And this is where John's logic really does break down as said in another post. By John's logic Rigol have deprived the ADC makers of revenue by buying lower specified ADCs and clocking them faster than they are rated. John argues that this is OK because it's not illegal. But the thrust of his argument is that somehow hacking a 50MHz scope 'deprives' Rigol of revenue, and since hacking per se is not illegal this simply amounts to a moral argument that it is somehow wrong. If that is the case then so is overclocking ADCs. If it is OK to overclock an ADC, why is it not OK for a user who has bought a 50MHz version to privately 'overclock' it to 100MHz by making a firmware tweek or hardware mod? In both cases the results are not guaranteed anyway.
Not necessarily. They may use the firmware itself to test a parameter such as the bandwidth of a particular amplifier stage. This might require a high tolerance for the 100MHz version and a lower tolerance for the 50MHz version. Unless they are using some fancy and expensive ATE tester that could do this it might be far easier and cheaper to use the firmware itself.
We don't know that this is the only difference, as you say it *appears* to be the only difference.
Sloppy it is. Unencrypted serial comms and a simple hardware mod to bypass firmware settings is asking for this to happen.
They could as has been pointed out do sampling, some may fall below the
100MHz threshold and are destined to become 50MHz versions. There is no real guarantee that a 50MHz scope when hacked will perform as well as a bought
100MHz scope. But that's the risk the end user takes in carrying out the mod.
Is buying a piece of equipment and modifying it yourself to use yourself without trying to profit from it at all a criminal act in the USA? Does that mean you can't put go faster stripes on your car if the manufacturer had a version that had a similar product? Remember there are no warranties with such a modified product, usually the disclaimer states any modification or tampering simply voids the warranty. As long as you don't directly profit from that modification e.g. by selling them on I can't see the problem.
Software is another issue. With software you have a license to use not necessarily to own, and there may well be clauses that prohibit reverse engineering or using multiple installs, but these are clauses in a contract that are clearly stated at the time of purchase. Not so when buying things like scopes on eBay.
I say! Sending encrypted packets over serial would be a good start. Also don't allow a simple hardware mod to allow switching between modes by bypassing any firmware change would be another. These are pretty basic mistakes, the only result is a potential hack and loss of revenue by not selling as many 100MHz versions. BTW this doesn't mean the users that have done this mod have deprived Rigol at all, they are now using a device that is now out of warranty and, more importantly, has no guarantee of performance. As long as they don't directly profit from that by reselling and claiming 100MHz operation I can't see how they have deprived anyone.
I'm not talking about "my views", I'm talking about the law. The US has a rather draconian anti-hack law, DCMA, and Dave et al may have conspired to violate it. Of course, he doesn't live here.
Would you charge your customers for an update in firmware that just changed a version number but claimed to fix several bugs and improve performance? Well that's what Rigol is effectively doing and you are supporting them. So why do you expect me to believe that you are ethical? Of course no matter of your pleading to be believed to be ethical would convince me. All con artists attempt to deny their behavior and of other cons. A con artist wants everyone to believe they are legit and must also stick up for other cons so people don't "catch on".
So you are against the hacking of the scope but not against them selling two identical models for two different prices under the false pretenses that they are truly different? Why are you against it? Simple! because the hacking revealed their improprieties.
Of course you wouldn't... because you would be afraid I would find similar unethical behavior in your own products. There is nothing you can say to me that will change my attitude towards you. I have seen other posts where you mention such unethical business practices. Maybe they were jokes but if you are ethical then you would understand and be glad of my skepticism since it is the only way to keep those that are unethical honest.
