SlashGear Japan
EFI-X’s OS X hack dongle always seemed too good to be true; according to a new report from Tom’s Hardware, it really was. The adapter promised to take a computer built from standard PC components and allow Mac OS X to be installed on it, without the usual patching and tweaking required for a regular “Hackint0sh”. However, as one EFI-X owner has discovered, it seems the company did little more than repackage Chameleon/Boot-132 bootloader code onto a DRM-encrypted USB stick.
While EFI-X always maintained that their dongle contained more than just memory and software, owner AsereBLN stripped away the casing and, after some sleuthing, discovered the guts were in fact little more than storage with an accompanying DRM chip to avoid prying eyes. What those eyes would find, indeed, was that the dongle uses uncredited OSX86 code with no attribution, while module files from the company were masked patch files from the open-source community.
As for the difference between EFI-X v1 and v1.1 – which we were originally told would simply be better construction and gold-plated components – the company is now saying that owners of the $280 former will not be able to load Snow Leopard; only those who pay $300 for the latter will. However, a source “close to the company” claims that the two dongles are pretty much identical, with the v1.1 models having their firmware version hard-encoded so that older versions can’t masquerade as them.
ASEM, the firm behind EFI-X, is now apparently threatening to sue AserBLN for attempting to reverse-engineer their hardware and identify it. With this controversy raging, and reports from buyers that the current modules are suffering intermittent faults, complete breakdowns or hardware issues, it no longer seems that an EFI-X dongle is the easiest way to get an unofficial OS X machine.
2 Responses to “EFI-X Mac hack dongle accused of stealing GNU code”
BummedByEFI-X September 10, 2009
Thanks to Chris and to Slashgear for printing news about EFI-X. My own purchase of the V1 this June is something I deeply regret, because of several reasons:
* Despite claims that the V1.1 was firmware-compatible with the V1, merely more durable, Art Studios Entertainment Media have abandoned V1 customers and refuse to give them the same firmware capability as V1.1
* AsereBLN proved that the components inside the EFI-X device are NOT what is claimed by ASEM. For his consumer advocacy he is being sued by ASEM for “blowing the whistle” on their scam.
* I have always had to update firmware when Apple released a new point revision of OS10.5, in direct contradiction to what ASEM claimed EFI-X could do (”because it is hardware, just use Apple Update like it’s a real Mac”–what a joke).
* Customer service by ASEM for EFI-X owners is the worst I have ever experienced for any product, and this product cost me well over $200US. They are either extremely rude, or plain non-responsive.
+7Knotty September 10, 2009
Thanks for covering this fiasco. I have been an EFI-X owner for six months now, and have witnessed some pretty abhorrent behavior by the EFI-X folks. The product itself has admittedly worked pretty well for me, but reading about people losing their “dongles” left and right starts to make you worry. I upgraded, no not to the v1.1… but to a $7 USB stick with the latest release of Chameleon. Works better than EFI-X, and I don’t have to worry about having my computer rendered inoperable because of some sketchy company who’s owner has all the warmth and social grace of Dwight Schrute from the Office.
+4