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US Military Trying To Weed Out Counterfeit Parts

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from an AP report: "'Sprinkling' sounds like a fairly harmless practice, but in the hands of sophisticated counterfeiters it could deceive a major weapons manufacturer and possibly endanger the lives of U.S. troops. It's a process of mixing authentic electronic parts with fake ones in hopes that the counterfeits will not be detected when companies test the components for multimillion-dollar missile systems, helicopters and aircraft. It was just one of the brazen steps described Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing examining the national security and economic implications of suspect counterfeit electronics — mostly from China — inundating the Pentagon's supply chain. ... The committee's ongoing investigation found about 1,800 cases of suspect counterfeit electronics being sold to the Pentagon. The total number of parts in these cases topped 1 million. By the semiconductor industry's estimates, counterfeiting costs $7.5 billion a year in lost revenue and about 11,000 U.S. jobs."

264 comments

  1. 11,000 U.S. jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How exactly is this costing U.S. jobs? I guess that's just the word you toss around these days anytime you want to get people onto your side.
     
    But China really needs to get their shit together when in comes to counterfeiting, piracy, and just general corrupt and unfair policies. I try not to purchase anything made in China anymore, but damn, it's difficult.

    1. Re:11,000 U.S. jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because they could have hired 11,000 US workers and they wouldn't have had this problem.
      Would have been a hell of a lot more expensive though, so I guess it evens out.

    2. Re:11,000 U.S. jobs by frinkster · · Score: 1

      Because they could have hired 11,000 US workers and they wouldn't have had this problem.

      Yes, they could hire 11,000 US workers to test every single part - if Congress would increase the defense budget.

    3. Re:11,000 U.S. jobs by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      But China really needs to get their shit together when in comes to counterfeiting, piracy, and just general corrupt and unfair policies.

      Those are four very different things. The Chinese people might not agree with you on all four.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:11,000 U.S. jobs by tibit · · Score: 1

      Of course I'm feeding the troll, but heck, I was a grad student with a newborn, and we were on WIC, and I don't think I'm not contributing anything back. No, we don't buy 10 liters of soda at Walmart every other weekday. So shut the fuck up idiot.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    5. Re:11,000 U.S. jobs by Applekid · · Score: 1

      Because they could have hired 11,000 US workers and they wouldn't have had this problem.

      Yes, they could hire 11,000 US workers to test every single part - if Congress would increase the defense budget.

      Funny, I read that as hiring 11,000 US workers to restart our electronics manufacturing capability.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
  2. Maybe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should sprinkle the checks in return?

  3. Why are these parts even coming from China? by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China? If we're wasting millions every year detecting and replacing these counterfeit components, why not use that money and build fabrication plants here instead. That way we know the components are real, and we don't have to rely on an outside source. Also, why isn't the burden of supplying new, real components falling on the contractors hired to provide them? If counterfeit components are found, at the very least the supplier/subcontractor should be blacklisted. Hold contractors accountable for once and this crap will stop happening. As it is, the contractors have no incentive to self-police. They know they will still get the next contract even if they go overbudget, over time, and under-quality because they've been doing it for years with no consequences. Considering our recent budget issues, we need to eliminate wasteful spending. And a lot of it can be found in defense contracting.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China? If we're wasting millions every year detecting and replacing these counterfeit components, why not use that money and build fabrication plants here instead. That way we know the components are real, and we don't have to rely on an outside source. Also, why isn't the burden of supplying new, real components falling on the contractors hired to provide them? If counterfeit components are found, at the very least the supplier/subcontractor should be blacklisted. Hold contractors accountable for once and this crap will stop happening. As it is, the contractors have no incentive to self-police. They know they will still get the next contract even if they go overbudget, over time, and under-quality because they've been doing it for years with no consequences. Considering our recent budget issues, we need to eliminate wasteful spending. And a lot of it can be found in defense contracting.

      Because that would build jobs.
      N.

    2. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Millions to weed out counterfeit parts, BILLIONS to build a fab.
      While it's stupid to buy parts from a foreign power that wishes to subjugate us, its still cheaper to do so the build it all here. Hell, I work for a semiconductor company and our stuff is fabbed in Taiwan. Is that China in regards to this conversation?
      catchpa: herpes

    3. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Baloroth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most likely, it is a generally unimportant COTS part. Could be resistors, fluorescing CRT panels... w/e. TFA mentions a 12$ million weapon system being ruined by a bad 2$ part. This is, of course, just a guess. In other words, components that wouldn't normally be critical, aren't specific to the part at hand, and shouldn't be expected to fail.

