siberia

Today is the one-year anniversary of my freedom.

Words cannot describe the joy that I felt when I received the call from Peter asking me to join them in the conference room for the "bad news". I was miserable there; I can say without hesitation that the five years I spent at that firm was the absolute worst period in my adult life.

Although I took a 40% salary cut when I left the industry, the difference in working conditions between that firm and Apple is roughly the difference between night and day. I'd say more, but a clause in my severance agreement prohibits me from saying anything negative about the firm, its partners and MDs, and especially their (in)Human Capital division.

Hooray! I'm free!

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority…always vote[s] for the candidate promising the most benefits from the treasury with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by dictatorship.”

-- Ronald Reagan

Tom's hardware has just posted a report on ASEM chicanery, complete with a statement from Davide.

The fat lady has finished her warm-ups and has launched into her solo.

(This web log was used as a reference for the article. I have a nice feeling of satisfaction right now.)

So Snow Leopard (aka MacOS 10.6) was released today.

Our altruistic friends at ASEM (who never, ever do anything just to make a buck) have just announced on their forum that revision 1.0 of the EFi-X will never run Snow Leopard. Anyone that wants to run Snow Leopard has to buy a new EFi-X dongle (version 1.1, which was supposed to differ from 1.0 only in that it was physically less susceptible to power spikes).

Understandably, there is quite a bit of drama on the forum about this. People are reminding ASEM about the firmware update at the beginning of the year that promised to future-proof the EFi-X (the touted "64-bit EFI upgrade" that also broke Time Machine support). Many people are declaring that they are done with EFi-X and migrating to chameleon.

Of course, the ability to read the forum at http://forum.efi-x.com depends on having a valid account. Wilhelm announced a couple of days ago that new account registration has been disabled -- the only way to read posts on the board is to skype-PM him and convince him that you qualify for an account. They're apparently trying to keep prospective customers/victims in the dark about their complete horror-show of a product.

ASEM is done, I think.

If you're an owner of the EFi-X that has been banned from the board for asking dangerous questions about the product, or a prospective buyer that wants to know more about the product, or (dare I hope) a lawyer interested in bringing a class-action suit against ASEM for product misrepresentation/code theft/whatever, I think you can contact Wilhelm here:

Wilhelm Vnukov
Germanen Strasse 3
Niederkassel
DE
+49.1805555330
jikaiuei@yahoo.de

... at least, that's what the public WHOIS database has for the registrant for the "efi-x.com" domain. It's probably a mail drop. Not even ASEM would be dumb enough to put the real address of their most visible "core member" in a public place ...

... and, EFi-X users, if you want a safe uncensored forum to discuss the EFi-X, I recommend www.efixusers.com. AsereBLN has a weblog with details on how to migrate from EFi-X to Chameleon here.

ASEM has shut down the English-language EFi-X support forum. Interestingly, the original announcement was deleted ... but there's about ten threads discussion this move.

That's it ... EFi-X is finally dead.

Hooray!

(update)

dont be that impulsive...
Forum stays...
Best Regards

Wilhelm von Vnukov

... so it's back, but for how long?

Those few EFi-X owners who haven't figured out how to use Chameleon yet ... now is the time to learn. EFi-X is going bye-bye shortly after SnowLeopard is released next week, I think ...

Over the past two months, there's been a few developments at the EFi-X "support" forum.

First off, the Windows flash utility has been pulled from distribution. By "pulled" I mean "there is no longer a link to it on their web site", although it can still be downloaded from here.

The link disappeared shortly after I posted to their forum asking politely if they would care to comment on the LGPL'd code they used illegally. Unsurprisingly my post was deleted ... but they also locked down the forum. The contents can be read only if one is logged in as a registered user.

This, of course, means that the various search engines can no longer index or cache the contents. One of the ASEM "staff" stated that this was done to prevent "misinformation spread by malicious users" from reaching a larger audience.

Gee, did they do that because of me? That certainly looks like they've got something to hide. That's almost an admission of guilt.

(If I state that the Leopard updater violates the LGPL even more than the Windows updater did due to the static linking, will they pull that too?)

It also appears that ASEM isn't an actual company. Another user (who was permanently banned from the forum soon thereafter) posted the public whois information for efi-x.com and art-studios.net. The former is registered to "Wilhelm Vnukov", the latter to a "Georg Vhukov". The addresses of the registrant are the same for both domains -- a residential area of Niederkassel in western Germany.

The name variations are interesting ... but the most interesting is that the whois information contains the closest there is to actual contact information for ASEM.

From a technical perspective, the EFi-X is still a clusterfuck. The latest firmware (3.6.11) fixed Bonjour but rendered the network driver otherwise non-functional. There's still no way to downgrade firmware (although it's probably possible to spoof the updater to look at another server and feed the updater an earlier firmware image captured by tcpdump. I have such an image if anyone wants to pull it apart).

