For me code theft is a very valid issue. It might not make sense when
you think of $400 gadgets, but with $40.000 industrial equipment the
picture is quite different.

As example, my own company manufactures testing equipment which
measures power output. It's in our interest to develop a reputation of
manufacturing accurate equipment however that often conflicts with the
customer's interest of having better results to show and we don't want
them tampering with the results.

We also don't like the thought of people copying our firmware which
would also let them copy our PC software. Granted, it would be illegal
do redistribute our PC software but that could happen in a limited
scale such as inside a single company and we'd never know.

Therefore we took a number of measures: Code protection, obfuscating
the serial link and obfuscating the data files saved by our computer
software. Nothing that took significant time to implement, but
certainly added a couple levels of difficulty to anyone interested in
reverse engineering.

And yes, our product is both expensive enough and needed enough that
people might be motivated to do just that, copying the mechanical
design and hiring a technician to duplicate our capture/control board
which is extremely simple. And that's a very real danger.

Code protection alone makes me sleep easier since nobody would want to
risk losing their equipment by trying to pry the firmware from our
PICs (of which they only have a sample of one).


On 11/15/06, David VanHorn <dvanhorn@microbrix.com> wrote:
> On 11/15/06, Andre Abelian <aabelian@mason-electric.com> wrote:
> >
> > This is my second company I worked in last 2 years that they do not
> > enable CP at all and once I asked them about it the answer was
> > if some is smart enough to break the code protection then should
> > be able to make entire project from the scratch.
> > Then I told them why do you lock your car doors? any way
> > I have to go.
>
>
> I used to do car alarms for a living, and I was constantly asked to install
> them in convertibles.
> Nice way to loose a top.
>
> In principle I agree though, I think the threat of code getting stolen is
> overrated.
> That would mean that they would have to clone your hardware too, and if they
> don't have the design resources to roll their own, then how will they
> maintain a design they don't really know anything about?
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