      You wouldn't want the government spending millions to develop a mil-spec version of a standard component that is already (or should be) perfectly reliable and functional (although they often do, and people often make fun of them for it. Right or wrong, IDK). So I imagine instead they just buy that stuff from whoever sells it. In this case, Chinese manufacture doesn't matter, as ideally they wouldn't even know what it was for.

      The above is pure speculation. TFA is quite light on details. I think the idea behind buying from China would be elimination of wasteful spending.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    4. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      ...an uninformed, knee-jerk comment.

      Trusted foundry is not cheap. It is not feasible to manufacture all electronics used by the federal government in the United States. This has been a well known problem for a long time. Here is an excerpt from a 2005 report.

      http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ADA435563.pdf

      "Most leading edge wafer production facilities (foundries), with the exception so far of IBM and possibly Texas Instruments, are controlled and located outside the United States. The driving forces behind the “alienation” of foundry business from the United States to other countries include the lower cost of capital available in developing countries, through foreign nations’ tax, market access requirements, subsidized infrastructure and financing incentives (including ownership), and the worldwide portability of technical skills, equipment and process know-how."

    5. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by pookemon · · Score: 2

      Of course if your chinese bought "Fluorescing CRT" panel transmits a GPS signal that can be traced then it's more than just a weapons system being ruined...

      --
      dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
    6. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

      Most likely, it is a generally unimportant COTS part.

      ...that a medical device company needs to make sure its life-critical gadgets work.

      You wouldn't want the government spending millions to develop a mil-spec version of a standard component that is already (or should be) perfectly reliable and functional

      To ensure that our Taiwanese allies fabricated a product that doesn't include exploding power transistors? That these products aren't being sold to the government for the purpose of keeping soldiers alive?!

      I work on stuff that hits home to most Americans. In fact, my company got all of our contracts because of Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

      I am the ninety-nine percent.

    7. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I may be misunderstanding TFA, but my impression is that the parts are not meant to be sourced from China. It's where the counterfeit clones are made.

    8. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekmux · · Score: 1

      ...an uninformed, knee-jerk comment.

      Trusted foundry is not cheap. It is not feasible to manufacture all electronics used by the federal government in the United States. This has been a well known problem for a long time...

      Ah, this is not a "knee-jerk comment". It's a comment addressing a problem that screams "fix me" even before the layman finishes reading the article, and I promise you it is the exact same comment coming from the Generals and Admirals in charge of the men and women put at huge risk with bullshit cost-saving decisions like this.

      Anything that has been a "well known problem for a long time" probably deserves a hell of a lot more "knee-jerk comments" to get those individuals making these dumb-ass outsourcing decisions to start paying attention as to the REAL effect of financial shaving of the bottom line. Sorry, I can understand decisions like this when building an MP3 player. I cannot even begin to fathom outsourcing a multi-million dollar defense system to a country that has mastered "consumer-grade" electronics.

      No, we may not be able to manufacture everything here in the US, but there sure as hell should be a few solid lines drawn across certain critical systems.

    9. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      The problem with def contractors is they figured out it's cheaper to pay senators than to do quality work.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    10. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 1

      Because we no longer have the infrastructure and skills necessary to manufacture the goods we need. Even if cost wasn't a factor, we don't have the ability.

    11. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 0

      If you hold the contractors responsible, then the contractors will have to check every single part to make sure it's authentic, a very expensive proposition even for military parts. Of course, if that's the standard set for all contractors, then they'd all have to do it so they wouldn't feel the need to cut corners.

      You might ask why they don't just buy the parts from here, but the problem is that America doesn't make electronic parts any more, especially the lower-cost ones like capacitors. Building up that capability would be very expensive, and since the parts are so much cheaper from elsewhere, the American company would only be able to supply the military, which isn't exactly that large a customer in the grand scheme of things.

      Personally, I don't really see the problem here. So what if some missiles fizzle out and don't work right? Maybe if we didn't spend all our money murdering foreigners in their own countries, and worked on improving ourselves instead, we wouldn't have all these problems. If you're in the military and are worried these substandard parts are endangering your life, then stop being an oppressor, stop being a parasite on the economy, and get the hell out.

    12. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 0

      I'm quite sure Chinese-made resistors and capacitors don't have GPS transmitters in them.

    13. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work in medical devices, and many of the guys I work with came from the defense industry. The standards we're held to here are way higher than many defense standards. I find that kind of scary.

