tbh i think if that was the case one of the " know hows" on here and elsewhere would have looked into that and told everyone before we started using boxes as doorstops. I had various boxes and all would not work once i got my new vm card, plus i also knew people with old firmware on and didnt make any difference. But hey if he says its working good luck to him.!!!!
When you say an engineer updated his legit box what exactly did he do ?? coz usually all they do is resend a signal to box, or if box has a problem change for a newer one. Which is what they did with mine, they cant change the signal coming in and if you got a new vm N3 card then signal has been changed at the other end for your new card to work. Old cards actually stop the vm boxes working, so i guess its something in the chip in the new cards that the box reads to make it work