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Crackdown On Counterfeit Networking Gear
angry tapir writes "US agencies targeting the sale of counterfeit networking hardware have gotten 30 felony convictions, including a man attempting to sell fake networking equipment to the US Marine Corps, and seized $143 million worth of fake Cisco hardware. The agencies have conducted Operation Network Raider, which has made 700 separate seizures of networking equipment since 2005, the DOJ said. In addition to the convictions and seizures, nine people are facing trial and another eight defendants are awaiting sentencing."
If people want to clone Cisco gear that's fine, just as long as they don't try to sell it to me as if it were the real thing
I suppose this is a good thing. Honestly though, I'm not entirely sure why this is considered news - the government has long been opposed to knock-offs of most things. It's a nice buff to the security community, but is so hard to detect that the over all effect is likely to negligible.
I'll take a stand and say, "meh."
If you want to buy a clone card, that's one thing. But if you decide you'd rather pay full price for the real thing, you shouldn't end up with a clone pretending to be the real thing.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Is the fact that they were trying to sell the knock-offs to the DOD for use with Marine Corp forces. My cousin is out there right now, and to know that operation critical hardware could fail because it's a knock-off and poorly manufactured - is the worst crime. These are our troops, brothers, sisters, friends, and family members. I would hate to think my cousin died because somewhere in someplace a network card failed to relay operational data.
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
Trademarks. They're a form of honesty in advertising.
From my understanding, Cisco uses Finisar GBICs but burns a custom serial number that IOS looks for before bringing up the port. I've made the mistake of putting a Finisar SFP in a Cisco switch and not realizing it until the port doesn't come up.
Of course, you can put a Cisco SFP in just about anything and it will work.
Not saying it makes what this guy did right, but still, if you're that sort of person who'd try to counterfeit, it would be pretty tempting.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
You don't need to wear a tinfoil hat to worry about the security implications of knockoff networking gear produced by Chinese companies, because that means it's really produced by the Chinese government, and that means they've embedded malware into those devices. For sure. Don't even think twice about it.
Think what you could do if you pwned the switches themselves, before they are even racked and stacked. Scary.
You would think seeing Cicso on the label might make some shy away from buying it...
The only reason I'm *not* surprised that there was an actual U.S. Goverment/Military faction mentioned ITFA is the government's flame war over fair compete in regards to their many contracts that they bid out and most of the time going to the lowest bidder.
I'm a federal government IT contractor and we're going through the same heartache in the sense that we put requirements together for Enterprise XYZ switch/router/server with good justifications why we want this XYZ brand, but we may never get that item. The government people in charge of procurements will just 'internet-window' purchase something off-brand or knock-off because it was 'like' requirements we asked for, or they will go with some reseller who we've NEVER heard of before, barely has a website and their phone number is disconnected because it was cheaper than the reputable reseller we were going through by 10-fold. I'm just really not all surprised. I'd really be leery of hacked or altered firmware that make some sort of port-knocking backdoor into your network.
The questions I never see answered in these articles is: How good (or bad) really is this stuff? Does it fail immediately? Is it riddled with bugs? Does it just perform at a sub-par level? Does it not play well with genuine Cisco? Is the problem that you can't get support for it afterwards? Is it built with different parts than the genuine item? Is it hardware spyware? Is it a covert attempt by the Chinese to control the entire Internet? Or is genuine Cicso just ridiculously overpriced?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So what ... like 2-3 Core Switches?
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
Question -- are the original back doors real or fake on the original routers, and on the fake routers ?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I work for an agency under Department of Defense. We just received about $300k worth of fake Cisco stuff. Fortunately the problem was discovered before my podmate certified the vendor's invoice.
Vendor didn't get paid and contracting is still working the issue.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
...attempting to sell fake networking equipment to the US Marine Corps...
After all the polemic about cyber-attacks from Russia & China, this could be more sneaky. Mass-produce some Cisco knock-offs, with a backdoor, and sell 'em cheap...I can see it now:
NetAdmin1: "So, no worried about $latest_attack, then?
NetAdmin2: "Nah, just installed the latest Cisco gear. Got a good price too!!!
It is possible to get non-Cisco GBICs working on a Cisco switch. It's just difficult to find the correct command to do so.
The command you want is "service unsupported-transceiver".
Mebbe the trillion-dollar hiccup they had was caused by a little Kung Pao Glitch...
To put a witty saying into 120 characters, jst rmv ll th vwls.
Everyone in the world knows that China has very little regard for IP laws. Cisco takes a calculated risk.. Farm out production to cheap China labor at the risk of overruns and counterfeits showing up. I would bet my next years salary someone at Ciscos business department has worked this out in a PPT presentation and explained it to the management.
