Gemini Clone sagga-First statement

Just-i

Inactive User
Joined
Mar 15, 2008
Messages
83
Reaction score
2
Default info from the Gemini Team....
AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE IHAD/Gemini Team
With the release of the GP 4.3, we have added a feature to the Blue panel to detect fake Dreambox clones. We want to show our protest against clones and replicas of Dreamboxes. It cannot be in our interest, to allow the fake boxes to hard the big dreambox community and in fact our beloved hobby.
Like some of you should know, some weeks ago a new box came to the market. It’s sold as a completely new development.
But if you check that box exactly, you will soon find out that not only the same images, software and drivers were used, but also the nearly identical hardware, such as for example in the Dreambox DM500. According to some owners of this new box, it is being shipped and sold with a preinstalled Gemini Image, which is not in our interest. Even in the manufacturers forum, Gemini images where posted with a warning “runs only on Box XYZ”.

We as a Dreambox board and Developer of the Gemini Images can’t tolerate this trend. It is not in our interest that our know-how, our knowledge of the Dreamboxes, and our time is used by a third party manufactorer to sell his copies with our software

In fact, the truth is that these manufactorers are themselves not able to provide a self developed image for (their receivers.

The Blue Panel server is operated, managed and financed by private funds. Also the support we offer for the Gemini images and the genuine Dreamboxes is exploited by the fake clone developers and owners.

We can not prevent these people from using the Gemini images, but what we can do is making it as hard as possible for these people to gain money with our work. Therefore, we implemented in the images that are also running on the boxes described above a lock for the BluePanel server. The detection mechanism, whether it is a replica or a Dreambox, has been activated in the current DM500 release. Other Box types will follow. If a box is identified as a non-genuine clone of a Dreambox, the access to the BluePanel is locked.
Since this method of detection is still very new, it could unfortunately occur that even genuine boxes are identified as fakes and as a consequence the BluePanel would be locked also on original Dreamboxes. In the meantime, there are some known problems where repaired boxes can’t by recognized as genuine due to the replaced hardware parts. We will do everything the reduce the number of false identifications but nevertheless we cannot decrease the error rate to zero, as the necessary data from DMM is not available. If your Box is falsely identified as a fake box, please understand that we do this in order to maintain the Dreambox community.

We ask all users of our images to do everything possible to ensure that our hobby can live on and we will fight together against such unfair methods. We as developers want our Gemini images only to run on Dreamboxes...

The IHAD/Gemini Team

(Mods, If this has been posted b4, plz remove and sorry double posting)
 
Sad to read really:(

If they want their image to be used by ONLY orginal dreamboxes, then they should remove the gemini image from opensource and GNU and come clean and state it as a DMM image for DMM and by DMM...then they would have some legal angle to defend themselves.
 
But it is the bootloader that is not open source GNU, and it is the bootloader of unofficial unlicenced receivers that has been removed. Where is the need for any 'legal' angle from IHAD/Gemini? They continue to provide images for the Dreambox as they have always stated they have done, nothing new and still under Open source GNU licence.
I think some people have been tricked by dealers selling fake/clone/copy equipment and saying that they can use images made for a dreambox. Imho it is a shame to read posts blaming Gemini from people who dont understand the full picture.

The point is DMM have protected their rights with a counter-piracy attack. Anyone who jtag's & fixes the bootloader is still breaking the law by stealing the copyrighted material again. You cannot blame DMM or IHAD/Gemini for pirates or for any dealers saying piracy has no consequence.
 
ps. The open source Gemini images do not state anywhere that you cant simply rename the file and load it onto a Technomate (or any other receiver). Anyone who tries will likely kill their Technomate and stop it functioning; any dealer who says you can do it is just lying to sell you the Technomate; anyone believing you can do this without consequence of busting their machine is taking a big risk..... :).
If you have a clone, use an image made for it and more important use a non-dream bootloader (which doesnt exist yet).
 
heres a post i made on another forum a few weeks ago, that changed the whole outlook of a very long thread

'IF' gemini are part of DMM, as DMM wouldnt be able to to seen releasing images like this themselfs, pretty common practice, then i dont see the problem

since clones were first available, both the gemini team AND DMM said they would offer NO support at all for clones, nor would they help to make and sort of software to allow clones to run their software

if you have bought a clone knowingly, then thats a risk you take for saving a few quid, if you have un-knowingly bought a clone, then the issue is with your supplier to replace the unit for you

why should the gemini team spend years and years, along with dedicated satellite enthusiasts trying to perfect a product/image, for some cheap sweatshop to rip off the hardware desigh, copy it and get unlimited support for their cheap untested clones?

you bought a dreambox because you wanted the best, yet you scrimped on the £40 (dont know in Au$) difference between a clone and a genuine product. You get what you pay for
 
First off, I don't have many answers, just a lot of questions. But, I think you guys are buying into the one sided story that's being told. You need to look beyond what Gemini and Dreambox are spoon feeding us as consumers for the real truth behind the issue.

