[E3-hacking] PBL V5.1

[Neil Stainton]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:14:28 +0100, "David Given" <dg at cowlark.com> said:
> > Is the JTAG port brought out to a handy set of pads somewhere? If not,
> > are the appropriate balls brought out to vias underneath the CPU?
> 
> Yup, this is perfectly possible, and I believe that there are some handy 
> pads inside. (If you brick the device this is the only way of fixing it.)
> 
> However, in order to reflash it, you have to take the lid off, do some 
> soldering, and apply some technical knowledge --- which means that it's 
> not going to be suitable for mass production. Reflashing using PBL, 
> though, only requires plugging a jack in the back of the machine.
> 

I see, but if Amstrad's concern is that thousands of units might end up
abroad and be reprogrammed then would it not be beyond the wit of the
outfit potentially doing the reprogramming to set up a little production
line to manually remove and replace the cover in order to do it? I
believe in a country such as Russia (mentioned elsewhere in this thread)
semi-skilled labour would not be prohibitively expensive.

Just seems odd that Amstrad would go to the effort of adding the
encryption when the extra effort involved in circumventing it is not
that great, unless the purpose was to protect the binary from being
copied.

Neil