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[News] Elbox clarifies its positionANN.lu
Posted on 18-Nov-2002 16:08 GMT by Lewis Mistreated160 comments
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M. Wloczysiak has just posted an open letter on Elbox site, in which he explains that the Rigid Disk Block trashing code can effectively be found in all their drivers, but it's triggered only if someone tries to crack 'em and, according to him, the malicious code makes no damages, other than the five minutes of work needed to restore the RDSK sector [which] does not seem to be a heavy punishment for stealing and/or cracking software...
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 151 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Nov-2002 10:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 140 (Bernd Meyer):
You don't need to an RDSK string to check for 'RDSK' either.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 152 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by JoannaK on 19-Nov-2002 11:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 150 (Ole-Egil):
Ah... So it's easy 5-minute fix IF you happen to have identical HD to replace trashed one. Ok.. Making backups makes even more sense.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 153 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 19-Nov-2002 11:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 152 (JoannaK):
The problem is that HDToolBox will erase the WHOLE RDB when you try to make a new RDSK block. So technically, erasing the RDSK doesn't kill your partitions. Reconfiguring it does. Which means that technically, Elbox are assholes.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 154 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Nov-2002 13:19 GMT
you people disgust me, anyone that defends bastards like Elbox are just scum,
Elbox makes a trojan and people worship them, if this was a non amiga company you people would be flaming the company like mad but never mind its an amiga company so lets all bow down to them and let them f*ck with all our harddrives,
All someone has to do is release a virus what attach itself to the pci lib and bang genuine users are screwed but never mind it is an amiga shop so we should not complain,
Anyone that would do something like this are SCUM but dont worry it is an amiga shop so all is forgiven,
Long Live Elbox the true kings of trojans.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 155 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by miksuh on 19-Nov-2002 14:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 51 (JoannaK):
Joanna: This is just my opinion. I'm not saying we should ignore the law. And i'm not trying to defend Elbox. I'm as angry to them as rest of you are. But I really do think we should think WERY hard before running to nearest court and trying to sue Elbox. I don't hink things are so black and white that when Elbox did wrong they should automatically be sued. i think there must be another way to solve this mess.
First of all we should think about all consequences of it if we sue Elbox, and not only to Elbox but to rest of the Amiga community too. I mean to dealers and users. I'm sure it would damage the whole community, not only Elbox. And I am not sure sure you can even win that case if you sue Elbox, i'll explain later.
I'm sure that Elbox busboards are one of the best selling items for all of the remaining dealers. if you sue Elbox and IF you win that case it will be the end of elbox I'm sure of it. it will kill them, they will go bankrupt. losing case like that will be devastating to comopany as small as Elbox. So There will be no more Elbox, nomore Mediators, no more drivers for the mediator etc.
That sure will hurt dealers badly and it will hurt users too.
Secondly. I'm sure that you know what I mean when I say "real crimes" because there is lot's of other much more serious crimes than this what Elbox did. I don't know about other countries but atleast here in Finland people try more and more solve less serious crimes whitout going to court. Usually it's possible to find satisfying solution between the defendant and victims.
I think that's right way to do things, because most of the time tarnished reputation is bad enough as a punishment. I'm sure that it is serious punishment for the company which is as small as Elbox. I'm sure this mess shows in their sales. Many of you said you will not buy their products anymore.
If people buy less their products thats sure will hurt them.
I think what we should do is to make sure Elbox knows that Amiga community: users dealers and developers, do NOT tolerate anything like what they did. We should make sure they know that noone will buy their products if they do it again. And we should make sure they know that they might be sued if they do it again, no matter what happens after that. We should make sure they know we are watching them and we should also require publick apology from Elbox. You can't even make any claims for damages, because atleast I have not heard about any destroyed RDB's in normal use, yet. So only reason to sue Elbox would be tu give them somekind of moral punishment anyway, so I'm not so sure about if it would be worth the damage it would do to rest of the community.
But to be fair, I think we should also give Elbox second chance. Let's face it they did it because of piracy. If there would be no piracy in Amiga community then nothing like that would be nesessary. I don't think it's good idea to kil Elbox in court, we should give them serious warning though.
And now, why i don't think yopu would even win the case if you sue Elbox ? Simple, because evidence of that RDB-code were gained in illegal way. You can't deny it, usb.device was cracked. it sure is not legal. Sourcecode was also posted to public forums, not good that either. I really don't think there is many courts on earth which would accept case based on evidence gained ILLEGAL way. There simple is no case. Even if case is accepted I don't think you can win it. If usb.device would not have been cracked, we would not even know about that RDB-code. That's a moral problem but you can't really do much about it.
Next time if you want to sue someone you have to gain evidence in LEGAL way.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 156 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 19-Nov-2002 15:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 155 (miksuh):
> Secondly. I'm sure that you know what I mean when I say "real crimes" because
> there is lot's of other much more serious crimes than this what Elbox did. I
> don't know about other countries but atleast here in Finland people try more and
> more solve less serious crimes whitout going to court. Usually it's possible to
> find satisfying solution between the defendant and victims.
Maybe you don't get it... what Elbox did _is_ a real crime, in many european countries, dunno about Finland, that crime is prosecuted with _jail_, up to 2 years, and even more in some countries.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 157 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by miksuh on 19-Nov-2002 15:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 156 (Fabio Alemagna):
Sure it is crime, but it does matter HOW you get evidences.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 158 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 19-Nov-2002 15:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 157 (miksuh):
> Sure it is crime, but it does matter HOW you get evidences.
First off, no, it doesn't matter. Second, the way the evidence was obtained was in NO WAY illegal.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 159 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by miksuh on 19-Nov-2002 15:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 156 (Fabio Alemagna):
And what you quoted did not mean I think Elbox did not do anything wrong. I tryed to say that sometimes it's possible try to solve things whitout going to court.
Elbox clarifies its position : Comment 160 of 160ANN.lu
Posted by Darrin on 20-Nov-2002 16:55 GMT
OK, I think we've established that what Elbox has done by including this code is wrong, but you would think that they had just been found guilty of ethnic cleansing by reading some of the comments posted here.
The only people that really have grounds to complain are OWNERS of Elbox products that use the drivers that include this code. Strangly enough, the vast majority of the anti-Elbox posts here seem to come for the usual bunch of people that don't own Eblox products and take every opportunity to announce on ANN that they never will. Well, good for you guys. I hope you're all very happy not using Elbox products, and although I'm prepared to listen to you state how disgusting these drivers are, I'm starting to get rather sick of listening to the same crud over and over.
I own several Elbox products and I've never had a problem with them. Am I happy about this code being included in my drivers? No, I'm not. The reason I'm not happy is because I was not told. If they said "our drivers are desgined to trash your hard drive if you attempt to hack them or use pirate versions" then I WOULD still use them and I'd make damn sure I make a back up of my RDB. I don't have a problem with a programmer protecting his code against theft, but I'd like to know what could happen if his code is triggered and what I can do to protect myself.
Anyway, the drivers are being fixed, Elbox are still the only supplier of a useful classic PCI solution and their hardware is still as good as ever. Now I know there are people out there that would love to see AmigaPPC options reduced to a single choice (and I'm not talking about the AmigaOne), but hoping that this revelation will cause the death of Elbox is not going to help the real Amiga users. Ebox have been bad - get over it. At least we know they won't do it again.
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