The key word is *may*. I don't believe any law has been broken because in reality anyone who mods something would not be breaking the law as such unless the reason is to defraud. However, what they get after the hack is not guaranteed to work. It's an unofficial hack, no guarantees it'll be stable or anything else. Furthermore if no EULA is signed, no agreement is made not to modify or reverse engineer for personal use, no attempt is made to sell or pass it off as a 100MHz scope, there can be no attempt to defraud. They are not doing anything but using the hardware they were sold and running it 'out of spec', and for no financial gain. The argument comes down to you thinking this is 'tasteless'. But presumably you think that overclocking ADCs beyond their rated spec, not buying proper rated parts and flogging that as a guaranteed working product is OK because that's 'not illegal'? I find your position somewhat un-tenable.
There in lies your problem; prior publication. The IP owner has nil chance of proving that his IP doesn't rely on someone else's IP. That is how the whole process of technical development has taken place. The concept that some brilliant individual created something new is 99% bullshit. I've never met any programmer who is totally self taught without recourse to any example(someone else's IP).
What is dishonest about it? You buy a product to do a job and it's worth a price to you. You want more bells and whistles, you pay for them. If they're in there already, how is that dishonest? I think is smart engineering. I never understand why it's OK for me to get the highest price when I sell something but it's 'bad' and 'greedy' if a company does the same thing. Don't tell me you sold you house to the lowest offer -- or maybe you did.
I pretty much agree with you but has anybody verified that the hardware is indeed identical? They don't install a faster processor or A-D or better grade amps? Or is this like the overclocked computer that mostly works but sometimes crashes an loses data? If I want the faster computer, I don't fool with the clocks, I buy what I want. I would do the same with the scope.
By all accounts, no, the 100MHz unit is an identical board. People who tried to examine the hardware front ends (and other parts) could not find any differences between the two models. That's what originally prompted me to suggest there was just a component value difference in the models, but of course as it turns out it's much simpler than that, they are identical. If they weren't identical, then there would be no need for the software logic switch to set the 50MHz limit, they'd simply do it with BOM changes.
The sample rate and all other performance features are the same between units, so there is no need for better or faster ADC's or processor in the
100MHz model.
Dave.
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I didn't say that at all. I am in favour of protection of genuine novel inventions and copyright on creative works. I am absolutely opposed to the idiotic USPTO granting patents on mathematical identities and blindingly obvious prior art in the software field.
Remember I originate mostly software. And that is far more easily copied by the unscrupulous since it is designed to run on a generic computer. These days mostly PCs but I have done stuff in the past that ran on everything from a humble Z80 (with a lot of paging) to a CrayXMP. Strange thing was we learnt a few new tricks with every compiler the code was compiled on. The Z80 compiler was very strict and minimalist.
Your DMCA is an insane piece of legislation intended to pander to the rip-off merchants in Hollywood and US music industry. ISTR analogue playback of DVDs in the US is deliberately hobbled to satisfy them.
Exactly. Got it in one.
More fool the US legislators. The customer must always be ripped off. Are you seriously claiming that you think the DCMA is good legislation?
The hardware is clearly capable of 100MHz operation and a trivial command sequence will enable it (or reversibly degrade the bandwidth). Cutting a track and a quick hardware mod would also do the job.
I don't see that changing a few bytes in NV ram using undocumented commands is any different to swapping out the front end transistors or whatever other tricks were done on some of the old analogue scopes to soup them up. What about using some of the undocumented hardware features of the profiling instructions on my Intel PCs. No doubt you would say that infringes the DMCA since I don't have Intels blessing.
Serious point here. I don't mind registering and binding the licence key to the MAC address of one PC and/or owners name. That is pretty much what I do. Once it is installed I cannot stop them giving it away, but I can tell if I ever see an illicit copy who gave it away. This is usually sufficient to discourage all but the most untrustworthy characters. Most people are basically honest but require a bit of encouragement.
I rather like the game industry copy protection where an illicit cloned game would play OK for 5 or 10 minutes and then have gravity decrease to zero or mutate the laws of physics in some other way. Enough time to get people hooked on the gameplay but still needing to buy a copy.
