S
SurFitz
Guest
Hey all,
Right off the bat, I want to apologize if I'm posting this question in the wrong forum.
I have a USB-connected dental-camera whose manufacturer offers for a multitude of dental-practice suites. As a result, the camera's physical "capture" button is not controlled via the hardware's driver, but trough a proprietary ancillary application which a user would download based on the dental-suite the hardware was meant to be used with. In my case, this application converts the capture-button's click into a simple set of keystrokes ("f" [pause] "s" ). Simple...right?
Well, in my case, this little app started causing problems; for whatever reason, it began throwing C++ errors which would cause the app to crash thus rendering the button inoperable...not fun if you're in the middle of a root-canal. I contacted the manufacturer: "Oh! We're sorry! You have a copy of v2 of the capture-software. Here's a link to v3 which will solve your issue.".
I downloaded v3...lo and behold, the virus-alerts started going of. I got back in touch with the manufacturer: "Oh dear! We're sorry again! This is a new version of the application, and it hasn't been certified yet. Those are false-positives. You can proceed with installing without fear!".
I'm just after emailing them a missive about HIPAA security, etc., and how they need to resolve this ASAP.
The manufacturer is reputable, and I actually believe that this app is clean, it's just poorly rolled-out and overloaded with the need to communicate with their licensing-servers (oh, didn't I mention that they gouge you $25 extra for the privilege of making the camera's button work?).
My question is: how might this application be hooking into the USB-hardware's button? I've used a couple of USB sniffer-apps to try to determine what's going on there. When this proprietary capture-app isn't running, I don't see any activity from the hardware when the button is clicked, but when the capture-app is running, there's activity. I can only assume the app is hooking into the hardware's button somehow.
I'm not trying to circumvent this manufacturer's revenue-stream by scamming them out of $25, I just want this stupid camera's button to send "f" [pause] "s" keystrokes when pressed without all the other overhead garbage. I said as much in my email: they'd be paid for any licences we'd have used for the cameras we intend to purchase, just make this app work without virus-warnings and the need to communicate externally for licence-compliance.
I am a web-developer and have a fair amount of systems-development coding under my belt. As for Windows-environment stuff, it's been mainly C# and a little C++. The app in question is written in C++ and I was unable to decompile. I just yesterday started messing around with WDK in attempts to roll-my-own for the camera, but I think I'm overestimating my skill-set there. I guess I'm looking for a shortcut to figuring out the workflow to properly troubleshoot this hardware to find a simple solution of hooking into its button-clicks and converting them into keystrokes.
Can anyone guide me?
Thanks,
-Fitz
Continue reading...
Right off the bat, I want to apologize if I'm posting this question in the wrong forum.
I have a USB-connected dental-camera whose manufacturer offers for a multitude of dental-practice suites. As a result, the camera's physical "capture" button is not controlled via the hardware's driver, but trough a proprietary ancillary application which a user would download based on the dental-suite the hardware was meant to be used with. In my case, this application converts the capture-button's click into a simple set of keystrokes ("f" [pause] "s" ). Simple...right?
Well, in my case, this little app started causing problems; for whatever reason, it began throwing C++ errors which would cause the app to crash thus rendering the button inoperable...not fun if you're in the middle of a root-canal. I contacted the manufacturer: "Oh! We're sorry! You have a copy of v2 of the capture-software. Here's a link to v3 which will solve your issue.".
I downloaded v3...lo and behold, the virus-alerts started going of. I got back in touch with the manufacturer: "Oh dear! We're sorry again! This is a new version of the application, and it hasn't been certified yet. Those are false-positives. You can proceed with installing without fear!".
I'm just after emailing them a missive about HIPAA security, etc., and how they need to resolve this ASAP.
The manufacturer is reputable, and I actually believe that this app is clean, it's just poorly rolled-out and overloaded with the need to communicate with their licensing-servers (oh, didn't I mention that they gouge you $25 extra for the privilege of making the camera's button work?).
My question is: how might this application be hooking into the USB-hardware's button? I've used a couple of USB sniffer-apps to try to determine what's going on there. When this proprietary capture-app isn't running, I don't see any activity from the hardware when the button is clicked, but when the capture-app is running, there's activity. I can only assume the app is hooking into the hardware's button somehow.
I'm not trying to circumvent this manufacturer's revenue-stream by scamming them out of $25, I just want this stupid camera's button to send "f" [pause] "s" keystrokes when pressed without all the other overhead garbage. I said as much in my email: they'd be paid for any licences we'd have used for the cameras we intend to purchase, just make this app work without virus-warnings and the need to communicate externally for licence-compliance.
I am a web-developer and have a fair amount of systems-development coding under my belt. As for Windows-environment stuff, it's been mainly C# and a little C++. The app in question is written in C++ and I was unable to decompile. I just yesterday started messing around with WDK in attempts to roll-my-own for the camera, but I think I'm overestimating my skill-set there. I guess I'm looking for a shortcut to figuring out the workflow to properly troubleshoot this hardware to find a simple solution of hooking into its button-clicks and converting them into keystrokes.
Can anyone guide me?
Thanks,
-Fitz
Continue reading...