doesn't do anything worse at all.

proof2

But I dunno about credibility of this guy. :-)

any news on the sharkPPC?

[platon42]

@seer:
>ThanX, at least some proof..

Sigh. You rather believe Elbox with their "facts", which again obviously are *wrong* again.

>About ANN, any "troll" can post there,

Sigh. If you are that sceptic, why don't you are this with the statements of Elbox aswell, instead of repeatedly posting their statements as dogmatic truth?

>Still, I did do awfull stuff to the RDB just for "fun"

How did you do this? With a disk monitor? Or with
HDToolbox? With the latter, changing the RDSK geometry information does not harm the partitioning data.

>but never had the problems you described when destroying only the drivetype info that "should" reside in the RDSK.

How did you "destroy only the drivetype info"?

>Is it possible there are some diffrences on a ZIP RDB ? (Willing to risk your real IDE HD )

No, there is NO difference.

>Strange that your SFS partition was bey bey.. I know the filesystem is written to the RDB, but I thought it wasn't anywhere "near" the RDSK ?

The PART-blocks, which hold the information about where partitions start and all the filesystem parameters, is stored directly after the RDSK.

>>Is this enough for a proof?
>Would be better if you had a higher post count

Now, excuse me, that's stupid. You really think that if this account was faked, the "real" Chris Hodges wouldn't immediately cry out and tell Wayne that there's a fake account of him? Argh.

>Offcourse I could still say; you didn't use the driver and some hacking, just some self editing of the RDB but I'll let this pass by

I really cannot help you then. I'll give it up. Believe whatever is easier for you to believe.

[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.

[redrumloa]

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.

Whoa whoa whoa!! insinuating Chris Hodges is a pirate IMO is uncalled for and wrong. He wrote the Stack for the Spider, and he is legally entitled to know if his product is is being bundled with blatantly illegal software. This is serious, any potential lawsuits against Elbox could also affect him! 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. :-x

[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.

[Bobsonsirjonny]

seer wrote:
....About ANN, any "troll" can post there, on A.org this is a little more difficult as at least here only one can use a certain nick (Well most of the time.. Sometimes Bobson isn't Bobson  :-P )..
 

I dont get what you mean? :-)

 I'm always here dude - I never post on Ann :-)