    14. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Informative

      I cannot even begin to fathom outsourcing a multi-million dollar defense system to a country that has mastered "consumer-grade" electronics.

      Because a handful of multi-million dollar defense systems is not a sufficiently large market to build a factory for making resistors, capacitors, and various other commodity parts in a high-cost market like the USA. If you made it a requirement, then that multi-million dollar defense system would now cost a few tens of billions of dollars apiece.

    15. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Morbo says, "GPS does not work that way."

      What you meant to say was, "fluorescing CRT ballast, which is just dirty enough to emit trackable levels of RF in a band that's usually fairly clear"

      You don't need GPS to have a sufficient tracking beacon for terminal guidance of long-range ordnance. Also, GPS is not a two-way communication protocol...

    16. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Unoriginal_Nickname · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, seconding this. People just don't seem to realize the completely insane amount of money it takes. It's also not a one-time payment; any time you change technologies you literally need to build an entire new facility.

      There are a ton of American semiconductor manufacturers which cannot reasonably afford to run their own fabs. Qualcomm, Broadcom, Conexant, Marvell, NVIDIA and Apple are all fabless. Even AMD and Intel outsource some work to TSMC. When Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, balks at the idea of building enough manufacturing capacity, it should give you an idea about how much it would cost.

    17. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

      Absolutely agreed.

      Look, the defense department spends a shitload of money anyway. I'd really rather not have the Mark I "Lowest Bidder" air-to-air missile fizzle out and slam into a populated area by mistake.

      Dammit, if there was ever a need for a law, it's that the government should Buy American like they keep fucking telling us to do.

    18. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or so the Germans would have us believe...

    19. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by neonv · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm an engineer for a major defense contractor. We go through countless hours of testing equipment, electronics, and software to make sure the products work to spec. We test the components that come in from sub-contractors, as well as our own components. We're all nerds at heart, and we take pride in making quality electronics that work better than expected. I resent stereotyping on slashdot that all contractors are greedy and corrupt. I spend many unpaid hours improving products, no charge to the government, and make sure what I do works properly. I don't work because I want money from the government, I do it because I take pride in what I do, and I do a good job. Stop this ridiculous rhetoric to vent your anger at groups of people and focus on the individuals responsible.

    20. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, seconding this. People just don't seem to realize the completely insane amount of money it takes. It's also not a one-time payment; any time you change technologies you literally need to build an entire new facility.

      So? there are plenty of first world non-asian semiconductor fabs, its not out of reach by any means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

      and Apple are all fabless.

      Oh yeah, there is no way Apple could afford to build its own fab.

    21. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by fluffy99 · · Score: 1, Informative

      Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China?

      In most cases, we are not buying from China. We're buying from otherwise reputable vendors who are seeing these showing up in their supply channels.

      The whole milspec thing is part of the problem, because as a system developer in the govt you're only allowed to request a part of certain specs. The buyer goes out and finds a vendor claiming their parts meet the spec and they turns out their counterfeit. I would much prefer specing out a brand name and vendor that I can rely on, but FAR regulations prevent that and instead tell us we need to pay more and use women-owned minority businesses (which usually just means the real owner put the business in his wife's name).

      Don't even get me started on the whole DOD supply system like milstrip. You order a nice pair of cutters that are listed as a decent brand name, and they ship you the chinese crap. It's the Military's own supply channel substituting the crappy chinese parts instead. Last time we ordered 3M Super-88 electrical tape from them we got this shitty almost transparent no-name tape that fell off within 2 days.

    22. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      There are a ton of American semiconductor manufacturers which cannot reasonably afford to run their own fabs. ...and Apple

      Oh come on, Apple with its nearly $80billion in the bank can't afford it?

    23. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by artor3 · · Score: 2

      But once you build the fab, you have a fab. It makes money. It's an asset.

      When you spend millions weeding out counterfeit parts in a given year, you're in the exact same spot next year. In fact, you're even worse off, because every year we spend manufacturing things overseas makes it that much harder to ever bring the jobs back home.

      Put another way, the net present value of a fab is likely higher than the NPV of searching for counterfeits. But since when did corporate America ever care about long term benefits? Short term profits and padding your own bank account are all that matter. And in the short term, fabs are expensive.

    24. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by theVarangian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Most likely, it is a generally unimportant COTS part. Could be resistors, fluorescing CRT panels... w/e. TFA mentions a 12$ million weapon system being ruined by a bad 2$ part.