After initial denials that any network problem existed, Wilhelm finally said this about the network driver issue:

Dear EFiX users,

Realtek had officially rejected to support our engineers and programmers.

Status:
Writing our own drivers.

ETA:
Expected with next Milestone

... which is extremely funny. Realtek is pretty liberal about providing programming specs to anyone who goes through the registration process; if they rejected ASEM's request then there's definitely something odd going on here. Not to mention that they're as much as admitting that they didn't write the Realtek driver that they ship.

It's also interesting that ASEM can't or won't look at the relevant *BSD drivers for hints on what's broken. Using a *BSD driver as a reference (or, hell, even "borrowing" the driver code itself) is permitted under the BSD license. One can only speculate as to why they don't do the obvious thing ...

... but, then, very little about ASEM makes sense.

I accepted a position at Apple as a security system engineer.

I'm currently enduring a bout with insomnia -- the sun is rising around 0430 nowadays, and I haven't got around to putting heavier curtains in the bedroom.

Anyway, I decided to poke at the software updater for the EFi-X USB secure pen drive. I reckoned that would put me to sleep in short order.

I specifically looked at the 32-bit Windows driver that facilitates firmware updates. Until the driver is associated with the device, the EFi-X looks like a mass storage device (as one would expect). I didn't do anything fancy ... just ran strings on efix.dll.

The output looked extremely familiar. An excerpt:

EFiX Devices, Version %d.%d.%d.%d
couldn't allocate memory for endpoint extra descriptors
invalid descriptor length of %d
skipped %d class/vendor specific endpoint descriptors
skipping descriptor 0x%X
bbbbwb
bbbbwbbb
unexpected descriptor 0x%X, expecting endpoint descriptor, type 0x%X
ran out of descriptors parsing
couldn't allocate memory for ifp->endpoint
too many endpoints

... so I grabbed libusb-win32-src-0.1.12.1 from sourceforge.net and looked for matching strings.

Bingo:

monkey:src wileyc$ pwd
/Users/wileyc/Desktop/libusb-win32-src-0.1.12.1/src

monkey:src wileyc$ grep "couldn't allocate memory for endpoint extra descriptors"
descriptors.c: fprintf(stderr, "couldn't allocate memory for endpoint extra descriptors\n");

monkey:src wileyc$ grep "invalid descriptor length of %d"
descriptors.c: fprintf(stderr, "invalid descriptor length of %d\n", header.bLength);
descriptors.c: fprintf(stderr, "invalid descriptor length of %d\n", header.bLength);
descriptors.c: fprintf(stderr, "invalid descriptor length of %d\n", header.bLength);

monkey:src wileyc$ grep "unexpected descriptor 0x%X, expecting endpoint descriptor, type 0x%X"
descriptors.c: fprintf(stderr, "unexpected descriptor 0x%X, expecting endpoint descriptor, type 0x%X\n",

monkey:src wileyc$ grep "couldn't allocate memory for ifp->endpoint"
descriptors.c: fprintf(stderr, "couldn't allocate memory for ifp->endpoint\n");

... and so forth. Try it yourself. Nearly everything in the strings output can be found verbatim in the libusb source.

The EFi-X Windows 32-bit driver is derived from libusb-win32. It appears that all references to libusb in the code have been replaced with "EFiX". Further, the driver does not ship with a copy of the LGPL (in violation of section one), a description of modifications (in violation of section two), or the source code (in violation of section three).

In summary, EFi-X contains code covered under the Lesser GNU Public License -- and violates the terms of that license.

Austin,

I'm about ninety percent convinced that you took your own life after you left Danger Inc. None of your TLUG friends have heard from you, and several of your colleagues from Danger believe the same as I do.

I've not been able to come up with a death stat via Intelius, and a NCIC query gives no hits ... so I'm still not certain.

If you're still out there, please drop me a line. If you're in trouble, I can help.

If I don't hear from you within a few months, we'll hold a memorial drink-up to your memory.

-- Chris

So I finally bit the bullet, declared the engine to be perfect, and put it back in the car. It runs.

That's the executive overview. The details are, well ... detailed.

Like how I got the distributor timing exactly 180 degrees out, so there was a large explosion while I was cranking the first time when it finally ignited the built-up fuel/air mix.

Like how I adjusted the valves with that 180-degrees-out setup, so it sounded like a jackhammer when I got wise and swapped the plug wires around.

Like how the rear engine mount rubber shrank about 50%, so I created a springy spacer around the engine mount with a liberal application of duct tape.

I ended up replacing damned near every part on the engine. Cylinders/pistons/rings are Mahle standard 85.5 units. The oil pump is a Brazil-made high-density job. The camshaft, followers, and pushrods are VW OEM.

