I have some QS to sell

[JohnYayas]

Since the "big" companies get more and more influence in China, many pirates concentrate on niche market.
The risk that a relative "small" company like Pangolin spends tenthousands of Dollars as well as the time to hunt these guys seems lower for them.

My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. I have a good idea what it costs to manufacture an FB3 and copying software is virtually free so there is a huge profit to be made if the cloned version can be sold for $379. But, I am still surprised that there are enough buyers to make it worthwhile. My assumption was always that Quickshow is so high priced due to a low volume market. Then again, Bill did say that only 8 units were sold by the Netherlands joint before they were caught. I just find the whole thing interesting from a market point of view based on the fact that I also sell laser show software. If the volume really is that high then I need to work harder to advertise, add features, etc, to gain more market share.

[absolom7691]

Well, Justin got back to me about my FB3 and it is legit. I am just wondering about the blue USB cable. I know for certain that it did come with one. is it possible that the Pangolin GZ office shipped them that way?? Very curious.

If the volume really is that high then I need to work harder to advertise, add features, etc, to gain more market share.

I would think the volume of FB3s+Quickshow is very high because a lot of mobile DJs and probably smaller night clubs and such use Quickshow. Couple that with the hobbyists and even pros and you have your volume. I would expect that volume would be bit lower for QMs or even FB3s with Beyond because your average DJ/nightclub isn't going to spring for it.

[JohnYayas]

I would think the volume of FB3s+Quickshow is very high because a lot of mobile DJs and probably smaller night clubs and such use Quickshow. Couple that with the hobbyists and even pros and you have your volume. I would expect that volume would be bit lower for QMs or even FB3s with Beyond because your average DJ/nightclub isn't going to spring for it.

Yes, that's a given. I used to go to clubs quite a bit when I was younger and but never went to one where something like Quickshow was used. But, that was a long time ago. Maybe now and overseas laser jockeys are more common. I don't have any insight into how many laser projectors are sold each year. That would be interesting to know, though! Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack.

[Pangolin]

We've taken serious measures to prevent hardware piracy. For example, after we program the processor, we actually BLOW OUT (by applying too much voltage) the JTAG and programming pins on the processor, making it a one-way street. That's how and why we've been able to prevent piracy on our product up until now.

But recently, the Chinese have a way of essentially opening up a chip, and probing directly onto the flash memory in a chip and reading it out that way. But I would imagine that this is technology available only to the Intels of the China world, but perhaps there are people working graveyard shift who use these machines after hours for some money. Still, I bet it wasn't cheap...

Nevertheless, as I wrote, there are fatal flaws in the cloned hardware, which is why I can say confidently that 100% of them will fail. No question. Problem is, by the time they do, some of the sellers would have "moved on", so there will be no way to get their money back, or raise a fuss on social media to bring awareness to the unethical sellers and damage their brands. For example, within just a few hours me my original post, that "Kim Laser" company who originally posted it went offline...

Bill

[JohnYayas]

We've taken serious measures to prevent hardware piracy. For example, after we program the processor, we actually BLOW OUT (by applying too much voltage) the JTAG and programming pins on the processor, making it a one-way street. That's how and why we've been able to prevent piracy on our product up until now.

But recently, the Chinese have a way of essentially opening up a chip, and probing directly onto the flash memory in a chip and reading it out that way. But I would imagine that this is technology available only to the Intels of the China world, but perhaps there are people working graveyard shift who use these machines after hours for some money. Still, I bet it wasn't cheap...

Nevertheless, as I wrote, there are fatal flaws in the cloned hardware, which is why I can say confidently that 100% of them will fail. No question. Problem is, by the time they do, some of the sellers would have "moved on", so there will be no way to get their money back, or raise a fuss on social media to bring awareness to the unethical sellers and damage their brands. For example, within just a few hours me my original post, that "Kim Laser" company who originally posted it went offline...

Bill

Maybe you prefer not to comment or not to comment publicly but what kind of flaws are you talking about that will cause them to fail? I'm mainly interested from an electronics/software curiosity since neither of those typically just stop working after awhile. Is it something like a crappy connector or more along the lines of the software will time bomb and no longer work until an update (that you won't allow)? I just can't imagine that a changhong version of a capacitor or resistor would cause it to stop working after a few months. But, maybe it could.

