Statement from IHAD regarding Damaged 500s

[nanochickin]

IHAD have released a statement regarding the damaged cloned DM500s units which can be found here

_http://www.i-have-a-dreambox.com/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=88610

Statement
by IHAD regarding the current situation
of the Gemini 4.3.1 release


Introduction:
Cause of our re-opening,we the IHAD Team,are now giving a statement regarding the events that took place in the last days.
Hopefully we can answer a few questions to our regular users and work a little against the criticism from others.
Regarding the propaganda of some other Sat Boards,we will make a statement in the future as well.

How the drivers became part of the image:

After we started our Blue Panel lock which worked quite ok up to 2-3 days after the start,a work-around patch became public that made it pretty much obsolete.

After this event,DMM offered us exclusivly, a new driver for the DM500 that should become part of the CVS shortly after.
This driver should make it possible to display jpeg files,with the DM500.

We the Team,did put 1 and 1 together and thought,that this new driver might have something in it to help DMM protect their rights.
So we assumed that this new driver might have some kind of clone detection.

Nevertheless a test on a Blackbox,which took place,couldn't confirm this assumtion.

The Blackbox was working without any problems in our tests.

And honestly:Why shouldn't we use a driver that without any doubt brought many improvments for the users of the DM500.
We also decided to keep on using this driver in our DM500 images.

This has to reasons...

First:Why should regular DM500 users be punished by not getting improvements for their box.
Second:Anyone who now still puts the gemini image on their Blackbox Reciever,simply should have known better.


What has happend:
On the 27th of march 2008 the Gemini 4.3.1 DM500 including the new drivers was released by us.

Since that time the so called "Time Bomb" was active and at some point started to delete the boot loader of the Clone boxes that used the image.

An announcement was displayed that said:"Warning - clone box detected -system stop. Contact your dealer - adios amigo!"
Afterwards the box shut down and didn't boot anymore.

Deleted was the part that is necessary to boot software on the box,this part was under license of DreamMultimedia.
This license includes that this part of the sofware can only be used for the Dreambox STB.

Usage on other hardware is completly prohibited and therefor illegal!

The problem is,that the deleted part is the,so to speak,bios.Similiar to the bios of a PC and without this bios the box won't boot.
The weired thing about all this is,that these cloneboxes,had this DMM software pre-installed,some of them even had the Gemini image pre-installed on it.

Which meant a DMM license violation right from the beginning.

So it must be completly logical to everyone,that DMM (the rightful owner of this software) had to start countermessures at some point.

We the IHAD Board and Gemini Team support this action,that was taken by DMM,but were also supprised by the harshness of the action.
Cause as it seems the box can only be "resurected" with a hardware based operation(JTAG) that writes the booloader back to the chip.

Which brings us right back to the license problem,cause there is no alternative,free software/bootloader made available by the manufactor of the cloneboxs for these kind of STBs.

So it basically would be illegal too,to write the DMM software back to the chip of the unlicend STB.


Why we decided to close the board:

Over the last couple of days many users have registered at IHAD,that were affected by the "Time Bomb" and their insults and acusations knew no boundaries.

And as we,after 2 days,didn't see and end to all this ,we decided to close the board.

We just couldn't accept this kind of treatment towards us,cause we have no responsebility whatsoever,regarding the actions that were taken by DMM.

They were the only ones that had knowledge about the countermessures that were taken.
Nevertheless,we do take general responsebility for actively working against these clones.Which we already stated on several occasions in the past.

We are all Dreambox fans and our hobby is made possible by the products developed and sold by DreamMultimedia and we would practically work against ourselfs,if we wouldn't act against these cloned STBs.

It simply can not be in our interest that manufactors, that are not involved in the developing process,take profits from the real developers.

The posting of real adresses of IHAD Team members and statements like:"I would like to pet their backs with my baseball bat."
and such, simply were beyond all manners.

And so we closed the doors of the IHAD board.

How you can support us:

Support the IHAD and fight against clones.
Use these pictures as avatars and/or signature on all boards that you are registered.
Show your support for the IHAD and express your opinion about clones.

