5 ms·

And what if the fake FTDI is in a piece of medical equipment keeping someone alive? Surely FTDI has no culpability in bricking it, they should have gotten a gri

And what if the fake FTDI is in a piece of medical equipment keeping someone alive? Surely FTDI has no culpability in bricking it, they should have gotten a grip on their supply chain!

Tomte 11y ago
Yes, they should have. And tested the function. The applicable standards actually demand it. Safety development is serious business. You cannot justify your "I want everything as cheap as possible, counterfeit or not" attitude with some hallucinated safety risk.
- kefka 11y ago
  > Yes, they should have. And tested the function. The applicable standards actually demand it. I agree. I don't want to put counterfeits in my product. Now, show me FTDI's standards documents that indicate how to identify and test for fakes. (Hint: they don't)
  - Tomte 11y ago
    In this case it's obviously simple: you are not allowed to update drivers unless you have validated them. As far as I understand, this "behaviour" is totally deterministic and certain. You immediately notice the problem in any test system. Don't believe that safety-critical devices are allowed to install some drivers willy-nilly!
    - creshal 11y ago
      > As far as I understand, this "behaviour" is totally deterministic and certain. You immediately notice the problem in any test system. FTDI does not provide any guide lines to third parties how to test whether their chips are counterfeit or not. The only way to test it is trying to use it with FTDI's Windows driver, and FTDI randomly changes the both the detection criteria, and the action done on detecting a counterfeit chip – sometimes it bricks them, sometimes it sends gibberish, you have no way of knowing beforehand. FTDI doesn't even guarantee that this behaviour is deterministic!
    - jerf 11y ago
      "you are not allowed to update drivers unless you have validated them." And when QA validates them on a set of systems that happen to be legit and ships it to systems that happen to have counterfeits? You seem to be arguing in this thread with a false dilemma between EITHER we must accept counterfeiting OR we must brick the chips, but there are in between measures that are way safer. Prior art: Several versions of Windows have been able to detect if they were "genuine". Non-genuine windows did not brick their machine, or destroy themselves. Quick googling suggests it blocks you from getting updates, and pops up with links to a page on Microsoft where you could properly license it with some discount. That exact solution may not apply here, but there are options other than destroying hardware that is carrying your name. (I mean, this isn't even good for FTDI... how many customers will never find out about this and simply learn that "FTDI chips spontaneously die a lot"? Not the brand experience I'm looking for!)
- rhinoceraptor 11y ago
  The problem I'm pointing out is the device makes it through QA, testing and is in production in a hospital. Then, one day a Windows driver update comes down and bricks the device. That is indefensible, regardless of whether it's right or wrong to use counterfeit parts.
  - malka 11y ago
    I'd say the problem is pushing updates to a life critical system without testing it on a pre-production system that will behave the exact same way.
    - fennecfoxen 11y ago
      > a pre-production system that will behave the exact same way So what if all of your preproduction systems have a genuine FTDI chip in them, and many of your millions of deployed production systems have counterfeits that you don't know about? That'll be exciting. Quality is a matter of defense in depth. You can't rely on your preproduction system running the exact same way as production. You strive for consistency, but ultimately each chip in each computer is a unique physical object made with different silicon crystals, and being identical is impossible. You want a system that's robust against a variety of subtle differences. FTDI is just doing their small bit to make everything just a little more fragile and unpredictable where their chips are concerned, and as such their products ought to be shunned.
      - malka 11y ago
        I see your point, and, well, agree with it. The only opposition I could see would be to make sure all your system incorporating FDTI chips comes from the same batch, and to change them all when you change one. Not realistically doable imo.
        HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
        It's entirely doable and manufacturers of safety critical equipment the world over are doing it daily and recording the batch information Just In Case.
kefka 11y ago
That's the wrong question to ask. Instead, 'How do I know that the devices I bought up to 3 years ago don't have a "detected counterfeit" chip and get nuked by a future FTDI driver update?' Or, 'How do I keep from getting malware and other bad actor software in via Windows Updates?'