A few years later, the equipment starts showing up as expected. Cisco could start losing profits. The next step is use scare tactics and FUD to imply this counterfeit equipment is or may be in use in our government agencies, OMG, thick of the security risk from this bootleg equipment!!! The US government decides to step in and spend who knows how much money to help Cicso put a stop to the couterfiets. That money is coming directly from the US taxpayers. What is happening is Cisco saves money and the US tax payers make up the difference. The US government should say, tough shit, you made the business decision, deal with it. Would the US government help me if I hired the cheapest contractor in my area to get my roof done and it leaked? No. Would they help me get my money back or sue when my cheap ass $1 socket set breaks, No. Why are they helping Cisco when they farmed out their work to cheap offshore labor in a country with no little regard for IP laws?
If this counterfeit Cisco equipment made in China at the same place the real Cisco equipment is such a security risk, why is the non counterfeit Cisco equipment made in China not a security risk? Why the hell is the US government buying network equipment made in China if they are worried about espionage?
they weren't passing it as network gear but analplugs:
http://cgi.ebay.fr/TANTUS-Anal-Plug-Cisco-black-/280424829098?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_71&hash=item414a9f50aa
18 U.S.C. 2154 : US Code - Section 2154: Production of defective war material, war premises, or war utilities
Whoever, when the United States is at war, or in times of national emergency as declared by the President or by the Congress, with intent to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the United States or any associate nation in preparing for or carrying on the war or defense activities, or, with reason to believe that his act may injure, interfere with, or obstruct the United States or any associate nation in preparing for or carrying on the war or defense activities, willfully makes, constructs, or causes to be made or constructed in a defective manner, or attempts to make, construct, or cause to be made or constructed in a defective manner any war material, war premises or war utilities, or any tool, implement, machine, utensil, or receptacle used or employed in making, producing, manufacturing, or repairing any such war material, war premises or war utilities, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than thirty years, or both.
Those guys are getting light sentences. The FBI is treating this as a counterfeiting problem, not as sabotaging the war effort.
I've seen the counterfeit hardware first hand. Modules for 2600 and 3600 series routers, mostly. That was a few years ago. It was cheap, and nobody at the *cisco partnered CCIE training company* which I will not mention cared. They worked, thats all that mattered.
Its like spam. If people continue to buy from spam adverts, we'll continue to see more spam. If people quit buying, the spammers will eventually move to something else.
They keep selling because it keeps on working.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Model numbers and versions, please.
I have really mixed feelings about this. Much of this hardware is not truly counterfeit. It's actually unofficial production from the same components in the same factories as the legit gear. The only way anyone (including Cisco) can tell it from the real thing is the serial numbers.
On one hand, this is fraud an I'm all for stopping fraud. On the other, it only happens because Cisco chose to go with the dirt-cheapest labor out there knowing very well this was a likely result. The use of law enforcement resources is just externalizing the cost. Meanwhile, part of the reason U.S. domestic labor is more costly in the first place is because it exists under a regulatory framework that mostly prevents exactly this sort of fraud.
So they offshore the production and then to add insult to injury, underemployed Americans get to foot the bill for fixing the INEVITABLE fraud, and so are forced to help make the offshoring possible and profitable for Cisco. It's almost like having your employer charge you a fee to process the paperwork for your involuntary layoff.
Perhaps Cisco should bring it back onshore so this sort of fraud doesn't happen in the first place. If the DoD is really concerned about the security of the networking gear (and they really SHOULD be), they should INSIST that Cisco at least make their gear domestically.
I don't understand why the DOD doesn't go directly to Cisco to purchase the equipment? Why still go through potentially shady deals with middlemen?
I hope someone is keeping tabs on how much the Chinese government owes us in IP violations if it wants to remain in the WTO and most favored nation. I'm pretty damn sure it is a fuckload more than we owe than in loans.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Just think about it. Counterfeit networking equipment. Some "foreign entity" spends 5 years selling us "hackable-by-them" networking equipment. Then after those 5 or so years have passed about 30% of that "hackable" networking gear is in-place nationwide (and in the military). Now this foreign entity (whoever they are) decides to bring down 1/3 of the Internet thus wreaking havoc. Might be exactly why the DOJ has this so high on the radar screen.
why didn't they just call it "operation huawei"?
mind you i guess they reverse engineer cisco kit and put their own badge on it, rather than just try to pass it off as cisco kit.
Shouldn't restitution be paid back to the manufacturing country within the country of origin? Why is the 9th Circuit doing this or whichever court when China should be prosecuting it? I personally cannot stand the government of China they are a commercial-corporate / agrarian / Communist mix which is repetitively detrimental to the fundamentals of a contemporary, capitalist government.
