It's their driver, it operates in a specific way, perhaps responding to possible device output. Using it with non-compatible parts advertising themselves as compatible and any resulting behaviour, including unwanted, is the responsibility of the user. To play it safe, don't use any drivers with incompatible hardware.
As many have noted, all that's needed is an alert for the user that the driver's incompatible. That way the user can take rectification measures, be it getting new compatible chips/devices, or using unofficial drivers.
I believe it is not allowed by WHQL certified drivers.
(It's also non-trivial to do in a Windows kernel driver. You can't call MessageBox(), you can't process user input, you can't even get a context to draw on the screen. Basically you have to rely on a user-mode helper app that gets launched at boot time, which is one of the reasons you see so many device-tweaking utilities for graphics cards and sound cards).
Like, I'd rather go to jail and be inconvenienced instead of shot on sight, but I feel both are overkill for a parking ticket.
They figured out how to program the clones without programming their own chips. Looks freaking intentional to me, I don't know any reason to send commands to write to an eeprom and do a pre-image attack on a checksum just on opening a connection. Also explains why just the PID is changed, not the VID. It would have affected their chips if they tried changing the VID.
Do you have any evidence specifically that their driver destroyed your chip, or could there be reasonable doubt that your counterfeit chip died? For a class-action suit that a lot of people seem to be talking about, you would have to have evidence that this was what did your chip in. And getting enough people (who appear to be mostly end-users) to submit the necessary evidence could be quite the task (most probably will just assume the device croaked one day and toss it out).
I just don't see a class-action really able to take off. Especially since we're talking about otherwise illegal counterfeit chips in the first place.
The line of argument "I, as some random anonymous person on the internet, can't see X" doesn't do much for me. Lots of people can't see lots of things, but most of the time that turns out to be about failures of knowledge or imagination, not evidence that that what they're talking about is impossible.
Further, I don't think it's really my job to make people see things. (Well, actually, it is, but I charge by the day for that.) If you don't see it, I can live with that.
I think you meant to argue:
"There is one source of media coverage, although it's largely just twitter comments. And just because something is difficult to prove doesn't mean it's not provable."
Both are valid arguments.
I don't count ZDnet as a very credible source of news, and in this case, some googling seems to show they are practically the only "news site" running this story. Although, as pointed out, it's mostly just a paragraph followed by several twitter posts.
Secondly, the evidence thing is important if a case like this were to proceed. In order to sign onto the class action, you would have to prove you purchased an effected chip/board, and that this driver is what killed your product.
Two problems here:
1) You bought a counterfeit chip/board. It's unlikely any award will be levied for illegal/infringing products.
2) Users would have to show evidence they were effected. Even in the RedBull class action case that is settling now, you must prove you bought a RedBull during the time period the case covers (receipt or whatever). Again, you have a counterfeit product, which was illegal to sell/buy in the first place. Not to mention, getting average-joe to test his device, even if someone made a testing utility and freely distributed it, will be close to impossible. People who are technical and care may do it, but average-joe will assume his arduino went belly-up one day, and likely toss it in the garbage.
Let's be realistic. A handful of people in-the-know will care passionately, and do everything they can to further a claim. Several handfuls of people will care enough to do something if they believe they will get something in return (a payout). The rest will have no clue this is even a thing, and will simply throw away their "defective" device.
What FTI did was wrong. But there is no real recourse here.
The problem isn't knowing the driver itself can cause a bricked chip and therefore bricked device.
The problem is Joe-Average isn't going to be able to prove it was this driver and not just a defective device/chip for another reason. Even with a free "testing" tool someone can make to check for the flipped PID bit, Joe-Average has no clue this is even going on, and is likely to just throw away his bricked device.
Even if such existed (it does not), this standard is not applicable to a civil case, only to the criminal trials for destruction of property/malicious mischief that every single person involved should have to go through.
None-the-less, someone will try I'm sure. Then everyone can enjoy the $5 check they get in the mail 1 year later.
I would be ok if the driver simply refused to work. But making hardware unusable on purpose is too much.
Whatever the code for changing the PID is, it (supposedly) would work as well for a malfunctioning but real product, as well as a counterfeit.
I agree that their updated driver will probably continue to not work with these counterfeit chips, and while it shouldn't mess up the chips' functionality in Linux, fixing the PID in Linux is fairly straightforward.
In the case where the driver will continue to not work with these chips, "bricking" only refers to not resetting the PID which causes the device not to work in Linux as well.