We originally reached out to 9Elements last year along with several other coreboot consultants, but all of their prices were so outrageous ($50k-$100K per board) that we decided to try porting our laptops ourselves. After hitting a sticking point, we reluctantly contacted them again for help debugging our code.
From the start, our interactions with Christian Walter were awful. We repeatedly stressed how important and time-sensitive this project was, but he seemed completely indifferent. In fact, he made a snide remark about us coming back after trying to do it ourselves.
We never received a quote for the actual porting, but they said the evaluation cost is typically 10% of the total cost, which would mean the porting would have cost around $33,000 for Dasharo-branded coreboot, and $66,000 for unbranded coreboot. Even their highly discounted Dasharo-branded porting comes out to around $250 to $330 an hour, and that’s if they started from scratch. We had 80%+ of the job already complete. We just needed to debug our code.
Sometimes people take their vehicle to mechanics and don't like the quotes for the repair costs. Some of those people then choose to try to do the work at home. Sometimes one of those people will then reluctantly take the car back to the mechanic after they screw up the work.
And then they balk, because they discover that (A) the mechanic will outright refuse to work on the vehicle due to it being in a dismantled state, or (B) the mechanic will give an even higher quote since they now have to diagnose and clean up the mistakes too.
That's not how franchising works
They sign up for an account as a customer, and they order something really cheap, e.g. a salt packet from McDonald's or a sauce packet from Taco Bell.Then when a Dasher accepts the delivery offer, they call the Dasher.
DoorDash masks phone numbers on both ends by proxying through their own phone bank. So when they call the unsuspecting Dasher, the caller ID on the Dasher's end says "DoorDash."
Then they impersonate Dasher support. They claim to the Dasher that the order they are attempting to pick up was placed fraudulently and will need to be cancelled. They claim that the Dasher will still be paid for their trouble but that they will need to check their text messages for a link.
Then they use the link to phish the Dasher's account credentials. And they instruct the Dasher to forward their 2FA code as well, despite the text message literally saying that nobody will ever ask for that code.
It's been happening for years. New Dashers fall for it all the time.
It says they also fraudulently created new accounts as well. They likely turned around and "rented" those accounts out to additional victims. There is a black market for account rentals for those who, for whatever reason (e.g. background check, driving record, citizenship status) can't be approved for one on their own.
All of them.
I'm sorry.
What was it they said back then? They're from the South or some such?
I would like to second this, particularly the line "through a slightly O'Brien-esque process."
😭😭😭
They really did just...
Damn. Maybe I'm not as useless as I thought I was.
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