[RANT] EX-PARROT (Was:False Beeprog. AGAIN.

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-06-23 21:49, Paul Koning wrote:
>
>> On Jun 23, 2015, at 3:47 PM, Sean Conner <spc at conman.org> wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>   It could be due to an unforseen situation not considered by the designers.
>> Several years ago a friend of mine bricked at CAR (BMW I believe---it was a
>> high end German car in any case).  He was updating the firmware on the car
>> when the power cut out, leaving the firmware in an inconsistent state.  The
>> fix required an engineer from Germany to fly to the US ...
>>
>>   -spc (Some things you just don't think about … )
>
> True.  But any designer who implements firmware update without considering the possibility of power failure is not qualified for the job.

That was my reaction too. Are people seriously saying that even in 
normal circumstances, you can brick the device? The most typical failure 
mode being if you get a power interruption while flashing new firmware.
If the designers seriously did not take that scenario into 
consideration, then we have a more broken design than I would allow for.

And to respond to the people who said I should re-read the original post 
where it was stated that it was bricked... Here is the original text, 
and there is no mention of bricking.

"...The manufacturer of the fake BeeProgs stole our logo and 
intellectual property by manufacturing fake copies of BeeProg 
programmer. This "product" uses also our software and users of this fake 
BeeProg are asking for our free technical support. Although the copy of 
the BeeProg programmer is done well, the manufactures of the fake 
BeeProg overlooked few details. Result is, the fake BeeProg unit differs 
from the original, visible for the software. We've used one of these 
differences - it is not a serial number - and our software could detect 
this fake hardware. If PG4UW software detects a fake hardware, it shows 
message "Fake programmer unit detected!" and programmer will no longer work.

If you're facing such situation, contact please the vendor, where from 
you bought the programmer, for full credit return. Or you can take this 
vendor to court for selling a fake products. We regret, we could not 
provide any assistance in this case..."


Note that the text says "it shows message ''...'' and programmer will no 
longer work."
That by no means means that it is actually bricked. It merely says that 
the firmware will not continue past that point.

Now, if someone actually have one of these devices, and can verify that 
it actually bricks it, then we can talk. Until then, all I have is the 
above information from Elnec, which do not suggest anything beyond 
showing a message, and not continuing past that point.

If the manufacturer of the device have not made allowance to recover 
from a bad firmware installation, then there is a problem. But that is 
not necessarily something you can blame Elnec for either...

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol