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Counterfeit Cisco Gear Showing Up In US
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 24, 2006 02:27 PM
from the procurement-via-eBay dept.
from the procurement-via-eBay dept.
spazimodo writes to point out a Network World report on the growing problem of counterfeit networking equipment. The article surveys the whole grey-market phenomenon, which is by no means limited to Cisco gear — they just happen to be its biggest target. From the article: "Thirty cards turned out to be counterfeit... Despite repeated calls and e-mails to his supplier, Atec Group, the issue was not resolved... How did a registered Cisco reseller (also a platinum Network Appliance partner and gold partner to Microsoft and Symantec) acquire the counterfeit [WAN interface cards] in the first place?... Phony network equipment [has] been quietly creeping into sales and distribution channels since early 2004... Counterfeit gear has become a big problem that could put networks — and health and safety — at risk. 'Nobody wants to say they've got counterfeit gear inside their enterprises that can all of a sudden stop working. But it's all over the place, just like pirated software is everywhere,' says Sharon Mills, director of IT procurement organization Caucus."
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IT: FBI Says Military Had Counterfeit Cisco Routers 186 comments
There are new developments in the case of the counterfeit Cisco routers, which we have been discussing for some time. The NYTimes updates the story after an FBI PowerPoint presentation made its way onto the Web. It seems that experts at Cisco have examined some of the counterfeit routers in detail and proclaimed that they contain no back doors. Others don't believe we can be so sure. "Last month, [DARPA] began distributing chips with hidden Trojan horse circuitry to military contractors who are participating in the agency's Trusted Integrated Circuits program. The goal is to test forensic techniques for finding hidden electronic trap doors, which can be maddeningly elusive... The threat was demonstrated in April when a team of computer scientists from the University of Illinois presented a paper at a technical conference in San Francisco detailing how they had modified a Sun Microsystems SPARC microprocessor... The researchers were able to create a stealth system that would allow them to automatically log in to a computer and steal passwords."
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Just FUD? (Score:5, Insightful)
What he didn't know was that phoney network equipment had been quietly creeping into sales and distribution channels since early 2004, when manufacturers began seeing more returns, faster mean-time between failures and higher failure rates,
Isn't this the same period we have seen bad caps making equipment randomly fail, batteries which blow up, hard drives not being hard enough and dead pixel nightmares for all different companies?
Is it not more likely that this is just another symptom of too much, too quickly and they should just improve their quality control and testing regimes?
Sure, the cards might have been resold, but they are branded cisco items bearing the entire cisco interface and functionality - somehow I doubt outright fake chipsets and devices like this can be produced by anyone other than cisco themselves.
The article manages to totally skip highlighting a single specific case of fake hardware, the nearest being a raid on a hardware repair centre where officials from a group of agencies pounced.
Reports in the San Francisco Chronicle made it appear at first like an immigration raid, as 12 illegal immigrants (11 from Mexico and one from Colombia) were taken away. But that wouldn't explain the presence of so many agencies, including the FBI, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Postal Service and the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, which investigates large-scale, high-tech piracy and counterfeit cases.
Just because a group of people from different departments turns up does not justify the argument, there could be any number of reasons.
If it was directly related to fake hardware, don't you think cisco would be highlighting the fact a little clearer than supposition?
They just want to scare people into paying top dollar from the top tier people.
I have no problem with this, but it seems like an underhanded way to say it.
Re:Just FUD? (Score:4, Informative)
So this stuff definitely does exist.
Parent
Folex or illegal production? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm really curious to see a "fake" one right next to an "authentic" Cisco part. Are they duplicates? Or just some other network card that they stamped a phoney Cisco logo on?
It would make a pretty big difference. In the latter case, they're nothing more than counterfeits, like the fake Rolexes that you can get from guys in Battery Park.
But if they're actual Cisco parts, being sold "unauthorized" (perhaps the factory they're outsourcing the assembly to decided to run an extra production shift or something, make a little money on the side), then the situation could be a lot different.
So which is it? A fake Rolex that actually has a $0.25 quartz movement inside? Or the real deal in terms of functionality and hardware, being made somehow without Cisco's approval and without going through their distribution chain?
Parent
Re:Folex or illegal production? (Score:4, Informative)
Now, I don't know if this was a special case, but surely somebody figured out that some of these parts are generic parts and is selling them with phony Cisco papers and making a tidy profit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Grey vs Black market (Score:3, Informative)
The summary refers to this as "grey-market", which it doesn't seem to be. Grey market goods are legitimate goods sold outside the authorized distribution channels, it could be imported from outside the US (think Canadian Pharmacies, though many of those are
It should be EASY to track. (Score:5, Informative)
You buy them from a store. The store has to have them on hand or order them. Either way, since the store you're buying them from did not make them, shipment will be required.
So just keep following each shipment back until you find the company that manufactured the parts or the company that "cannot find their records".
There, problem solved.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Grey market != fakes (Score:3, Insightful)
Fake products are getting more sophisticated all the time. I've even seen fake ICs. They looked fine, worked OK (most of the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Whether or not this is what happened in this particular case, I don't know. But in general, the issue is not that someone has taken the time to reverse-engineer a complete product and produce it again from the ground up. The "fake" hardware likely comes from any combi
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well stop doubting, there is enough industrial espionage going on that this stuff does happen. Even companies like Cisco are not immune to it. I can tell you that Cisco is taking this stuff very seriously, to the extent that in the not-too-distant future, your Cisco software images will only run on hardware that contains an embedded digital certificate that is validated by the software imag
Offshoring (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if Cisco's current counterfeiting woes came from some other offshore producer that stole other facets of their IP.
I have little sympathy for Cisco; they think American workers are too expensive, and that American labor rules are too tough. Well
Overproduction? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if the contract electronics assemblers are doing similar stuff? Seems like it would be pretty easy. If you're assembling network cards for Cisco, you know where all the parts are coming from, and how to put them together. Chances are, all the parts suppliers are also going to be Chinese; not too difficult to call them up and request an extra 1,000 widgets, and just pay for it out-of-pocket. Then you just keep assembling parts until the supplies are exhausted, package up whatever you've promised to deliver to the foreign company (Cisco), and sell the remainder to a local distributor who makes sure they disappear into basically untraceable Asian markets.
As foreign companies outsource more and more of not only the production and assembly, but also the supply-chain-management and procurement functions to "one stop shops," this becomes easier and easier. There are plenty of companies who would be happy to manufacture your widget for you, and handle all the parts sourcing -- allowing Western companies to avoid all the unpleasantness that sometimes involves. But that means there's very little way to verify whether the company is ordering more components than are actually needed to complete the run. In fact, it's nearly impossible -- without intimate knowledge of the part's defect rate and of manufacturing errors, you have no idea how many extra parts need to be ordered. Are they buying 5% more ICs than necessary because they know the factory tends to produce crummy ones (but is still the cheapest available), and are looking out for you? Or are they padding the order so they can overproduce and sell the excess on the side?
Like you, I have little sympathy for American companies who get bitten by this. If they wanted control over the manufacturing process, they could keep it here in the States. If counterfeiting is what happens when you outsource everything to a country with cheap labor and little respect for foreign intellectual property, you made your bed and now you can sleep in it.
Parent
Work great (Score:5, Funny)
If they can make something good enough for counter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If they can make something good enough for coun (Score:5, Insightful)
You miss the point : people who make counterfeit products pay peanuts to manufacture the fake goods, and sell them with a huge markup because the goods are branded with the logo of a company that makes expensive stuff. If they went legit and sold Cisco-compatible equipment under the SuperCrapola brand, instead of selling illegal Cisco-compatible equiment under the Cisco brand, they'd be a lot poorer.
Parent
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Photography gear (Score:4, Informative)
Even reputable shops like Adorama will sell you 'grey' prosumer Nikon digital SLRs for example. The difference is the lack of a US-actionable warranty and funky things like manuals in Turkish and whatnot... but other than that the gear is largely the same (be careful who you buy from anyway!). These things typically go for about 10% less than the 'straight' ones.
I've bought a couple of high-end Canon lenses this way and I haven't been burned yet, but I probably won't be doing it anymore. Too much risk.
Re: (Score:2)
They just can't say they are Nikon/Canon and sell it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
These are not fakes. If you buy a gray market Nikon or Canon lens, and it has the name Nikon or Canon on it, it almost certainly is made by them. The difference is that it is packaged for a different country where they lower the price there to compete in that country's weaker economy. Additionally, the domestic arm of the parent company in each country is invested in by different investment groups that want to be the ones to make the money. This is why they call these things gray market instead of black
Counterfit vs. Legit (Score:5, Insightful)
Now would I knowingly use pirate gear in my production network? No. But when I was building a lab at home and needed 20 WIC-1Ts I was sure glad I could get them on eBay in bulk. Probably not legit but I wasn't planning on putting my home lab under Smartnet.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
not quite as bad... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: not quite as bad... (Score:2)
Yeah, but all that was needed as the backdrop for the fake lunar landings.
No ASIC counterfeits... yet. (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, how come the issue was not resolved? How about standard warranties? Did he loose the signed delivery protocol that listed all the WICs an their S/Ns?
The article is vague about that
Most Cisco hardware not ASIC accelerated (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Well for a start (Score:5, Interesting)
To be blunt Cisco and 3Com build stuff in china because it is cheap. The people that build the stuff can pick up a little extra money selling the gerbers , firmware, and document ion to the counterfeiters.
This is the price price for doing business in China and other very cheap countries.
What will really become expensive is when these companies can take what they have learned building stuff for Cisco and 3Com and then compete with them directly.
You can pay now or you can pay later.
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Or you can find a country that, like China, does not overcharge high rip-off prices, but unlike China, has better enforcement on this. Then you neither pay now nor pay later.
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Don't be all that sure that IP laws will protect you forever when you train a monster. I am sure that GM and Ford thought that they never had to fear Honda.
I'm in no danger (Score:5, Funny)
Cisco RAM Trick (Score:5, Interesting)
How do I know this?
The guy who use to work there, was my college mate during my Computer Science graduation days. You can still find all of us drinking beers on Weekends at near by joint.
not just FUD - shortcuts by sub-sub contractors (Score:5, Interesting)
Primary original equipment manufacturer (OEM) subcontracts out to a cheaper source to make some profit on the part.
Secondary part supplier, also hit with tight margins, subcontracts to local supplier/small business to make the part.
Tertiary part manufacturer, also hit with tight margins but glad to have the business uses off-spec parts, or in the case of flame retardant rated plastics, dilutes the specified plastic with non-flame retarded plastic to get the parts made on time, and cheaply.
There has been an increase in the parts that have UL tags "failing" random pulled fire tests that UL makes by going into stores and randomly pulling consumer goods off the shelves. So I'm not surprised that this is happening in other areas as well when all sorts of quality control go out the window since the OEM can't directly supervise the secondary and tertiary suppliers, and they won't know the part is off-spec until they get the failed test. Once the tertiary vendor has made the part once, they usually have all the molds and other expensive equipment to start making knock-offs, especially in areas with poor law enforcement.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A member of a car club I'm in was on business in China, and found a company that made various pins and badges. He showed them one of the club's grille badges to see if he could make them. The guy looked at it, and then asked our club member if he wanted the same stuff that was on the back of the original. Unsure of what he meant, he looked at the badge, and the guy pointed to the 'Made in UK' stamped on
Don't say I didn't warn you (Score:2)
Re:Don't say I didn't warn you (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The real fear here ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I know that so far no-one has found anything like that, but the potential creeps me out. One of the reasons people buy Cisco gear is because they trust the company. Counterfeit goods weaken the brand value and in and of themsel
Who are you trusting and why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a really good argument why you should never just blindly trust someone because of a brand name.
If you don't know who's code is actually running on your firewall/router/whatever, and I don't mean "what code is running on that model device, according to the manual," I mean your firewall, that actual metal box in the closet, then you are assuming a certain amount of risk. Any time you blindly swallow what some company that
It's apparently a life-threatening problem! (Score:5, Funny)
If the air traffic control system can go down because of a single faulty card in a router, fake or not, I'm thinking I want to avoid planes, and look up a lot more than I do now.
Its not like Cisco has a manufacturing plant... (Score:3, Interesting)
For that matter the cards that don't meet vendor QA are a likely source of these counterfeits.
Keep in mind, the markup on flash and dram memory that is essentially identical to off the shelf memory is intense, and back when I cared about how much the crap cost, I would skimp on the gen-u-wine cisco memory or pix interface cards myself. I wouldn't want to buy a conterfeit DS3 blade though...
The scary thought is that if Chineese plants are going to slap together a counterfeit router, how hard would it be to add wiretap capability. THE YELLOW IT PERIL!!!
Blame Odo.... (Score:2)
[PLEASE INSERT ADDITIONAL STAR TREK JOKES BENEATH HERE]
False Confidence In Non-Counterfeit (Score:5, Insightful)
That sentence reads the same if you remove "counterfeit". Hardware and software that can all of a sudden stop working is a fact of life, regardless of manufacturer.
The use of logos to indicate that a piece of hardware is genuinely from another company when it is not is unethical and should be stopped, but this argument is simply a scare tactic attempting to disguise the real interest, which is that of the manufacturer whose logo is on the product and is angry they did not derive any revenue from the sale. Otherwise, they could care less. From a consumer standpoint, safety is found in redundancy and contingency planning, not trusting that the logo of any one manufacturer on an item means it will not suddenly stop working. I do not blame the manufacturer for wanting in on the sale, but tell it straight, don't childishly trot out the bogeyman to get sympathy,.
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
if gear with your name on it starts failing a lot more than normal that is bad for your reputation whether you authorised the relase of that gear or not and gear that hurts somebody or starts fires is worse still.
if a product is made specifically to be a knockoff its hardly going to be made using good quality components or given good QA. And if a product is a reject from an official manufacturing run, well it was pr
Re: Counterfeit vs grey imports (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatcha gonna do when you wake up one morning and discover that your company or whole national infrastructure is pwned by someone who has been putting backdoors in their greyware?
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Now, it's probably easier for a counterfeit product to come in via the grey-market route, but just