Fake Cisco equipment bust

Anything is possible as an old man said once... "in impossible there
is a possible"

wrote:



How?  The infamous "third shift".  If you are a manufacturer in China
with the Cisco contract, you can produce Cisco equipment for part of
the day and fake Cisco through the night.  You already have lots of
hardware and packaging from Cisco.   All you need to do is insert
cheaper memory, etc.  -- oh, and bribe the local officials.  

This is why we have tainted drugs, toothpaste, etc.  Our companies are
saving money for their CEOs & stockholders, not employing workers from
their own country and all the while acting surprised that such a thing
could happen.  



eBay will kick them off if there are enough complaints.  Or when they
start to negatively impact eBay's bottom line.  

Very interesting - I had never heard of the "third shift"
Quite true what you say about CEOs. I work for a telecommunications
company and every day we outsource more and more, to the point where if I
didn't work there I wouldn't be a customer.

wrote:



For more details, look at
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/01/8375455/index.htm

and:

http://www.lockergnome.com/it/2007/02/16/working-the-third-shift-tips-to-avoid-counterfeits-when-buying-and-selling-used-cisco /

for more specific Cisco dealings.

Wow, thanks for the articles. The second one is not so interesting even
though it refers specifically to Cisco.
The first one though, gives a more complete vision of what really is
going on.
So it looks like american manufacturers are outsourcing. In the process
are moving jobs overseas driven by the greed to ever make more money and
give their CEO even fatter paycheques (who is really worth $200 million
for a year's work???)And... they're getting beaten at their own game by
the crooked chinese. Well, even then they won't stop.. so go figure. Know
why? GREED! that's why. Bring back the jobs and control production.
That's what they should do. Me feel sorry because you've taken my job
away but you are now facing unfair competition?? Not me. Boo hoo! too bad
for you.

I'm curious, wouldn't Cisco know about such a thing and want to do
everything possible to protect against this? Don't these plants go
around the clock? If not, it seems like Cisco would have personal
stationed there that would see this kind of activity.

I just don't understand why we're so asleep towards this kind of
behaviour. I really don't think people care.

Thats not the only vector. Take the most counterfeited thing which is
probably the WIC-1DSU-T1 card. Cisco's list price on it is $1000. It
probably costs <<$10 to make. It doesn't have any ASICs on it. Its
basicly an FGPA and EPROM and RAM and a few other parts.

They can take the EPROM and copy it. They have the board design
already done. They can just attempt to copy it and make their own.
They take the artwork in the instruction manual and boxes and print
them up. They could even tell the printing company they are doing runs
for Cisco, who's going to check? Who would even check in the US?

Generally, the counterfeit hardware I've seen in person has been much
much lower quality in the solder joints and placement than the real
things. That would tend to lead me to it being somebody else copying
the design rather than running on the same production line.

Things that can be made cheaply and copied cheaply and sell many are
going to be the ones that get counterfeited. There's not going to be a
huge market for whole 7600 routers on eBay because people would be weary.
One interface that is "used" probably sells hundreds, if not thousands..