      This is not a new problem. About 10 years ago a Luftwaffe mechanic changing bolts on the propeller assembly (IIRC) of a bunch of heavy transport planes became suspicious when the nuts he was handed were a different color than usual. He reported it and the things turned out to be made of mild steel; his meticulous nature prevented a really ugly accident. Some people weren't that lucky. I read somewhere they even found fake parts on Air-Force One.

    25. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China?

      It actually doesn't matter where the parts originate from. In the 80s, the FAA discovered that counterfeit aviation parts were endemic throughout the entire industry. It even made it in the 747 used as Air Force One! These parts were often "reconditioned" worn out parts, illicitly rebuilt in the US.

      And this is an industry where paperwork and traceability is paramount, turning a one-penny screw into a $10 screw. If's so traceable you can probably find the original mine where the ore came from and maybe even who was working the machines.

      All it takes is someone to see that there's money to be made and the ability to make fake components to sell profitably. Hell, I'm sure even if the parts were US-sourced, some unscrupulous guy will buy Chinese parts and sell them as US parts.

    26. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yeah, there is no way Apple could afford to build its own fab.

      All the same they'd be stupid to do that if they have reasons to believe that what they're doing now is better/cheaper/less risky. Did you stop being a fanboy for the 2 seconds it takes to figure that out?

    27. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Khyber · · Score: 0

      "any time you change technologies you literally need to build an entire new facility."

      Nope, lots of tech is quite compatible with typical CMOS and SOI processes.

      To not plan for such possibilities is utter stupidity.

      Oh wait, the American educational system has been getting gutted the past couple of decades. Stupidity is our middle name.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    28. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Unoriginal_Nickname · · Score: 1

      No. Changes, e.g. in transistor and wafer size, require new equipment almost everywhere. Changes in transistor size (or technology) require higher accuracy and sometimes totally new lithography technologies. Changes in wafer size require new cleaning, dicing and packaging machines. These machines are extremely precise and purpose-built. They are not the kind of thing you can strip down and re-purpose.

    29. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Just+Brew+It! · · Score: 2

      Apple has billions in the bank because they have all their stuff built in China...

    30. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Just+Brew+It! · · Score: 1

      Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China?

      There's some pressure to use more COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) components to control costs. Yes, believe it or not the US military is actually starting to worry about cost-effectiveness!

      A lot of the "cool shit" is manufactured in China these days, because they have cheap labor and lax-to-nonexistent environmental regulations. While a lot of the cutting edge R&D still occurs in the US, once a technology is commercialized we have a hard time competing on cost; at that point production moves offshore and the domestic plants shut down.

      The US doesn't have a monopoly on bleeding edge R&D either; other countries are coming up with innovative ideas with potential military applications too!

      The company I currently work for makes stuff for the US military. While final assembly is necessarily carried out in the US, some of the components are indeed sourced from China (and Israel, actually). The customer isn't thrilled with this, but accepts it because there aren't any alternatives that don't involve jacking the cost of the finished product up by close to an order of magnitude.

    31. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Because even with the counterfeit issues, it's still cheaper to manufacture in China where labor is cheap and pollution ignored.

    32. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That report seems to have forgotten about Intel. You know, those guys who define the leading edge of mass manufacture semiconductors.
      Not all of their fabs are here, but some are.

    33. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

      Millions to weed out counterfeit parts, BILLIONS to build a fab

      But the factory wouldn't be destroyed after making the set of parts. It will continue producing and making money, thus recouping the initial investment.
       

      While it's stupid to buy parts from a foreign power that wishes to subjugate us, its still cheaper to do so the build it all here.

      I don't really understand why it would be so much cheaper. What are the big advantages China or Taiwan offer that makes semiconductor fabs move there? The ones I can think of are the cost of labor, weak enforcement of environmental regulations and government support (via direct subsidization, laxity in enforcing IP or laws/vamal regulations that hurt the international competition). Cheap labor shouldn't be a big percentage of the total - the greatest cost for a semiconductor fab should be in tools, clean room equipment, and all the high precision machinery; this cost should be pretty much similar for the USA and China. Is then government intervention the major factor?

    34. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't mistake your inability to get paid for some of your time as an inability for your employer to bill for said time.

    35. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Ruie · · Score: 1

      $2 is really cheap for MIL-SPEC part, it was probably just a surface mount resistor or capacitor that got replaced with a $0.05 non-MIL-SPEC version.

