[c-nsp] Article: Beware of counterfeit Cisco gear

[Jon Lewis]

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> It isn't as bad as your making it out to be.  A lot of the fakes aren't 
> fake at all, they are theft.  What they are is illegal runs off the same 
> production lines that the authorized runs are under.

The conspiracty theorist in me says cisco may be making things sound much 
worse than they are in order to scare people into buying from "normal 
distribution channels" rather than ebay or shadey network gear resellers.

> Additionally, in the auto industry, this sort of thing goes on all the 
> time, and there's nothing illegal about it, they call it "aftermarket 
> parts"  General Motors does not have a problem if I buy a new Alternator 
> from NAPA and put it in my GM car.  Cisco should not have a problem if I 
> buy a new WIC card and put it in my Cisco router.  The fact that they 
> do, pushes this stuff underground which exacerbates the problem.

If the parts skip quality control, are sold cheap by 3rd parties (not 
cisco) and claim to be cisco (not cisco compatible, but actual cisco) 
parts, there are multiple problems there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Jon Lewis                   |  I route
  Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
  Atlantic Net                |
_________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________