Is that Cisco IOS? I have never encountered a more inefficient, bloated piece of networking software after reading Cisco's IOS manual. Notice I said inefficient? True, there is little need for competition in this area since most people don't program for ethernet or administrate that layer, much less ethernet bridging over VPN. This could say something about the Cisco brand or "label" of merchandise. Perhaps that software/firmware is a bit too expensive and inclusive only to Cisco's own area of encumbrance ( this is an uncommon but practical legal term and definition ) when theft of Intellectual Property is happening, huh?
What I don't get is why Cisco doesn't task some employees to keep watch 24/7 over those factories where they make this stuff. Make it a condition of the contract that they get full time, go anyplace whenever they want, access. Then they can at least eliminate the same factories making knock offs at night. I guess they save one night shift payroll expense per factory and pass it on to the US tax payer so they can have dozens of federal employees try to stop it, after the fact.
In short, Cisco is sure a buncha hypocritical cheap guys, considering what those things cost, and the US government/tax payer is once again the sucker, with the now common "privatize the profits of Big Inc, but socialize the risks from wallets of the tax payers".
I think the government should just contract directly with the manufacturers and cut Cisco out of the loop. Why not? If it is coming from China anyway, I mean, that's the deal, so who cares then? They are playing make believe it isn't Chinese made because it has a Cisco label on it? These are actual bona fide adults making serious coin, and they play make believe? They could get switches cheaper, contract for support directly from those Chinese manufacturers, and have their own fed employees in there following the runs and inspecting/doing Q and A, and pulling components randomly and bringing them back to look for hidden non contracted for back doors. And it would be tons cheaper, for the same exact gear.
If some corporation wants to get rich by outsourcing, heck with it, buy directly from the outsourced builders instead. Fish or cut bait, we are trading with China or not, y/n? If yes, deal directly with the Chinese for the gear, unless there is an all made in USA quality product as an alternative. The government exists to protect US jobs..or not. They are "worried about security", or not. They can hire cisco cheaper just for new designs, tell them they can get it made themselves, cut them down to their real practical outsourced size. there's no real reason to pay for both the "IP" and then hardware profits, when as has been reported, these units are actually way cheaper when they are non Cisco branded.
Mostly, it looks like "not", and more worried about bloated payrolls for security theater government McJobs and protecting the income of the top 1% of the population, who are globalists anyway and not even close to being loyal or patriotic or anything like that.
All these outsourcers are economic mercenaries, and as such, I dismiss any claims they make of being patriots, etc. they want all the advantages of being in the US, get to live where generations built up the infrastrucutre and the quality of life, but are too cheap and weasly to want to chip in and pay for any of that. then when their precious gets cloned, they want the taxpayers to do their jobs for them, for *free*.
Ta heck with that! They should "police" their IP entirely on their own nickle, same as BP and assorted should pay every penny of the cleanup and losses from this latest oil spill.
So what would you counterfeit? For the small cost of printing a Cisco label that knock off SFP will make you far more profit than the Finisar equivalent.
Before I knew what was being paid, I lobbied for Cisco branded Finisar SFPs, because I assumed the mark-up was going to be no more than 20%. It's not - it's in the order of at least 80%. If Cisco say that they provide far more QA to justify the huge mark up, that tends to imply that Finisar are very low quality ... so why are Cisco using them in the first place? IOW, it's impossible to see how Cisco's markup margin justifies likely no more than 1/100th, 1/1000th or 1/10000th of a percent better quality.
Even then, a properly designed network won't have a single point of failure, and won't have a relatively low cost item such as the SFP being the single point of failure.
If Finisar are good enough for Cisco, they're good enough for me.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Someone in purchasing need to understand to stop buying from china, even though it is cheaper, they are almost always knock offs...even Sony had a big fiasco where a full plant was in china with logos and papers and everything said sony, but was fraudulent, and they only found out once someone got a hold of a return for repairs and noticed they were not at all the same on the inside, investigations further linked a factory in china compete with sony signs and all, responsible for selling sony labeled products.
Not the first time, not the last, but we will always have this problem while Obama does nothing about china not punishing their
own for this fraud.
A good way to guarantee that you purchase quality equipment is to work with companies who are associated with organizations such as UNEDA. The United Network Equipment Dealer Association (UNEDA) is a worldwide alliance of over 275 companies whose primary business is supplying pre-owned networking equipment. Members represent the entire spectrum of the secondary market, from companies with hundreds of employees and millions of dollars in inventory to small, entrepreneurial organizations. Together their combined yearly buying clout exceeds $2.5 billion, representing the sale of millions of pieces of equipment to tens of thousands of customers worldwide. UNEDA members must adhere to a strict code of ethics that includes a firm policy against selling any equipment that is not legitimate and are immediately removed from membership if they break this rule. UNEDA works hand in hand with multiple government agencies to help eradicate counterfeit and stolen equipment from being sold to end-user customers.
John Stafford
UNEDA
john@uneda.com