Far too few people are going to be interested in it.

Until, of course, paying with CurrentC gets you a 2% discount, 10% on select items during an introductory offer*.

( * with regular prices actually gradually going up )

Yes, I think I covered that in my last run-on parasentencegraph :)

I highly doubt there would be any court case as a result of this (especially since it's now pulled, anybody who cares enough to un'brick' their device can follow steps readily provided, etc.) Which is a bit of a shame, as I think it would make for interesting arguments from both sides.

In terms of positive PR, they could have gone with:

1) Put up a warning that the device is counterfeit and will only work for another N times (after which, simply refuse to work with it - don't modify it outright, though given the technique a temporary modification may be required).
2) Ask users to take a picture and name the vendor and product in a tweet using hashtag #fakechip (or whatever marketing comes up with)
3) Every first tweet of the vendor/product combination is rewarded with a free genuine FTDI replacement chip.
4) Sit back, collect the list of naughty companies (pass on to legal if bored), watch the build of goodwill, the discussion of fake vs genuine swell.

Instead, the discussion is now much less about counterfeit vs genuine chips, but about FTDI doing something that apparently is hugely polarizing (some people supporting the practice, most others wondering wtf FTDI was thinking) to electronics enthusiasts/integrators, security experts, and even legal eagles who aren't sure whether FTDI did something clearly illegal any more than whether they did something that was clearly legal, and a secondary discussion on what to replace FTDI parts with. All rather more negative bits of PR for FTDI, even if further out into the future I think this will have been seen as a good move.

Except they're only doing this to their USB VID/PID - which IS THEIRS.

That may be a matter of interpretation.

They are changing a number which is theirs (not sure if they'd have IP law on their side, or only the USB association's 'hear, hear!').

However, this change occurs by actually modifying EPROM states, said EPROM most not being theirs.

Of course then there's the bit about them not knowing that because it identifies itself as being theirs, thus it being the counterfeiters' fault for not counterfeiting it well enough to match the genuine article when sent this particular set of instructions, and the counter-issue that there doesn't appear to be any good reason to use those instructions except for targeting counterfeits, but that plain warnings don't seem to stem the tide of counterfeits, and whether counterfeits really are as big of an issue in the markets where they get most actively used anyway, and you've got a bit of a clusterfornication.

So we shouldn't just blame the users for buying products with counterfeit chips - which they may very well not even have known about - but we should also blame them for not digging up the automatic driver update mechanism that they may very well not even have known about?

Is there anything else we could blame on the user - the party most immediately affected - in this situation?

I'm quite certain that most people wouldn't even know that they invited anybody into their house - as it is, they're technically already in the house (FTDI's drivers come with Windows). The invitation would be with the update - but as the occupant, I'm even unaware of this invitation. In this analogy, I trust my landlord, and my landlord trusts the maintenance people. The maintenance people broke that trust, no matter how well-intentioned their actions.

As far as the winding gear bit - FTDI merely cause a re-write of the USB PID to 0000. Nothing that can't be restored, just as a winding gear can be put back into place. It's not so much destruction as it is disabling.

When Rolex sneaks into your house because somewhere in your apartment lease you agreed that trusted maintenance people could do so to make sure that everything is on the up and up, finds your Rolex to be a fake, and takes a winding gear out... would you consider that to also be functionally no different?

Because that's more akin to what has happened.

Windows users allow Windows (by default) to let WHQL drivers to be updated silently. FTDI made use of this mechanism to update their driver. Their driver, when called upon to communicate with the device, then sends it some data which either does nothing (genuine) or reversibly disables it (if counterfeit).

This is two weeks ago, but I don't think it popped up on Slashdot;
Feds charge tech CEO with making app for stalkers, domestic abusers

Although people are usually quick to defend the tool (and its makers) and suggest authorities go after its users instead, similar stories from the past seem to suggest that not very many would be jumping to his defense:
Man Creates "Creepy" Stalking App
World's Creepiest iPhone App Pulled After Outcry

Because that's a different discussion already adequately covered by "While I'm certainly in favor of educating people that when you send stuff to others, you have lost all control over it, no matter what assurances you get".

Last I knew SnapSaved could not yet send pictures.

Whether Ars is simply writing this as an assumption that you could, or whether you actually could, I wouldn't know.

However, I never said that in the eventuality that people used a third party service to send them that they would not also be 'vulnerable'. That's not even material to my comment.

I will happily concede that IF you could send through SnapSaved and IF they saved the sent images as well, THEN the sender could obviously also be blamed for using that third party service.

But you still can't blame everybody else using the official client for sending TO that person just because THEY used a third party service.

How many of the numerous snapchat clients have been implicated, and how many of those have denied and/or admitted to foul play?

Official SnapChat: Implicated and denied
SnapSave: Implicated and denied
SnapSaved: Implicated and admitted

While it's fair to say that there's a hypothetical situation in which other apps also stored the images, and that said other apps might also do so when sending them, and that said other apps' hosting servers were also hacked - that same hypothetical line of thinking means we'll never know the full story, period.
At least the evidence so far implicates recipients as playing a pivotal role, rather than senders.

Except that the signs point to SnapSaved.com, which only let you receive and save images; sending was to come at a future time, either via webcam or file upload.

You can read a statement from them at their facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Snaps...

How ironic that they're so anxious to recruit only people who have never committed the very types of "crimes" they're being hired to do.

I don't know if they wouldn't hire people who have downloaded some songs from an illicit source or whatever - maybe they don't. Their potential employee pool would sure be rather small, though.

However, the article seems to suggest that they're asking this question, and if you are caught lying in your answer to that question, that you are then ineligible to apply for a position with the FBI. Ever.

Based on that information, you could certainly say "yes, I've downloaded maybe 20 movies until I got Netflix and probably about a dozen albums back in the day", and as long as that's the truth.. well.
( Setting aside the discussion about polygraph testing accuracy etc. )

What snapchat claimed to do was a form of DRM

I'm not sure if this has always been the case, or was added later, but for a very long time now, at least the Play Store's description has included:

Please note: even though Snaps, Chats, and Stories are deleted from our servers after they expire, we cannot prevent recipient(s) from capturing and saving the message by taking a screenshot or using an image capture device

So nobody should have been under the illusion that it was, in fact, impossible to save these images even if they lived a sheltered life and never imagined the analog loophole.

Snapchat [...] is now is saying its users were instead victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps.

While I suppose it's possible that that the reference to 'users' in 'their' is a different subset, the phrasing makes it seem that somebody who sent a picture was victimized by their own use of a third party app, while in reality all signs are pointing to the recipient of the photo using said app.

The recipients hopefully feel doubly-awful not just for betraying their friend's trust (not saving the image implied by the use of snapchat - technical feasibility and analog loopholes aside) in the first place, but for playing a pivotal role in those images possibly becoming public.

While I'm certainly in favor of educating people that when you send stuff to others, you have lost all control over it, no matter what assurances you get, I'm also in favor of educating people not to be jerks (be that the recipients, or the hackers).