Mention counterfeit products and most people think of fake Rolexes, imitation Coach bags, and bootlegged DVDs. Mention counterfeits in information technology, and CIOs and IT managers might think of routers.
Apparently, counterfeit switches and routers have become a big problem, especially in government markets, according to recent reports.
For example, last May, the government convicted two people in the Washington, D.C., area -- Chun-Yu Zhao and Donald H. Cone -- of running a sophisticated scheme to import and sell counterfeit Cisco-branded computer networking equipment. Authorities say Cone, Zhao, and Zhao's family members in China manufactured and fraudulently labeled millions of dollars in fake Cisco equipment for sale in the US. The equipment was manufactured in Hong Kong by Han Tong Technologies and sold in the US through a Virginia-based company called JDC Networking Inc. The government said it seized more than $143 million worth of counterfeit equipment when it arrested Cone and Zhao, who were apparently leading sumptuous lifestyles. The court ordered Zhao to forfeit several homes and condos in the D.C. area with a combined worth of $2.6 million, two Porsches and a Mercedes, and seven bank accounts worth more than $1.6 million. That was on top of Zhao's sentence of three years in prison and being stripped of US citizenship.
And in Kansas last year, two men were convicted of trafficking in counterfeit goods through a business called Deals Direct. According to the US Attorney's office, the men were using fake Cisco labels, boxes, and manuals and were somehow obtaining access to Cisco's "confidential serial number verification Web site" to get legitimate serial numbers. They sold the equipment on eBay and through their own website.
I don't know why all the news about counterfeits focuses on Cisco products. Government press releases routinely refer to the fact that they are investigating all hardware counterfeits, but the only brand name they seem to mention is Cisco. Perhaps it is because Cisco is so dominant in this market. Like Rolex in high-end watches, Cisco may be the brand to copy in networking equipment. But according to at least one press account, Zhao's JDC Networking also advertised new and used products from Juniper Networks and Extreme Networks.
Another, perhaps more important question: Why aren't we hearing more about this from the commercial sector? I doubt that counterfeiters target only the government market. In fact, now that the DOJ has cracked down, counterfeiters might be selling even more of their goods to corporations. I wonder how many counterfeits of Cisco or other name-brand hardware are chugging along in corporate datacenters.
A couple weeks ago, Cisco's senior vice president in charge of government sales told NextGov.com that his company has come up with a tool that automatically detects imitations of its branded products. The tool seems designed to address the problem in the government market, but could likely be used in commercial markets as well.
I wonder if it will. Presumably, Cisco would give away the tool so customers could verify their equipment. Would corporations do this? Do they even care? Unlike the government, which is more concerned about counterfeits for national security reasons, corporate IT departments haven't seemed worried.
How about it, CIOs and IT managers? How often do you encounter counterfeit hardware? What due diligence do you do to make sure equipment is genuine? Would you use the new Cisco tool?
It's funny how if something in the fashion or footwear catagory is priced low, conterfiet is sometimes suspected... especailly wioth something like UGGs. They are pretty much a standard price and when you see them for much less, online usually, it should set a red flag.
With computer/networking devices we think that it is due to a new model coming out and they just wnat to clear there old inventory. Sometimes the prices vary alot but they dont set off the same red flags. Electronics value goes up and down simply because of the industry. Looks like now we will need to spend more attention on why something 50% less.
@Kurtkeys not quite the gift of the Magi (though in O'Henry's short story the wife bought the chain for the watch that he sold in order to buy her hair ornaments).
along that same line of thought, when I ws a young lad new in the Navy one of my seniors was given a Rolex by is wife for his 30th birthday. We were drinking in a bar in Athens Greece and admiring the watch for it's decadent beauty when the owner said, "Not only is it a great looking watch, it's built tough" nd he took the watch and holding it by the wrist band slammed it on thhe edge of the bar 3 times. It neve worked again. And just this very moment is the first time I am wondering if his wife had actually bought a fake
@Kurtkeys agreed. On the Rolex analogy: my husband once found one on our street. We assumed it's a fake because someone who lost a real one would likely post a notice about it. But it still works -- even years later. It doesn't rely on a battery but on the movement that naturally occurs when someone wears it. So the function is better than what we've had in the cheap watches that don't pretend to be designer.
you're right Ariella, thoose guys are crooks. I didn''t mean to trivialize the crime they committ when they pirate sytems as the real thing. They are stealing from real people not just skimming from faceless corporations. I was merely pointing out that electronic devices can be made to a highly reliable degree by modern manufacturing techniques which would be so very hard to destinguish from the genuine article, which is where the analogy of a knock-off Rolex watch ends. Because even the very best fake Rolex still falls way short of the quality of the real thing only a novice buyer would be satisfied for very long. But a router and a piece of jewelry can be copied but only one has a remote chance of working well
A lot of good questions from everyone about how users can tell if it's a real Cisco product or not, and whether it really matters. It definitely matters to the US government, which is concerned about things like hidden software code that can spy on us. As for enterprises, it probably doesn't matter until they go to get service from Cisco and find out they can't get it because they have a counterfeit.
Counterfeit electronics are a huge problem in the aerospace and defense markets, and have gotten a lot of attention lately. Maybe some of the solutions being developed for chips could be adapted for switches and routers. One technique, that's actually been mandated by the Defense Logistics Agency, is process of marking the component with unique plant DNA that supposedly cannot be copied. See http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/plant-dna-vs-counterfeit-chips
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
Two years ago, Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire manager of the Galleon Group hedge fund, was convicted on 14 counts of insider trading. It was the largest hedge-fund insider trading case in history. But that was just the highest profile part of a broad push by the Department of Justice and the Securities & Exchange Commission to crack down on insider trading. It's an investigation that has an interesting backstory that has not received much attention: much of that insider trading happened in the tech industry. And it's a story that is far from over.
How big a cybersecurity breach may a company have before it must disclose that information in its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission? That's a question many CIOs and CFOs are -- or should -- be considering. So far, however, few government experts are giving them much direction.
The term "supply chain" typically evokes a string of parts that are progressively integrated into a final result -- a consumer product -- such as an automobile or computer.
Disaster recovery is about restoring service to users, but when restoration times are protracted, companies should empower users so they have maximum flexibility for dealing with their situations.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
50 billion household devices will be on the Internet by 2020, according to Cisco. And we're hearing foreign governments are hacking our infrastructure. Surely our refrigerators are next!
That's what Larry Page said on Google's earnings call, referring to the conjunction of mobile and the cloud. Well, let's chart it then! We need to be thinking about an Internet where 90% of our traffic goes to 70 destinations within 40 miles of us.
Software-defined networks, which deliver virtualization functions to enterprise networks, have the potential to dramatically change network design and significantly reduce costs and maintenance.
ITRC found that more than 600 security breaches took place in 2012. Flaws were found in some of the nation's most respected companies: Apple, Citibank, and Wells Fargo. So, it seems the bad guys are doing better than the men in the white hats.
Cisco's rumored sale of Linksys suggests we may have problem with innovation and profit at the edge of our Internet, and that could be critical to the evolution of many Internet-delivered services.
Many enterprises view high-speed broadband connections as ubiquitous. Yet in about 20 percent of the country, businesses and their employees do not have access to even DSL connections. This shortcoming diminishes enterprises' ability to support their employees.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
Email This
