
Fake versus Real FTDI USB Serial Chips - ChuckMcM
http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/FTDI-FT232RL-real-vs-fake-supereal
======
Taniwha
the thing is that building a work alike chip - one that speaks the same
protocols, has the same pinout, (but a different USBID/part number)is
perfectly OK - price competition is good right?

The vendors would have to write their own drivers but compared with the cost
of spinning a chip that shouldn't be a big deal, if they'd come out and sold
their chips on the open market as a clone they'd probably get a lot of
business.

Of course one of the weird things about ft232s is that they're non-standard
USB devices (don't meet the ACM spec). If the cloners made ACM compatible
chips they wouldn't need to write drivers since all OSs have them built in
these days.

Disclaimer: I build and sell open source USB boards, including serial devices
(ACM, not ft232 compatible)

~~~
tmp26
Price competition is great! The shady thing about the imitations is trying to
insert themselves into someone else's supply & support chain, IMO.

Which is probably tied to the reason they didn't implement the ACM spec- from
my limited hobbyist view, FTDI is the dominant player, so of course they would
chose to mimic the non-standard ft232 instead of some underdog ACM player.

Oh, and as for costs, you're totally right that spinning a chip costs way more
than a driver. But:

\- A theme as I learn about fly-by-night companies is they piggyback on other
operations. As the article observes, this knockoff required only 1 mask layer,
because the rest is probably a standard microcontroller.

\- Marketing & marketshare are probably the real reason, not getting out of
writing drivers. Again, FTDI seems to be the entrenched player.

------
kbart
I don't get it. What's the logic behind silently killing a counterfeit chip
instead of showing a pop-up window with "Unlicensed chip detected, drivers
stopped." or smth? I'm sure most of the buyers of these counterfeit chips get
in such situation without knowing and would be happy to return the fake
chips/boards to supplier what in turn could help fighting the root cause, not
just punishing the unsuspecting end users. I personally have encountered many
non-working FTDI cables and blamed FTDIChip for their lousy quality control,
so it not only hurts the end-users but the reputation of the legitimate
company as well.

------
ChuckMcM
A friend of mine just ran into this, and after investigation it seems it is
quite the thing. Don't buy your chips on Ebay or Alibaba I guess.

~~~
chrisBob
Its worse than that. Don't buy a _board_ from Ebay or Alibaba.

~~~
Someone1234
Its worse than that. Don't buy generic electrical goods w/USB from East Asia
(they might be tainted by this, unbeknownst to you).

~~~
zyxley
"Don't buy generic electrical goods from East Asia" is pretty good advice in
general, given that some people have been literally electrocuted by faulty
low-cost equipment sourced from the region.

~~~
kuschku
“Only buy electronical goods from East Asia that passed VDE, TÜV Nord, GS and
CE specifications and tests”.

(Interestingly, a lot of the US–produced products do _not_ pass these tests
either. The German standards for product quality are some of the highest
existing and they have actually the ability to test all the imported stuff.
Just don’t _ever_ trust the TÜV Süd)

~~~
tmp26
This might have just been rumor, but I've heard tell of devices with fake CE
stickers.

------
stox
I can understand FTDI's frustration, but vigilantism is not acceptable
behavior. The lawyers are going to have a feeding frenzy on this one.

------
robomartin
Pretty typical HN over-reaction. Why not wait to hear from FTDI before joining
the lynching mob? If the driver broke clones without the express intention to
cause damage, well, tough for the clones. If, on the other hand, they set out
to actually cause damage they are out of business or will suffer greatly.

There's another angle here. I'll use a hypothetical. Say your chips are being
used on MRI machines, cars, planes, glucose meters, ATM machines and a whole
host of other mission critical systems. And you know clones are dangerous
because they are unreliable, failure prone and nondeterministic in some way.
What do you do? What should you do? Bricking these devices without warning
would be a bit extreme, agreed. What if you figure out a way to ensure that
legitimate chips work and others fail in whatever way based on the nature of
the cloning design. Is that OK. What if people could die? Not trying to be
dramatic at all. Just saying that sometimes you need to be in someone else's
shoes in order to understand their ecosystem and have context from which to
understand their decisions.

