That argument falls down when you're talking about a company setting up an operation with the sole aim of passing off someone else's work as their own.

With the music/film piracy issue, the downloader is fully aware of what they're choosing to do, and are going in with their eyes open so to speak. That isn't the case in this instance. This company is still asking for a fair amount of money, for something that isn't theirs to sell or distribute.

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending that tvaat here lol.

As I wrote earlier, I am surprised e-bay is not doing anything to shut it down really...

Understood. Just my response to that usual reasoning that's often applied, not at you directly

To those who have expressed support for VCDS and Ross-Tech, thank you. Your support is welcome and is appreciated. You are the ones that keep us trying to improve the product for all.

To those who have expressed support for VCDS and Ross-Tech, thank you. Your support is welcome and is appreciated. You are the ones that keep us trying to improve the product for all.

Mine's still going strong.

We've had our one at work for 6 years now, that's 6 years of daily use and it's still working perfectly. On the occasions that I've had to contact Ross Tech their support and advice has been professional, precise and quick.

Not used RT support yet as a newbie, but the response to registering my 'dongle' was the same day and that was the weekend!

The reason I bought my cable was because I had originally got a cheap ebay cable and used vcds lite to check and clear errors on my car and realised what a useful and straightforward tool it is and how much more I could do with the full version (plus having 4 VAG cars in the family).

All credit to Uwe and co for creating VCDS in the first place and making the lite version freely available to everyone.

Regarding VAG Diagnostics, They are hosted by PRQ in Sweden. PRQ hosts piratebay, wikileaks and other questionable sites. It is next to impossible to have the content removed. I'm constantly trying to find ways to get them shut down. In the past, we had their google wallet and paypal accounts shut down. That is why they require you to contact them to order.

Just out of curiosity (of course if you are at liberty to say) you had a court ruling deeming their product to be in breach of your patent and infringing your patent copyright laws?

Good question - could be the actual enforcement of that being the issue though?

I think the enforcement is the issue as Ross-Tech guys are saying they had some success but are unable to tangibly get hold of them... and e-bay doesn't give a hoot...

I think if I had this issue I would change the way the software is validated. I know alot of people hack reg files but I am sure there is companys out there to stop this with software...

Doing this in turn would mean I wouldnt really need to worry about pirated software.

What I understand they are doing is emulating cable embedded hardware decryption key with software version.

There are ways of improving it, which cost money, and in turn ways of hacking those improvements :(

Given that I suspect a lot of VCDS laptops rarely see the interweb, a DHD wouldn't help much either. :(

As I said, a very expensive solution requiring something akin to Barclays PINsentry within the cable itself