[c-nsp] Fake Cisco Equipment News Articles - very interesting

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
> [mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net]On Behalf Of Peter Rathlev
> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 5:57 AM
> To: cisco-nsp
> Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Fake Cisco Equipment News Articles - very
> interesting
>
>
> This thread probably covers an interesting subject, but in my eyes it's
> too political to be on topic. Am I wrong to think that the discussion
> should move to somewhere else?
>

I don't think discussion of how the stuff gets into the supply chain
is too political.

As for the issue with the Chinese, yes that is political.  Too political?
Well, look at it this way.  Cisco has spent a LOT of verbage and money
planting articles against counterfeiters, as well as a lot of time and
verbage in their own Cisco sales literature talking about the evils of
counterfeiters.  Their PRIMARY line is that counterfeiters are bad because
they turn out inferior product.  It is NOT that counterfeiters are bad
because they lose Cisco money.

In short, Cisco is tossing this issue into the technical realm.  If Cisco
wants us techs to believe that counterfit product is inferior, then we are
not going to believe that unless they EXPLAIN why.  And I do NOT mean the
type of baloney explanation that would be appropriate for a CEO that
couldn't tell the difference between a packet and a pocket.

I would like to know this:  How in the HELL is this stuff getting into
distribution? The ONLY explanation to me that makes ANY sense at all is that
it's being injected into distribution AT THE SOURCE, IN CHINA.

We KNOW that the non-counterfeit stuff is being manufactured in China, I
mean I see that the country of origin on the parts is China, don't you guys
see the same?

Well, we pretty damn well guess that the counterfeit stuff is ALSO being
manufactured in China.

So it seems that the simplest explanation is that the source is being
tampered with.  Why would the people in China bend over backwards to keep
the non-counterfeit stuff and the counterfeit stuff separated in the supply
chain until the shipments reached the US, and THEN inject the counterfeit
stuff into the supply chain?  It seems senseless.  It makes a lot more sense
that it would be injected at the source.

And if it is being injected at the source, where is it being made, and by
whom?  Is it being made in the same factories that make the non-counterfeit
stuff?  Using the same machinery, same dies, same tools, same people?  If
so, then why would it be inferior?

So, yes, I do believe that as long as Cisco is claiming that counterfeit
stuff is bad because it is inferior, then Cisco has an obligation to back
that kind of statement up, and answer these questions, as well as answer the
question of why Cisco is outsourcing manufacturing of a $30K device to
China, when there's fabs in the US that could make it?  And, I cannot see
how Cisco can answer this WITHOUT making some answers that YOU would regard
as "political"

There's Cisco employees that monitor this list.  Perhaps they can let their
superviors know that they have some explaining to do.

People post on this list every day of problems they are having with Cisco
equipment, then proceed to lambast various Cisco IOS revisions for breaking
things.  Well, how do I know that when someone reports X.Y.Z version of IOS
is bad because it's making my router reboot all the time, that their
router's not rebooting all the time because it's counterfeit?  I don't.  So,
am I going to then base my decisions on whether to deploy X.Y.Z based on bad
data?  Are you?  Are you happy doing this?

If not, then shut up about the so-called "political counterfeiting"
discussion.  This is most definitely on topic.

Ted