I've been using FTDI chips since they came out. I have designed products that
could kill people and burn down buildings if they were to fail in certain
ways. We bought these chips through proper distribution channels. Had we not
or in the case of our distributors being duped by clone makers I'd much rather
our devices be bricked than risk someone getting hurt. So, yeah, this is very
real for me.

~~~
icebraining
_Say your chips are being used on MRI machines, cars, planes, glucose meters,
ATM machines and a whole host of other mission critical systems._

First, that's a red herring because most of those machines aren't running
Windows, let alone with automatic updates.

Second, you're essentially advocating vigilantism by corporations. If FTDI was
actually concerned about the lives of people due to faulty chips - and I find
this supposition laughable, but let's go with it - they could have (1) warned
the users, (2) disable the driver and/or (3) contact the appropriate official
institutions.

A supposition that someone, somewhere might die does not justify unlawful
destruction of property, and if proven that FTDI intended to brick those
chips, I hope they get sued hard.

~~~
robomartin
> First, that's a red herring because most of those machines aren't running
> Windows, let alone with automatic updates.

Are people on HN wound up so tight that all imagination is lost? These are
HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLES used to illustrate mission critical applications. And be
careful about making assumptions about critical systems not running Windows.
You'd be surprised. Sometimes vendors don't have a choice. If you are working
under a contractual obligation to use Windows, well, that's what you use. For
example, what do you think you might find in a huge array of military Command
and Control centers? Yup.

You also seem to be ignoring the fact that FTDI chips typically go on all
kinds of embedded systems that are attached to a computer for tasks that have
nothing to do with their mission critical nature.

For example, we built a dedicated FPGA-based target tracking system used in
such places as White Sands Missile Test Range that was entirely self
contained. It has an FTDI-driven serial port for firmware updates and
configuration. Don't assume that everything related to USB requires full time
connectivity like a keyboard or a mouse.

Another example is an extremely high power LED system with over 1,500 W of
LEDs (much more, but that's all I can say). FTDI-powered USB is used to
control it in real time. And, yes, a Windows application is at the other end.
That was the spec. And, yes, it has error correction code and a dedicated
communications protocol that ensures a certain degree of safety. If that chip
is a fake there is no way to know what other "features" it may have.

Again, the HN mob is quick to be judge, jury and executioner. That's to be
expected. Until most of the HN crowd has another decade or two under their
belt emotion will drive a lot of the thought processes. I get it.

If FTDI truly intended to cause harm, of course they deserve to be sued out of
existence. What kind of a moron would not agree with that. If, on the other
hand, the issues are a side effect of code that is so fine-tuned to their
devices that bad clones fail, well, that's not their fault. I need to go dig-
up the official FTDI position on this, everything else is bullshit and
conjecture.

~~~
icebraining
To be clear, I wasn't accusing FTDI themselves of anything. I was purely
arguing to your hypothetical example, in which they _did_ intend to brick
chips. If you didn't want to argue that position, you shouldn't have made a
post arguing it.

Kindly redirect your anger against the "HN mob" somewhere else.

~~~
robomartin
Not angry at the HN mob, they provide daily comic relief. They also remind me
that some of the opinions I had when I was younger must have sounded just as
moronic to the more experienced engineers and business people I worked with.

I mean, we are all pretty stupid and impressionable until somewhere around 30
years of age. By that time life has generaly done a pretty good job realigning
young idealist thinking and opinions borne out of indoctrination.

Life experience is also a huge factor in this. For example opposite poles are
found in people who spent twenty years working a government job (can't get
fired, insane pension) vs. a bootstrapped entrepreneur (self reliance,
responsible for own success and failure, no pension). These people reach
40-something years of age with vastly different views of reality. You come
across these and other extremes here on HN.

For the record, I have nothing but contempt for people who live a life where
they are not responsible and accountable for their actions and future. I think
it degrades the human condition.

So, no, not angry at HN mobs or any other internet mobs.