Gemini and DMM are close, but, separate entities. Gemini wants to produce their image for DMM product, in hopes of someday being picked up by DMM, and seeing some form of profit for their efforts.Gemini has put the consumer in harms way, rather than going after those exploiting their intellectual property directly. This is just bad taste.
If a clone is a clone, isn't DMM guilty of exploiting Kirsh medias design and R&D from the D-box series receivers, when Kirsh went bancrupt? Did they secure the rights to exploit Kirsh medias intellectual property? Not at the time the initial DM-500's rolled out.
DMM used several Chinese manufactures to produce their different models, both ROC and PRC based companies. It's time we ask for disclosure on which companies produced which models.

I bought my DM500 factory direct from a company displaying the proper CE and FCC certificates. I'd tend to believe they are the original product manufacture DMM used for the production of the DM500's. This company is directly selling to the public, under the Dreambox name and logo. You've got to ask yourself, if I were going to steel a product, couldn't I reap higher profits selling it under a different name, at a lower price, with less friction. This company is selling those units at 30% over cost. It looks to me that they're rubbing it in DMM's face. Which is why I'd start looking for a contract dispute between them and DMM.

It's known that DMM's actions are questionable, example, because their U.S. based distribution was cited by the the FCC with a "ceases and desist" order. Because they were importing and selling DMM product before applying for, and being granted proper FCC certifications. This is a process, they failed to comply with, and had to be tracked down. They later achieved this for the DM7020's, but, not for the DM500's. Wouldn't that make all the DM500's sold in the U.S.market (original or clone) illegal? Would this be enough of an embarrassment to DMM to target those units to disenfranchise them by calling them clones.

Why was the DM500's excluded from U.S. market sales? As an interim, and entry level Linux embedded hobby box, this product would have sold well here. That's why users here chose to buy clones, they were unavailable elsewhere, and any kind of reasonable price. this due to DMM discontinuing the product line, and their restrictive closed market distribution system.

There's a lot more to this issue than meets the eye. and there's a lot more to find.

in my opinion
IMnobody
 
First off, I don't have many answers, just a lot of questions. But, I think you guys are buying into the one sided story that's being told. You need to look beyond what Gemini and Dreambox are spoon feeding us as consumers for the real truth behind the issue.

Gemini and DMM are close, but, separate entities. Gemini wants to produce their image for DMM product, in hopes of someday being picked up by DMM, and seeing some form of profit for their efforts.Gemini has put the consumer in harms way, rather than going after those exploiting their intellectual property directly. This is just bad taste.
If a clone is a clone, isn't DMM guilty of exploiting Kirsh medias design and R&D from the D-box series receivers, when Kirsh went bancrupt? Did they secure the rights to exploit Kirsh medias intellectual property? Not at the time the initial DM-500's rolled out.
DMM used several Chinese manufactures to produce their different models, both ROC and PRC based companies. It's time we ask for disclosure on which companies produced which models.

I bought my DM500 factory direct from a company displaying the proper CE and FCC certificates. I'd tend to believe they are the original product manufacture DMM used for the production of the DM500's. This company is directly selling to the public, under the Dreambox name and logo. You've got to ask yourself, if I were going to steel a product, couldn't I reap higher profits selling it under a different name, at a lower price, with less friction. This company is selling those units at 30% over cost. It looks to me that they're rubbing it in DMM's face. Which is why I'd start looking for a contract dispute between them and DMM.

It's known that DMM's actions are questionable, example, because their U.S. based distribution was cited by the the FCC with a "ceases and desist" order. Because they were importing and selling DMM product before applying for, and being granted proper FCC certifications. This is a process, they failed to comply with, and had to be tracked down. They later achieved this for the DM7020's, but, not for the DM500's. Wouldn't that make all the DM500's sold in the U.S.market (original or clone) illegal? Would this be enough of an embarrassment to DMM to target those units to disenfranchise them by calling them clones.

Why was the DM500's excluded from U.S. market sales? As an interim, and entry level Linux embedded hobby box, this product would have sold well here. That's why users here chose to buy clones, they were unavailable elsewhere, and any kind of reasonable price. this due to DMM discontinuing the product line, and their restrictive closed market distribution system.

