Windows Update Drivers Bricking USB Serial Chips

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What's the easiest way to tell if you have counterfeit chips in your computer? Use Windows Update. ;)

Hardware hackers building interactive gadgets based on the Arduino microcontrollers are finding that a recent driver update that Microsoft deployed over Windows Update has bricked some of their hardware, leaving it inaccessible to most software both on Windows and Linux.
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I don't blame FTDI. It costs money to engineer good products and have up to date driver support. It boils down to doing something about the counterfeits or going out of business.
 
mi7chy said:
I don't blame FTDI. It costs money to engineer good products and have up to date driver support. It boils down to doing something about the counterfeits or going out of business.
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Just don't make the consumer the victim. Target the source of the problem. The counterfeiters.

But that takes too much time and money. Lets do it the easy way.
 
It's actually raising awareness and benefiting the victim since he can return the subpar counterfeit product and get his money back ultimately punishing the counterfeiters. Not any different than customs seizing and destroying counterfeit products when they reach shore.
 
It doesn't matter what is right or wrong MS has to keep the OS stable no matter what happens. Because ultimately most consumers are ignorant to everything and blame all their problems on MS regardless of whom is really causing the problems.
 
rudy said:
It doesn't matter what is right or wrong MS has to keep the OS stable no matter what happens. Because ultimately most consumers are ignorant to everything and blame all their problems on MS regardless of whom is really causing the problems.
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If you've followed recent stories on this site, any Windows computer with a functioning USB port is no longer secure, even with AV software and OS malware detection. Methinks MS has begun whitelisting and/or blacklisting USB firmwares, since it would be the only way to deal with this USB spec and/or implementation problem.
 
They could easily have just programmed their driver to ignore the counterfeit hardware and even pop up with a message advising the customer to speak to their retailer, but instead they wilfully destroyed property that is not their own.

This was not a software update gone awry, it was created with malicious intent by FTDI.

Microsoft has pulled both software updates and pretty much bitch slapped FTDI into the next century.

I hope someone sues the living hell out of this company and the idiot who thought this was a good idea loses his job.
 
I have a Arduino, used for hooking up my OBD1 car up to my laptop. Luckily my laptop uses linux and my car has been running fine. Otherwise I would have been super pissed.
 
Unless FTDI has a Customs declaration or a court finding that a particular chip(s) are counterfeit, then any devices bricked by this driver that contain chips NOT covered by such a finding could possibly result in the following charges per device, destruction of private property, use of computer to commit a crime, use of a telecommunications network to commit a crime and installation of a malicious software on another person's computer. It is little wonder that Microsoft quickly pulled the drivers in question. Failing to do so could make them be considered willing accomplices in these crimes.

Plus FTDI has to consider the possibility that some firm has legally reverse engineered a chip and is producing legal clones.
 
NeghVar said:
Just don't make the consumer the victim. Target the source of the problem. The counterfeiters.

But that takes too much time and money. Lets do it the easy way.
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Agreed. All they are doing is punishing end users that may have not known the difference. There were better ways of handling this. Now more people have heard of them (I had not before this issue) and I will avoid buying anything of theirs when possible. Making the general public dislike you is not the way to make more money.
 
Talk about a fast way to get forever banned from MS updates.
 
JeffDC said:
If you've followed recent stories on this site, any Windows computer with a functioning USB port is no longer secure, even with AV software and OS malware detection. Methinks MS has begun whitelisting and/or blacklisting USB firmwares, since it would be the only way to deal with this USB spec and/or implementation problem.
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Any computer with a USB port, not just windows computers. Read more than blog posts on the subject.
 
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