    36. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China? If we're wasting millions every year detecting and replacing these counterfeit components, why not use that money and build fabrication plants here instead.

      You assume that the original part is developed by a company located in the U.S.
      If the patent holder is located in Korea, Japan or China then it might not be possible to start manufacturing in the U.S. without first reverse-engineering the part and then start your own counterfeit production. (Something that isn't very legal but I assume that the government wouldn't give a fsck as long as it benefits the U.S.)

    37. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by PaladinAlpha · · Score: 2

      Maybe if we didn't spend all our money murdering foreigners in their own countries, and worked on improving ourselves instead, we wouldn't have all these problems. If you're in the military and are worried these substandard parts are endangering your life, then stop being an oppressor, stop being a parasite on the economy, and get the hell out.

      You're right; everyone should leave the military, and we should stand defenseless, and of course everyone will be so amazed at our adherence to principles that they won't come in for the harvest. Perhaps our military has been too proactive of late -- but, then again, perhaps it hasn't. It's hard to say for certain, and certainly not cause for knee-jerk nonsense.

      Listen. Pacifism only works when you defend it. Pacifism without defense isn't pacifism -- it's denial.

    38. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by PaladinAlpha · · Score: 1

      After some of the stuff I've been reading here, this cheered me up immensely. Thanks for that, and for making the world a better place.

    39. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by cowboy76Spain · · Score: 1

      Listen. Pacifism only works when you defend it. Pacifism without defense isn't pacifism -- it's denial.

      Well... currently the US still has to get to the "Pacifism without offense" part...

      --
      Why can't /. have a rich-text editor? Editing your own HTML is so XXth century.
    40. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That way we know the components are real, and we don't have to rely on an outside source."

      They would be ten times more expensive.
      The manufacturing days of the US are over,

    41. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      First off, we will still need to check for part quality. Even here, you will have companies that cheat. In fact, it happens all too often.
      However, we still need to bring back manufacturing, it nothing for security. But one good example is that we are close to using smart phones for our troops. It should be required that these phones be produced in America (with western parts). That would then give that company the chance to build others commercial use here as well. At this time, America is about the only great nation that does not practice this kind of approach.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    42. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm an engineer for a major defense contractor. We go through countless hours of testing equipment, electronics, and software to make sure the products work to spec. We test the components that come in from sub-contractors, as well as our own components. We're all nerds at heart, and we take pride in making quality electronics that work better than expected. I resent stereotyping on slashdot that all contractors are greedy and corrupt. I spend many unpaid hours improving products, no charge to the government, and make sure what I do works properly. I don't work because I want money from the government, I do it because I take pride in what I do, and I do a good job. Stop this ridiculous rhetoric to vent your anger at groups of people and focus on the individuals responsible.

      I'm a government employee that frequently works with contractors. You, my friend, are an exception and not the rule. Keep that bitching coming - it is well received.

    43. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      And yet, Germany and France continues to run fab, as does America. Kind of destroys your argument, does it not.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    44. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how many defective (faked) components have you seen?

    45. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by gtall · · Score: 1

      The military wasn't bucking to invade Iraq, that was the Bush Administration. And Afghanistan was done cheaply initially until the Administration decided to pacify the entire country. The military's idea was to stand behind the Northern Alliance and allow it to keep the Taliban at bay.

      On the other hand, the Taliban have designs on all of central Asia. It might be smarter in the long run to beat them senseless now rather than when they have whole countries to fund their jihad against everyone non-Muslim.

    46. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by peragrin · · Score: 1

      except when you need to shift building formats you need a completely new FAB.

      Going from 45nm to 33nm requires an entire new building, new custom equipment, etc. you can't reuse much in electronic FAB's. therefore your building only does you good if you don't want to ever build anything else.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    47. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter if they are supposed to be sourced from China or not. Someone somewhere in the supply chain, be it a subcontractor or what, is still purchasing these components from China at prices they know are too good to be true, and have to know that many of the components do not and will not work. To me, that is gross negligence, if not outright fraud. To use an example, it's as if you went to Chinatown and bought 20 DVDs for $5, turned around and sold them for $15 each as brand new, then acted surprised when someone found out they were copied and some of them won't even work.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    48. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Much of the price of that system is pork anyway. If it were spent instead on the fab needed then possibly the cost would not have to go up at all. Now, let's just wait for hell to freeze over so we can have our efficient military.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    49. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      I resent stereotyping on slashdot that all contractors are greedy and corrupt. I spend many unpaid hours improving products, no charge to the government, and make sure what I do works properly. I don't work because I want money from the government, I do it because I take pride in what I do, and I do a good job. Stop this ridiculous rhetoric to vent your anger at groups of people and focus on the individuals responsible.

