Official statement from Gemini Project team regarding clone boxes going off

[Devilfish]

From the IHAD board.

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.

[Neil]

WOW, I have not been on the IHAD board for a while so did not know what was going on. I don't often read 500 thread either because I don't have one.

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.

That is disgusting and not acceptable at all. I can understand people being upset but if what IHAD says is true they just implemented an improved feature for current 500 users. I suppose we are all at the mercy of these software developers, even an honest mistake could damage a box.

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

I agree with that as well, I know many people don't, but I do. If Dream had never made a 500 then you would not have cheap clones. Would the Itgate boxes and other Linux based boxes that are appearing have been produced if Dream had not carried on from the Dbox and made them so popular?

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.

This is very harsh, I think it is taking things too far.Lets hope someone produces a not dream copy bios for these boxes. The counterfeiters were taking the piss really copying the boot software as well. They want there money for doing relatively nothing.

[oneilus]

time bomb :s