There's a lot more to this issue than meets the eye. and there's a lot more to find.

in my opinion
IMnobody

Have to say that is some first post you made there but i would not agree with you as for one you can still buy a 500c and you can also buy a new model of the 500s and from going by what people are selling the clones for its only a couple of pounds different also you have said you buy from the factory that makes the dreambox receiver so what you are saying if anything the factory is making a product for a company and also selling it behind the so called company's back that for one is theft of there product and design witch you also say dream stole if so why have we never seen anything done about it going by what you and some other people are saying they would have good grounds to stand on would make you think why they have not done any thing as dream must not of stole any thing or mabey dmm is the same people under a different name now that would make you think .

I for one dont think there is more to the issue and posts like these will go on and on dream are looking after there product just like any firm would , dream killed there boot loader being used on clones and im sure they will do more and people will work round this its how this game go's dream made the same stand that the starview people did
 
I dont see what more there is to understand either?
Fact: Gemini helped dream multimedia fight back against unlicenced products that are using a dmm copyrighted bootloader. I fail to see why someone thinks i'm believing some kind of fake 1 sided story here?
Make your own mind up on conspiracies, believe what you want, but truth is Gemini work alongside DMM and if you dont want to use Gemini images on a clone unit anymore then thats your free choice. I am certainly not confused or ill-educated on the subject, I just have my view. I am personally glad people with fakes/clones wont use Gemini anymore, thats the whole idea of dmm implimenting this fight-back.
 
Ok, you've read the statements, you saw Gemini's site close temporarily, till they got clarification from Drembox over the second clone attack inV4.31. That Ge mini claimed was clean. They claimed to be just as dumbfounded as the consumers that were caught in the middle. They initiated their first attack in V4.30 which was a MAC harvesting attack, designed to block clone product from accessing their blue panel features. This first attack was announced.
Now sure for the sake of argument they have every right to protect their intellectual property. What they don't have is the right to do is put the consumer in harms way. The right way would have been to file suite against the clone sellers, that were exploiting their property. All they accomplished was to show that the Dreambox units integrity could be compromised. That sure helps sales throughout the Embedded Linux community they share a stake in.
Their first attack not only closed the door on clones, but also hit few real Dreambox units. Not to mention the others manufacture units like Relook, Dragon, ITGate and others that use their image and site for support. It was defeated by changing the MAC address in the clones. So, the attack was not effective and rendered mute.This didn't end the cloning, nor stop the dealers exploitation.
In the second attack Dreambox got into the picture, giving Gemini a copy of their new revised boot loader, which again worked off the MAC address. This time the attack was designed to erase the original boot loader in the units, again it not only hit clones but, real Dreambox units. DMM had a site set up and in place for recovery.
Again neither the clone manufactures nor clone dealers were effected, only the consumer.
And once again this attack was defeated by checking the MD5 checksum of the head.ko file in the boot loader. And, or defeated by J-tagging the unit and reloading the original boot loader, and not running Gemini above v4.20.
I just want to know one thing? How many times does the consumer have to bare the brunt of Dream Multimedia's amd Gemini's poorly conceived and non effective attacks on clones. Before both of them go after the source of the problem in the proper manor?
I'm sorry, but a closed source boot loader has no business in an open source product like Dreambox, or other STB's.

IMO

IMnobody
 
Sorry Guys

But i,ve got to have my pennies worth. I bought a 7020 last year and
went out of my way to make sure it was not a clone. I paid the going
price for it, knowing it was original. I wanted a original and not a clone
and i paid for what i got - a original Dreambox. The point i,m trying to
make is , you pay for what you get. So if you buy a clone, why should
you have the right to use the originals software. Problem is that folk
want genuine, but don,t want to pay the money for them and that goes
for just about anything. As far as i,m concerned , i think the gemini team
have done a great job with great software and have a right to protect
it with all the means they have at their disposal. Also if you by a clone
or a copy, you take your chances and if you are caught out, tough titty,
you should have got the genuine article in the first place.

Fezzy
 
Last edited:
Sorry Guys

The point i,m trying to
make is , you pay for what you get. So if you buy a clone, why should
you have the right to use the originals software.

Tell that to the poor people who paid for a 'genuine' box and ended up with a clone!

Gemini is over-rated shit anyway, people want to get out more and start experimenting with some of the other superior images available.

Gemini Project can suck my Dick.
 
Tell that to the poor people who paid for a 'genuine' box and ended up with a clone!

as ive said before, even in cases like this, its not gemini's or DMM's fault, the arguement there is with the dealer who lied to the end user that the product was genuine when it wasnt
 
Gemini is over-rated shit anyway, people want to get out more and start experimenting with some of the other superior images available.

