News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on No one, not even the Secret Service, should randomly plug in a strange USB stick. Parent comment

Re:No one, not even the Secret Service, should randomly plug... by bsder on Monday April 08, 2019 @08:51PM (#19610623)
Somebody, somewhere had to install a driver. And, because you could never count on it, you can't design to it.

Now, since most things use a Prolific chip, you only have to install the driver for one device and you pick up a ton of them.

But it has to be installed by somebody, and that means all of the silliness that goes along with Windows driver installation.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:No one, not even the Secret Service, should randomly plug... by oarsinsync on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @03:25AM (#19612516)
FTDI chips have their driver deployed by default on most Windows, Mac and Linux installs. It's nice being able to buy a USB/serial cable and it just work, without needing to deploy any drivers at all. Check it out!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:No one, not even the Secret Service, should randomly plug... by swish_bob on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @04:01AM (#19612654)
Had to install FTDI drivers on (an admittedly old) Windows laptop 3 weeks ago before I could use it to talk to the Cisco gear I was reconfiguring ...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:No one, not even the Secret Service, should randomly plug... by InitialLastName on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @07:52AM (#19613667)
IIRC the FTDI chips use a non-standard com driver on Win 7. IF you want your device (with your VID and PID) to show up as a serial port, you need to associate your device with the usbserial driver, which at the very least requires a custom .inf.
[ Parent | on HN ]