The crankshaft is the custom Flat-four forged/balanced unit. That's an eight-dowel-pin configuration, so I needed the Flat-four flywheel. Taken together, they're about 30% lighter than the stock parts.

I used CB Performance balanced rods, their Squareback oil breather, and their sump/filter combo.

The distributor is that SVDA that I picked up off of aircooled.net last year. The heads are new Mexico units with the 3/4" spark plug reach.

It ran pretty well with just those bits ... but I had a Mallory Hyfire-VI CD ignition box lying around, so I put it in today. Upgraded the plug wires and re-gapped at 0.45 ...

... and it started right up. Ran better than any VW I've ever seen or heard about.

It's beautiful, man. All of that time that I spent checking tolerances on the parts in the basement really paid off. It runs, and it runs well.

sniff

Although I migrated away from EFi-X several months ago, I'm still watching their forums for entertainment. It's the same old song and dance over there. I've whipped up what I believe to be honest answers to the most frequently asked questions on their forum.

Q. What is EFi-X?

A. EFi-X (the hardware) is a secure USB pen drive. It incorporates state-of-the-art DRM technology to minimize the possibility of reverse-engineering the product.

EFi-X (the software) is a continuation of Netkas' PC-EFI and/or Chameleon. New features appear in EFi-X some time after they appear in the OSx86 community.

Q. Who develops EFi-X?

A. The actual software engineers are unknown. The public face of EFi-X do not appear to have any experience in software engineering. Best guess is that development is outsourced.

Q. Why are only a small selection of motherboards supported?

A. The integrated components on the motherboard (audio, network) require special kernel extensions ("kexts") to be loaded prior to the Darwin kernel in order to function properly. Each motherboard model has slightly different hardware; therefore, to keep things simple, the EFi-X developers decided to support only a few very similar motherboards that use hardware that is well-understood by the OSx86 community.

Q. Why doesn't Bonjour work?

A. The technical answer is "the stock 8169 driver doesn't work properly", and although Psystar has released a working Realtek 8100 driver that works fine with EFi-X, the EFi-X management has not "borrowed" it as they appear to have "borrowed" Psystar's OpenHaltRestart kext.

Contrary to statements by the EFi-X management, this has nothing to do with incorrect Realtek documentation nor power-saving features on Gigabyte motherboards. If that were the case, none of the UNIX-like OS would be able to do Bonjour-like things. I've written a driver for a Realtek chip back in the dark and misty, and their docco was perfectly adequate.

Q. Why do EFi-X units die suddenly?

A. DRM hardware bits are fragile. Fluctuation in supplied power, temperature, and so forth will cause the unit to shut down.

Q. How can I ensure that my EFi-X-equipped Hackintosh won't fail?

A. Don't use EFi-X. I'm very happy with Chameleon.

A tech stood at the pearly gate,
His face was scarred and old.
He stood before the man of fate
For admission to the fold.

"Why are you here" St Peter asked,
"Pray, give me your excuse?"
"I worked for bankers long" he said,
"I'm safe from their abuse."

The pearly gates swung open wide
As Peter touched the bell.
"Inside," he said, "and choose your harp.
You've had your share of hell."

I've been down with a nasty head cold for the past four/five days. Not being a cat, there's only so much sleep that I can reasonably accomplish in any given day ... so I built a workbench in the basement and started the engine rebuild.

The case is in good shape. The lower transmission mount studs were bent, so I swapped them ... and discovered that some previous owner shot Heli-coil into the holes. A bit of oil and a thread-chase with a M10x1.5 tap let the new studs slide right in.

We found a machine shop in Mitaka that does cylinder head repair -- Kohey Machine R&D. The owner has been doing automobile machine work since high school, and speaks decent English. Unfortunately, welding-and-grinding the heads back into shape will cost roughly twice the price of new fully-loaded heads ... so it looks like I have two more large paperweights.

I unpacked the Mahle cylinders that arrived last week to check case fitting. It looks like they were jostled a bit in shipping or were damaged at the factory -- two cylinders have busted cooling fins. Even though a broken fin is not operationally a big deal, I'm still seeking warranty replacement.

I hope that I survive the rumored Thursday layoff ... new cylinder heads ain't cheap.

Finally got enough of the carbon off the cylinder heads to assess their condition.

#2 and #4 have hairline cracks between the exhaust valve seat and the spark plug hole.

Damn it. I can weld many things, but cylinder head repair scares me. Time to find a Kanto-area machine shop that can do it for me ...

The engine was pulled.

Those are twin Weber 34ICT carburetors, an aircooled.net vacuum-advance distributor, Type-III J-tubes, and Mountain Dew cans plugging the heat exchanger ports on the fan housing.

The piston rings are shot, the valve surfaces are pitted, but both heads seem okay. New cylinder/piston/rings/valve rocker assemblies are on their way.