And what if the fake FTDI is in a piece of medical equipment keeping someone alive? Surely FTDI has no culpability in bricking it, they should have gotten a grip on their supply chain!

Tomte 11y ago

Yes, they should have. And tested the function. The applicable standards actually demand it. Safety development is serious business. You cannot justify your "I want everything as cheap as possible, counterfeit or not" attitude with some hallucinated safety risk.

kefka 11y ago
> Yes, they should have. And tested the function. The applicable standards actually demand it. I agree. I don't want to put counterfeits in my product. Now, show me FTDI's standards documents that indicate how to identify and test for fakes. (Hint: they don't)
- Tomte 11y ago
  In this case it's obviously simple: you are not allowed to update drivers unless you have validated them. As far as I understand, this "behaviour" is totally deterministic and certain. You immediately notice the problem in any test system. Don't believe that safety-critical devices are allowed to install some drivers willy-nilly!
  - creshal 11y ago
    > As far as I understand, this "behaviour" is totally deterministic and certain. You immediately notice the problem in any test system. FTDI does not provide any guide lines to third parties how to test whether their chips are counterfeit or not. The only way to test it is trying to use it with FTDI's Windows driver, and FTDI randomly changes the both the detection criteria, and the action done on detecting a counterfeit chip – sometimes it bricks them, sometimes it sends gibberish, you have no way of knowing beforehand. FTDI doesn't even guarantee that this behaviour is deterministic!
  - jerf 11y ago
    "you are not allowed to update drivers unless you have validated them." And when QA validates them on a set of systems that happen to be legit and ships it to systems that happen to have counterfeits? You seem to be arguing in this thread with a false dilemma between EITHER we must accept counterfeiting OR we must brick the chips, but there are in between measures that are way safer. Prior art: Several versions of Windows have been able to detect if they were "genuine". Non-genuine windows did not brick their machine, or destroy themselves. Quick googling suggests it blocks you from getting updates, and pops up with links to a page on Microsoft where you could properly license it with some discount. That exact solution may not apply here, but there are options other than destroying hardware that is carrying your name. (I mean, this isn't even good for FTDI... how many customers will never find out about this and simply learn that "FTDI chips spontaneously die a lot"? Not the brand experience I'm looking for!)
rhinoceraptor 11y ago
The problem I'm pointing out is the device makes it through QA, testing and is in production in a hospital. Then, one day a Windows driver update comes down and bricks the device. That is indefensible, regardless of whether it's right or wrong to use counterfeit parts.
- malka 11y ago
  I'd say the problem is pushing updates to a life critical system without testing it on a pre-production system that will behave the exact same way.
  - fennecfoxen 11y ago
    > a pre-production system that will behave the exact same way So what if all of your preproduction systems have a genuine FTDI chip in them, and many of your millions of deployed production systems have counterfeits that you don't know about? That'll be exciting. Quality is a matter of defense in depth. You can't rely on your preproduction system running the exact same way as production. You strive for consistency, but ultimately each chip in each computer is a unique physical object made with different silicon crystals, and being identical is impossible. You want a system that's robust against a variety of subtle differences. FTDI is just doing their small bit to make everything just a little more fragile and unpredictable where their chips are concerned, and as such their products ought to be shunned.
    - malka 11y ago
      I see your point, and, well, agree with it. The only opposition I could see would be to make sure all your system incorporating FDTI chips comes from the same batch, and to change them all when you change one. Not realistically doable imo.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
        It's entirely doable and manufacturers of safety critical equipment the world over are doing it daily and recording the batch information Just In Case.

kefka 11y ago

That's the wrong question to ask. Instead, 'How do I know that the devices I bought up to 3 years ago don't have a "detected counterfeit" chip and get nuked by a future FTDI driver update?' Or, 'How do I keep from getting malware and other bad actor software in via Windows Updates?'