This is incredibly interesting. From the articles I've been able to dig up, it sounds as though they've outright admitted to breaking the counterfeit products

This is incredibly interesting. From the articles I've been able to dig up, it sounds as though they've outright admitted to breaking the counterfeit products and it was not an accident[0]. Rather than simply state "We've detected a counterfeit product. If our driver works at all with this product, it will probably be unreliable. It may also break it, entirely. We recommend buying a replacement from (xyz) and requesting a refund from the retailer your purchased it from" Maybe allow them to continue "at their peril", but intentionally break it? That's just stupid. Consider that this is a device that is probably being used by a company, a developer or otherwise power-user who will likely purchase more than one, did intentionally breaking the one they had make them want to purchase a genuine one or any future product from you? Or did you just cause a poor sysadmin to make it their mission in life to cause your future bankruptcy? It'd make me investigate any alternative to an FTDI product for any future purchase, and they did that, not the counterfeit-maker. This is such an awesome "punch the customer" response; it's like the RIAA/MPAA are moonlighting in management over there. I loved the FTDI official response, somewhere highlighted is how awful counterfeits are for their business. It's really difficult to feel sympathy for a company who so recklessly disregarded my business by destroying something I owned that they didn't make -- trademark/counterfeit law aside, the only person who got victimized twice was the person who thought they purchased an FTDI product. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/ftdis-anti-counterfeiting-efforts-sit-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/ftdis...