I absolutely hate paranoid invasive security measures like dongles on parallel ports I no longer have that only work on slow machines or require the DVD inserted every 10th use. These generally only inconvenience genuine purchasers without putting up that much resistance to a concerted attack by professional pirates. The Chessmaster series of programs is a good example of this daft insert the CD method and it is protecting something that retails for about £10.
If you have ever been in the Far East you will know what I mean about knock-off software being everywhere (and often laden with malware).
You never knowingly steal IP. You have no way of telling when the slimy fat lawyers from Patent Carpet Baggers Inc will come knocking and demand that you pay a huge ransom for infringing their US patent on "whatever".
But if you happened to want to use it at 100MHz then enabling that feature would be useful. In the UK 85MHz bandwidth would be OK.
Waveforms with sharp rise times always look worse at higher bandwidth.
I didn't say that at all. I am in favour of protection of genuine novel inventions and copyright on creative works. I am absolutely opposed to the idiotic USPTO granting patents on mathematical identities and blindingly obvious prior art in the software field.
Remember I originate mostly software. And that is far more easily copied by the unscrupulous since it is designed to run on a generic computer. These days mostly PCs but I have done stuff in the past that ran on everything from a humble Z80 (with a lot of paging) to a CrayXMP. Strange thing was we learnt a few new tricks with every compiler the code was compiled on. The Z80 compiler was very strict and minimalist.
Your DMCA is an insane piece of legislation intended to pander to the rip-off merchants in Hollywood and US music industry. ISTR analogue playback of DVDs in the US is deliberately hobbled to satisfy them.
Exactly. Got it in one.
More fool the US legislators. The customer must always be ripped off. Are you seriously claiming that you think the DCMA is good legislation?
The hardware is clearly capable of 100MHz operation and a trivial command sequence will enable it (or reversibly degrade the bandwidth). Cutting a track and a quick hardware mod would also do the job.
I don't see that changing a few bytes in NV ram using undocumented commands is any different to swapping out the front end transistors or whatever other tricks were done on some of the old analogue scopes to soup them up. What about using some of the undocumented hardware features of the profiling instructions on my Intel PCs. No doubt you would say that infringes the DMCA since I don't have Intels blessing.
Serious point here. I don't mind registering and binding the licence key to the MAC address of one PC and/or owners name. That is pretty much what I do. Once it is installed I cannot stop them giving it away, but I can tell if I ever see an illicit copy who gave it away. This is usually sufficient to discourage all but the most untrustworthy characters. Most people are basically honest but require a bit of encouragement.
I rather like the game industry copy protection where an illicit cloned game would play OK for 5 or 10 minutes and then have gravity decrease to zero or mutate the laws of physics in some other way. Enough time to get people hooked on the gameplay but still needing to buy a copy.
I absolutely hate paranoid invasive security measures like dongles on parallel ports I no longer have that only work on slow machines or require the DVD inserted every 10th use. These generally only inconvenience genuine purchasers without putting up that much resistance to a concerted attack by professional pirates. The Chessmaster series of programs is a good example of this daft insert the CD method and it is protecting something that retails for about £10.
If you have ever been in the Far East you will know what I mean about knock-off software being everywhere (and often laden with malware).
You never knowingly steal IP. You have no way of telling when the slimy fat lawyers from Patent Carpet Baggers Inc will come knocking and demand that you pay a huge ransom for infringing their US patent on "whatever".
But if you happened to want to use it at 100MHz then enabling that feature would be useful. In the UK 85MHz bandwidth would be OK.
Waveforms with sharp rise times always look worse at higher bandwidth.
Dave is an Australian, living in Australia. Why would (or should) he care about US law? Do you consider Australian law whilst going about your day to day business?
That's bullshit. How can you vandalise something you legally own?
Why not? He seems to not be breaking any Australian law. Why does he have to justify himself to you particularly regarding the laws of another country? Your questioning him demonstrates your arrogance towards a law abiding citizen of another country.
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