An Open Letter From Elbox

[Kees]

Elbox wrote an open letter to the community.

"Dear Users of Elbox products for Amiga computers,

We have seen a number of statements posted in recent days, whose authors devote their precious time and energy to spreading twisted and untrue information on Elbox and our products. We are presenting here our official position in reference to their falsification of the truth."


Elbox is a fully-fledged business entity. We design, develop, produce and sell hardware and software for Amiga computers. We follow a very fundamental rule in our business: if we decide to publicise any information, it is already certain, tested and true. Not always can we write directly what the reader would like to know (due to trade and marketing secrets, IP confidentiality and the signed NDA documents), but you always can rely on our information.

To give you a clear picture of the current situation, we have decided to publish this statement.

SPIDER USB DRIVER CRACKED

The whole affair was initiated by a person who publicly confessed committing a computer misuse offence. That person admitted that he had cracked one of our drivers. After illegal obtaining, decrypting, disassembling and modifying of our driver, the cracker discovered code in the driver, which was part of the anti-piracy safeguard.

Yes, we use anti-piracy safeguard measures. They are well thought, thoroughly tested and carefully included in our software and hardware. Obviously enough, they are completely safe for legal users of our software. Our anti-piracy safeguards are aimed solely against crackers and people who want to use cracked software. The disclaimers enclosed with our software openly state that any modification of our drivers is forbidden. Whoever breaks the law and steals our intellectual property must be aware of committing an act of illegal nature.

We consider cracking activities as highly condemnable and punishable, yet the anti-piracy safeguards we use never go beyond the limits of the law in force. The effects of activating our anti-piracy safeguard measures will NEVER result in unrecoverable losses: either in hardware or in the data.

RDB FACTS

How does it relate to the cracked USB driver in question? The only result of activation of the anti-piracy safeguard in the cracked code is overwriting the first RDB sector of the booting hard disk. This first RDB sector, named RDSK, does not contain ANY user data. This sector does not contain ANY information about disk partitioning, either. What is stored in this sector is only information about the model and parameters of the hard disk and technical information available in another part of the RDB. When the RDSK sector content is overwritten, recovering is quite simple. No backup copies of this RDB sector are necessary. All the information to be included in the RDSK sector can be read from the hard disk with HDToolBox software, even if this sector is completely overwritten. The five
minutes of work needed to restore the RDSK sector does not seem to be a heavy punishment for stealing and/or cracking software...

RDSK STRING REMOVED

Our fully legal anti-piracy safeguard lost its purpose when information about it was spread among crackers. Therefore, its code has been removed from all our drivers to Mediator and Spider, and all registered users have received appropriate updates.

LEGAL USERS ARE ALWAYS SAFE

Our anti-piracy safeguards are COMPLETELY safe for legal users of our software. They may affect only those, who attempt to crack our drivers for the purpose of using them for hardware (other USB PCI cards and other PCI solutions) not supported by us, and persons who would use such cracked software.

COOPERATION--YES, COMPETITION CHEATS--NO

Under such circumstances, only users of hardware other than supported by Elbox may not feel safe using cracked Elbox drivers. We do protect our intellectual property and anti-piracy policy employed by Elbox is part of the process.

The loud misinformation campaign started recently in some news lists was inspired mostly by people related to producers of other hardware and persons who do not own Elbox hardware.

The question remains: Why would we leave our hard-worked software open for other developers? Why would we provide them with efforts of long hours of our work and testing without them spending even a fraction of our expenditures on development? In the long run, legal users of our products would have to pay for it, but we do not want to increase our prices only because other developers would want to lay their hands on results of our work for free.

We are always ready for fair-play cooperation, but we will not agree to and we will fight back-door and illegal activities.

WE SUPPORT ALL OF YOU

We hope that our explanations will clear away all doubts resulting from this wide campaign against us. Still, we are really amazed how strongly people sympathise with crackers... A cracker may only harm your data, as he is not aware of the complete development and programming process, which takes weeks or months and includes thorough testing and verification procedures. Remember please, that a cracker will never take any responsibility for his 'creation.'

Those of you who have purchased our products have trusted us. Your decision was 100% good. We do expand our work for you. We will never let you down when you have new ideas or just want to solve your problems. We always give you a competitive edge over other products available in the Amiga market.

Those of you who have tried our hardware and software know the feeling of peace and certainty. Those who only jump around in the lists will never have this feeling. Laugh at them, be happy that at the time when they are so uneasy you may quietly go ahead and work out your own way with Elbox products.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR ENERGY

Do not talk or listen to people who are not interested in acquiring Amiga hardware or software. These are not real users, they are puppets of other producers who cannot make their own decisions and who subdue to persuasion of their 'upperdogs.' They are not interested in you or in helping you, because they have no knowledge or willingness to be part of the Amiga community benefiting from using Elbox hardware and software.

BE POSITIVE AND SUPPORTIVE

Instead, whenever you can, talk to Amiga USERS, who do not have Elbox products, and communicate your first-hand experience with our designs and software. They are underprivileged due to their clinging to other solutions and we all want to be the best performers. When we all unite, this small world of Amiga may again be flourishing and then we all will share the advantages.

Please notify us about piracy (including owning or sharing Elbox software without the bundled hardware): anti-piracy@elbox.com

Mariusz Wloczysiak
ELBOX COMPUTER, Press Department
contact: press@elbox.com

[anarchic_teapot]

I don't like the tone of this: it reads like some of the 'We are not a brainwashing sect' crap I used to get in my letterbox from brainwashing sects.

Our fully legal anti-piracy safeguard lost its purpose when information about it was spread among crackers.

While we may reasonably pause to wonder how an action like trashing someone's RDB can be legal for Elbox when it isn't for viruswriters, I like the way the entire Amiga community is referred to as 'crackers'.

This is a real gem:
 

They are underprivileged due to their clinging to other solutions and we all want to be the best performers.

Well, he's got the Ballmerspeak off to a T. Keep going, lad: that PR job with Microsoft is just a bootlick away.

Tssstt. I'd rather go without than put up with arrogance like this on the part of a supplier.

[jumpship]

@A_T

This is a real gem:
Quote:
They are underprivileged due to their clinging to other solutions and we all want to be the best performers.

Well, he's got the Ballmerspeak off to a T. Keep going, lad: that PR job with Microsoft is just a bootlick away.

Tssstt. I'd rather go without than put up with arrogance like this on the part of a supplier.

I noticed that too! Quite arrogant of them "We are the best the rest are carp" (I have swapped the letters on perpouse!)

[rachy]

RDSK STRING REMOVED

Our fully legal anti-piracy safeguard lost its purpose when information about it was spread among crackers. Therefore, its code has been removed from all our drivers to Mediator and Spider, and all registered users have received appropriate updates.

Does this mean, that the new driver updates - what I had just recieved - is free of ANY "easter-eggs"? Protecting any software by this destructive way IS ILLEGAL in our country. (And in a lot of other countries too.)

BTW, I do not have a floppy drive, so if I lost the RDSK, then I couldn't even easly restore, and I would be VERY angry... :-x

Not to mention what happens if I try my emulator on the stuffed codepiece, and any kind of the emulation mistake can cause that the driver flushes away my HDD...

So afterall, this overpaid HW with the bugging SW... Was it really a good  choice of mine? :evil:

[J]

Yep, I think Elbox have shot themselves in the foot with this.

Once discovred they should have  

a) Admit they made a (big) mistake, Issued a FULL apology
b) Release a new version of the drivers, with out RDB destroying code.

J

[AmiDelf]

I like Elbox.

[Piru]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6302
 
What next, slashdot?

[Oli_hd]

I think Elbox are right in what they did,
All they did was protect there code from hackers and it looks like they had good reason because someone did hack it, they are just anoyed that they got caught by a program built into the software..
In normal use you dont have any trouble what so ever.. Its only if you hack the software..
I say good for Elbox!

[xeron]

I think Elbox are right in what they did,
All they did was protect there code from hackers and it looks like they had good reason because someone did hack it, they are just anoyed that they got caught by a program built into the software..
In normal use you dont have any trouble what so ever.. Its only if you hack the software..
I say good for Elbox!

I think the only way you could come to that conclusion is by not fulling understanding the implications of the included code. The fact is that you cannot 100% guarrantee that the code will not be triggered on a legitimate system, period.

I am a Mediator owner, I write (or have written, not sure if i'll bother any more) software for Mediator owners, I always recommended Elbox hardware because it IS so high quality, but even I can see why they are wrong, and why there has been such an outcry!

[redrumloa]

@ami-Delf + Oli_hd

huh? You are happy about illegal activity that eventually will destroy honest user's HDs?

[Elektro]

If MS would be caught doing this you people would jump all over them...

[odin]

Well....that's just because M$ is the spawn of Evil Itself. (Says a doomed one typing this in on Exploiter on Windoze 98...../me assimilated? Nah...just brainwashed :-D)

[Valan]

Our fully legal anti-piracy safeguard lost its purpose when information about it was spread among crackers. Therefore, its code has been removed from all our drivers to Mediator and Spider, and all registered users have received appropriate updates.

If it was 'fully legal' why change it and go to the expense of updating registered users?

If they are not embarraced then why not just say 'So what!'

Was the 'cracker' a registered user? I hope so.

Do Elbox users feel 'peace and certainty' now?
Do they feel superior to non Elbox users?

They forgot the last bit of they letter:
Now turn to the person on your left and shout in their ear.
'Elbox for ever RA! RA! RA!

[Loki1]

I am a programmer and I know that anyone that does any C/C++ or Asm programming is going to crash their computers on a regular basis (without memory protection) and will be in grave danger of trashing the HD's if they have one of these Elbox boards! 8-)

[color=FF0000]Burn them at the stake![/color][/b] 8-)

[CodeSmith]

This sounds way too much like saying "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear"  and  "We are doing this to protect you".  What next, "this hurts us more than it hurts you"? (actually, from all the fallout they're getting this may end up being true  :-D )