There you go straight from the horses mouth. If there is truth in this it certainly changes the perspective of all the arguments that have been occuring over the last few days.

Please try not to let this thread turn the way the last one did



Nano

[redoxide]

No matter how they try and weadle out of it or justify it they are the ones responsible for releasing this image that has wrecked so many boxes. including ones like the Eagle that does not pretend to be a DM500. Even if it is a direct copy of a clone DM500 the end user customer has no way of being aware of this, and why should he/her! they have bought in good faith a product called Eagle thats only claim is to be a linux receiver.
these people have wrecked these and like it or not are legally responsible for their actions no mater how they try to paint it. they may say its DMM 's fault but it's them that released the drivers on to the market and they should have checked and tested their product properly before releasing it.
Yes dmm have been very crafty in what they have done but it is Gemini that are going to be the ones standing in the dock as they are the ones that released it on to the market. one of life's lessons im afraid.....you just cant trust anybody nowdays.

[robbo71]

It seems that the resurrection cure has been confirmed. I have read about a few successes using the jtag method already. So all is not lost for the unfortunate or in somecases misguided owners of fake and Dreambox 500 clones.

The question is, will the action have had the desired effect.?

Will people avoid Gemini, or avoid clones? or both

[Jimdefruit]

Nano you should know better than to post a direct link to another website.

[BGonaSTICK]

I fully support IHAD in all of this. The only thing they've done wrong is fail to test their image properly on sufficient cloned boxes.

To be honest, the image isn't actually FOR the cloned boxes, so again, I think they are due some slack here. People that choose to flash their boxes with aftermarket firmware must accept that they are taking a risk. Should IHAD have to test DM500 images on all variants of clones as well as the real thing? I don't think so, but they should have tried a bit harder in this case, as I think they knew there was a bomb coming.

I feel very sorry for those that have true fakes - i.e. boxes badged DMM - those that bought in good faith and have been rogered by their suppliers. They should take the matter up with them, not take the easy option of rubbishing and attacking IHAD. A certain Dark gentleman is surely responsible for much of this misery.

IHAD have done as much for the Dreambox community over the years as anybody, and I think it's fair to say that we wouldn't have such slick images were it not for their tireless development.

I can also understand Dreams' part in this, but totally disagree with the driver-knobbling tactic they have employed. They've set IHAD up here, and that relationship will surely be irreparably damaged. Who knows what that will mean for the future of the Dream scene.

The whole CVS thing is going to be a hot potato now, as this forms the basis for all new image releases. Third party developers may have to manage their own versions of the CVS - minus the time-bombed driver.

The point about the Dream licensed bootloader is very valid, but Dream really should have taken the wider view with regard to the scene.

Give IHAD a break. I never thought they were responsible for this attack, and so it has proven. They wouldn't lie about this, because they would definitely be found out by other developers, and that would be the end for them.

[kerrywez]

Very well put Stick, I could not agree with you more. Those that are giving stick to IHAD have very short memories if they can't, as you suggest, give them a bit of slack.

I will stick with IHAD and the Gemini Image anyway, though I am running the LT on my 7025 at the moment, with BarryAllen, but I have it flashed with the Gemini 3.2.

Very best regards Wez

[sock99]

Hi all,
I'm new to all this but just bought a DM500S to play around with. It came loaded with Gemini 4.4 and works fine but the clone bomb checker program says "potential risk clone bomb. Kernel head.ko is 320916 bytes"
Does the time bomb work immediately & if not should I immediately flash it to another image before it activates?

[nanochickin]

If it says your box is a potential risk then remove Gemini 4.40 from it

The last timebomb activated a few days later after the image had been installed. I've no idea if the Gemini team have removed this feature or not from their images but to be honest i would remove it and put something else on it

Are you sure its not Gemini 4.20 thats on it as thats what quite a few clone boxes seem to be getting shipped out with



Nano

[sock99]

Hi Nano

No it's definitely 4.4 and it was installed by the seller.
I assume that the fact that the Mac address in the blue panel under net devices is different to that printed on the box label confirms it's a fake/clone?

Also, which replacement image would you recommend to kick off with?