Apple Lightning cables have an authentication chip inside | Hacker News Reader

Apple Lightning cables have an authentication chip inside

slashgear.com

17 pointsleeoniya10 comments

Completely worthless article. The author has no evidence whatsoever that there is an authentication chip; he even uses the passive voice to avoid mentioning why he thinks there might be one:

It’s said that Apple’s new Lightning connector has some sort of authentication chip inside that prevents third-party Lightning cables from working.

"It's said?" You shouldn't be writing an article if "it's said" is the best you can do. This is an interface that can dynamically re-assign the function of each pin, on the fly. It seems much more likely that the chips in the cable are providing that function, rather than "authentication".

And the author them compounds the error with more wild speculation:

So essentially, anything that isn’t an official Apple accessory will simply be ignored whenever you plug it into the iPhone 5. We can only guess the reason behind this is so Apple can put a lockdown on cheaper third-party accessories that they compete with.

"We can only guess"? No, actually there's another option...we could research the matter before assuming and writing an article about it. We can only guess that that was just too much trouble for the author. It is plainly absurd to assume that anything that's not from Apple will be "ignored" when plugged into the iPhone 5. There's no evidence at all that Apple would want to lock down the entire accessory market; Apple doesn't even WANT to be the only company making accessories for its products.

Frankly, this article should be flagged, but I'll leave that for others.

Same rant as of mine. No sources in his conclusion.

"Oh my god! There's a chip! It must be used for authentication!"

I'd read up on some analysis from someone with a EE background before I'd trust a shop that sells $650 headphone cables (Double Helix, the original source that Slashgear conveniently forgets to cite.)

http://brockerhoff.net/blog/2012/09/23/boom-pins/

There's no good reason to suspect these are authentication chips. See, e.g. http://brockerhoff.net/blog/2012/09/23/boom-pins/

Just like Thunderbolt, the chip is most likely used to make the cable adaptive (so that all pins can be used for data, or power, as-needed).

Quoting the author:

  I really see no justification for the “authentication chip” hypothesis, and even 
  their diagram doesn’t show any single “power pin of the Lightning plug”. It’s clear 
  that, once the cable’s type has been negotiated with the device, and the device has 
  checked if there’s a charger, a peripheral or a computer on the other end, the power 
  input from the USB side is switched to however many pins are required to carry the 
  available current.

I can't understand that the author is constantly complaining about the amount of money one has to pay to buy these cables. I mean, he bought an Apple product (iPhone in this case). Those are luxury goods and not exactly cheap. Maybe nobody told him about the profit margin Apple keeps when selling those.

It’s said that Apple’s new Lightning connector has some sort of authentication chip inside that prevents third-party Lightning cables from working.

Who said it? Some sources maybe. I don't understand how he got into the conclusion that it is an authentication chip.

Also based on the comments in that article, the chip is used for some circuitry so that it can be used in different ways.

Isn't this just the pin remapping chip that tells the device what it is (USB/HDMI/accessory/etc) and enables the cable to be plugged in either way and still use all 16 pins? http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/25/apples_lightning_p...

Where is the evidence that it is an authentication chip? It could be a protocol negotiation chip.

A recent discussion on the lightning cable and its chip.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4562810

makes me wonder whether this also has to do with root access into the device (debug mode). I.e., Apple has its own version of the chip that allows them to enter in that mode.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com