Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Man Gets 30 Months For Fake Cisco Sales
alphadogg writes "A Chinese man was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a US prison this week for trafficking in counterfeit Cisco Systems gear. Yongcai Li, 33, will also have to pay the networking company nearly $800,000 in restitution after being the conduit for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of counterfeit computer hardware, the FBI said Friday. Prosecutors said he procured the fake gear in China and then sent it to co-conspirators in the US. His alleged co-conspirators have not been charged. Li was arrested by FBI agents on Jan. 9, 2009, in Las Vegas — while the annual Consumer Electronics Show was taking place there. Two years ago, the FBI claimed to have seized more than $78 million worth of counterfeit equipment in more than 400 seizures."
China has apparently decided to get stricter about dealing with counterfeits. This may signal that China is more willing to cooperate with other countries and large corporations. However, as China produces more and more of its own goods, it has a direct economic incentive to cooperate with counterfeiting issues since that will encourage reciprocal behavior in other countries. Moreover, according to TFA, the FBI and the US government in general have been trying in particular to deal with counterfeit Cisco products. So this still took lots of pressure and activity. And Cisco does a lot of business in China, so that's yet another reason China might crack down in a case like this. This thus isn't similar to a situation like that with Google that fits in with China's broader policies on censorship and how it runs its political system. It shouldn't be surprising that China will occasionally cooperate when it has a direct economic incentive and doesn't risk tainting its people with democracy or free speech.
I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.
Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.
True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.
Here's an example;
Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161
Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619
Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.
Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.
This. This right fucking here. This is why I don't care if something hurts Cisco. They're bastards on their pricing and turning EVERYTHING in to an extra charge. Read the fine print, read the instructions twice, and keep a good hold of your wallet when you go in to buy Cisco. You are getting in to a product that will probably run you 4-5 times the already overblown up front price tag they initially show you once you get through licenses, support, etc.
I've started building linux firewalls for small to medium businesses on recycled hardware. Businesses that were seriously considering (and often buy) hugely overpriced Cisco systems that don't really deliver... well... anything for their astronomical price. It works out a helluva lot better, and they never *need* support. Once you get in to enterprise level needs, you should be dealing with Juniper and the like since they actually deliver something amazingly capable for the price. Unlike Cisco.
Why the hell is Cisco still in business, again?
About 13 years ago, the government of China contacted Cisco through its Hong Kong office and said "China has been very good to Cisco. Now it is time for Cisco to be very good to China." They forced Cisco to open factories in China, and China started a company later known as Huawei, run by some army generals. The Internet was becoming a major communications component of their country, both private and government, and they did not like the idea that their infrastructure would be made in America. Once Cisco opened their Chinese factories, someone in China began almost immediately cloning Cisco hardware. I wonder who? The clones were so close that they even had the same bugs.
Cisco seemed to put up with this for a while, since almost all of the hardware was kept within China. Then, sometime in the last ten years, I can't remember when, Huawei started selling Cisco-like hardware worldwide. At that point, Cisco sued and forced them to stop all international sales of the disputed products. Later, Huawei rewrote its router code and even licensed code from another American company.
So, what to do with all that surplus manufacturing capacity?