[dave]

But recently, the Chinese have a way of essentially opening up a chip, and probing directly onto the flash memory in a chip and reading it out that way. But I would imagine that this is technology available only to the Intels of the China world, but perhaps there are people working graveyard shift who use these machines after hours for some money. Still, I bet it wasn't cheap...

Removing the chip casing is one thing, I would have thought, but knowing what to look for on the chip surface is another thing entirely... Maybe as there are many many chip manufacturers using ARM IP, more people know what's inside the chip and where to look.. Hmmm, I wonder how many processor fab houses in China deal with ARM derivatives? Probably quite a few.

[telmnstr]

I hate piracy. I have been burned so I know how it feels to work hard on something and then have someone rip you off like that. But, I am somewhat impressed that they were able to clone an entire device including the firmware. I am somewhat surprised that the market demand is high enough that someone would go to the trouble to do it. I mean, for someone to go to that effort and invest the money to have the boards made, populated, firmware burned, cases made, painted, logoed, packaged etc, must have cost a considerable amount of time and money. So, it must be quite worth their effort to do so and then sell a couple hundred less than Pangolin. That seems to indicate the laser show business is stronger than I thought.

Anyway, as far as combating the problem goes... once the flood gates are open its hard to stop the water unless you can stop the source. If all the details of how to reproduce these things is out then it wont be contained... not in China anyway. You might be able to stop Chinese products from being sold here but you can't really stop them from being sold in China because you won't even know it is being done. Even a giant like Microsoft can't contain it. My suggestion is to evolve your product so that it becomes obvious that to a seller that they aren't buying the latest thing. If your product looks or is exactly the same as it did 5 years ago, obviously (as seen) it will be copied and people can't tell that they are buying copies. I'm assuming you can update the firmware and software so that it has to be reregistered and authenticated but of course that won't stop China from selling old versions or people who have fake versions from simply continuing to use the old version.

Good luck.

Software is variable, there is no way to make things unbreakable. You can keep adding protection layers which generally just make it worse/harder to use for the customer. But it can be broken, it always can be.

At $5000/copy there is probably a lot of desire to pirate Beyond. A FB3 sells for $400 (in China on that link that was dropped) but probably contains $30-40 worth of parts or less to a company in China who can get parts and labor cheap. There is a lot of profit margin there. Then they can bring all that cash illegally here to the USA and drive up our housing prices! Toronto, Miami, San Francisco, New York condos.

HUGE issues with fake components in the audio IC, power handling mosfet and other parts. Arcade geeks getting hit by it pretty routinely. When I buy electronic components I pretty much assume half of them are fake :-(

As far as piracy, I don't know if there is a solution other than hunting for the culprits. Pangolin bringing 100% of sales internal and not allowing re-sellers?

Protection can be broken.

If full beyond was $999 would everyone buy in more quantity than now (offset profit loss) and would it cut out all of the piracy/fakes?

[telmnstr]

Oh, this is OLD school technique. In the satellite TV piracy world I've heard they managed to social engineer enough detail out of component vendors to find out where the security fuse that prevents reading back data is physically in the IC case. They then used jewelers tools to drill into the IC, and filled it with mercury to bridge the security fuse. Data was then read with EPROM programmer.

Bunny (the guy that did the xbox classic hack) did the chip top removal, and there are services that will take images of the transistor arrays in asics and turn it back into verilog code or hex or something. I can't remember the company but one of them gives away analysis of some older chips as examples. Nintendo ICs or something. With the xbox hack they were just looking to see if the BIOS data was stored in video hardware chips IIRC.

[absolom7691]

"I have some QS to sell
...................................
Last edited by lasershow286; Today at 05:30."

Looks like somebody came and cleaned up the info. Guilty much?

[JohnYayas]

"I have some QS to sell
...................................
Last edited by lasershow286; Today at 05:30."

Looks like somebody came and cleaned up the info. Guilty much?

Not before I bought my 100 copies. Now I have some QS to sell. PM me for pricing. Huge discount to you. Who buy?
Just kidding, of course.