Agreed, I replaced my the Gemini image on my box with Nabilosat, cannot express how much superior it is, especially the add-on server.
 
i now use PLi on my boxes and must say im impressed with it
 
@ IMnobody ok you have said dream have the right to look after there property ok then what did dream do looked after there boot loader so any clone unit that had it got killed and any of there units that were not clones that were killed they fixed cant see a prob with that just for the people that got told there units were real and turned out to be clones who dose this prob lye with there dealer that sold it saying it was real ( i don't like what happened to these people but the same thing happened to people with starviews ) better still why not go to the company selling the clones and ask them to make a new boot loader after all they are cloning and selling them

Now if you look in to what is going on in china with all the cloning you will see dream do not have a chance of doing any thing about it like any other company that is getting this done to them this is why so much of it is going on out there
 
@2tone,
Like I said, I'm just questioning the issues. But, I said Gemini, “AND,” DMM have a right to protect their intellectual property. Now simply, there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. IMO, They're going about it in the wrong way by attacking the consumer. Your argument will be, they can't fight the PRC based manufactures, or, sellers, because they don't respect international law. In hind site maybe they should have a manufacture their product in a friendly country like the ROC.
Where else could they have produces a problem like this if not in mainland China? That is, if the clones are coming out of the same factories that produced their product in the first place. Which is how it appears. But, the only way we're going to know that is if we press Dreambox to disclose the country of manufacture and the other related details. So, to that I again say, they caused this, let them deal with it. But, attacking the consumer is in poor taste at best.
Maybe they can't go after the cloners directly, but, tell me why they can't ask friendly nations to block the import of these units, into what is still considered their market?

Now, no units have actually been destroyed, just the bootloader corrupted, forcing the consumer to reload it. But, the signal has been sent out, that the unit can be compromised. So, in the long run, the only thing their actions have accomplished, is to eroded consumer confidence in not only Dreambox, but, other Linux based units as well. Is this not also unfair to the other manufactures, as well as the consumers?

Dreambox's boot loader is closed source, but, if a clone is a clone, since the majority of their R&D and software came from Kirsh media's D-Box, and the open source V4L repository isn't Dreambox hardware and software just a clone? If it's firmware bootloader is closed source, how can it or any other closed source material be allowed to, and be maintained on the Opensource CVS Linux repository?

And, what if someone like Egale, or, the clone producers themselves, comes up with a new bootloader, if it's supperior to the original, do you think Dreambox will fight to maintain control of a unit they've already discontinued production of?

As for Gemini, they're suppose to be open source resource like the rest of the image writers, since their pulling their material from the same CVS repository as the other image writers. If they have decided their not going to abide by the GPL license agreement, shouldn't they be requested to remove their material, and stop using CVS to produce their image? Their gripe is simple exploitation, of dealers using their product to enhance clone sales. As I understand it, the only way they get a pay off, is if they get picked up like someone like Dreambox and continue to supply suport for their product. I doubt the clones have driven a wedge between Gemini's and Dreambox's relationship. It's highly unlikely that other image writers will change bootloaders, since there's no advantage to the doing so. For that mater neither would a new Opensource boot loader unless it offered new features or, was in some way superior.

IMnobody
 
i've never used gemini images as i too think they are sh!t and overrated there is far better images out there to use, like nabilosat, PLI , EDG nemesis etc
 
I dont under stand why you want dream to say were they make there units , is this so clone dealers can turn round and say my product is real because it comes from the same factory as the real ones this is the only reson i can see alot of people looking this not to say dream caused it after all there only trying to make a receiver and get a good return

How can they block them importing units pmsl come on its china money talks just like most places

I think this is the hole point they used dreams bootloader not the eagle or any of the othere ones as they were all so useing the same one , dream took action that i have said was not fair on a lot of people to make a point now lets see the clone producers make there own bootloader to fix the prob then there will be no need to clone dreams stuff and if you dont want to use gemini then so be there is othere images out there to be used but im sure dream will try some thing again time will only tell

We can go on about this for days weeks months years but still get no were but we can say this up to now not one person has taken dream to court over this that i have seen so they must have some leg to stand on ,this only came about because of greed people looking to make money lots of money i should say out of some one's product that they have put alot of money in to
 
can i just ask a question the dm500s real or copy
arnt these to watch hacked channels on satellite??
or are they used legitimatly
 
pmsl very good and true to a point but with out a modified image they are from what i have been told so dont hold me to it free to air units
 
Back
Top