      Where did I say all contractors are corrupt? Think about this: if you are a construction contractor building a house and you use defective drywall (which has also been coming out of China if my memory serves), are you not held liable for repairs, replacements, and damages? Then why aren't these defense contractors? And if they got those components from a supplier, then why do they keep going back to that same supplier? Because he's cheap?

      You have every right to be angry, but I am not the right target for your anger. Get mad at those few individuals and companies that DO knowingly use defective parts, intentionally underbid on contracts, and generally milk the government for everything they can. Because the fact remains that a lot of money is wasted in defense spending when it comes to contractors and acquisitions. Money we can't afford to waste.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    50. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it's perfectly fine if a whole bunch of radars, communications equipment, and stuff like guided missiles end up not working because something like the "bad caps" incident happens all over again. Sometimes QC'd trusted sources are actually worth the investment if it's critical that the end products are required to be reliable and actually work first time or every time.

      Then again if your ass isn't the one out on the front lines, I suppose such things don't matter.

    51. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The sort of stuff they are talking about would be impossible to hide a GPS tracking device in. At best a malicious supplier might be able to make it fail in some unexpected way under certain conditions.

      I wouldn't chalk most of this stuff up to malice though, merely people trying to make money.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    52. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I would argue that most of the engineering and development teams at defense contractors are pretty legit. On the business side, however, you end up with people who only care about quarterly earnings and that (in both private and public sectors) often leads to inferior quality. As such, the business side often gets rid of quality subcontractors and goes with cheaper subs that, unlike the quality sub, have a magical wand that can make the same product 10 times faster, for 5 times less.

      And then the landing gear starts coming to pieces on the runway and it pretty much ends up hurting three parties: the cheap sub loses further work, the quality sub who lost out to the cheap sub, and the government that's bankrolling the ordeal.

    53. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      Again, horseshit. The US manufactures more by dollar value than any other country. The absence of manufacturing jobs does not equate to the absence of manufacturing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#Manufacturing

    54. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by mevets · · Score: 0

      Maybe it is work ethic, dedication to quality and pride?

      East Asia bashing is so tired. We get it, you don't like to lose, and China overtaking USA as the dominant economy must hurt. Like jumping on a bicycle with no seat. But please cut it with the whiny sour grapes - you sound like England did 50 years ago.

    55. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      There's at least one capacitor manufacturer (alas, I forget which) that has two lines of parts with essentially the same specifications. The more expensive line is made in the U.S..

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    56. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by mla_anderson · · Score: 1

      Also, GPS is not a two-way communication protocol...

      You mean CSI lied to me?!

      --
      Sig is on vacation
    57. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Stop this ridiculous rhetoric to vent your anger at groups of people and focus on the individuals responsible.

      We are - part of the problem is your bosses.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    58. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 1

      But once you build the fab, you have a fab. It makes money. It's an asset.

      Yeah, one that depreciates according to Moore's law: every 18 months the value of it's output drops 50%. Even banks that thought synthetic derivatives of bonds based on fraudulent McMansion mortgages were a good investment would balk at underwriting that.

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
    59. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      For all practical purposes, the President decides where and how a war will be fought.

      Historically, the shift can be seen from WWII, with Roosevelt luring the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, through Truman acting with the U.N. in Korea, to Vietnam with Kennedy/Johnson leading and Congress being sucked along.

      However, my point is that it is NOT the military that brings about the wars that the US fights. It's primarily the jokers we vote into high office, and secondarily the other drivers of political forces such as "power brokers", agitators, and the press.

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    60. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      You are obviously a person who can't understand how a person might happily work unpaid overtime.

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    61. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by gorzek · · Score: 1

      The industrial capacity to build these parts in the amounts and time required doesn't even exist in the US anymore.

    62. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by tibit · · Score: 1

      I don't think that, necessarily going below 50nm is all that great, at least not for a company like Apple where their custom chips are for the portable market. Small geometries increase leakage! It's probably better to optimize existing designs, or even do major redesigns or paradigm shifts with existing technologies. Say if Apple wanted to add a bunch of micro-threads to iOS and the hardware it runs on -- small but fast threads that have small memory (say 64kB) but do things very quickly. They could easily do that without going to a smaller geometry, because such microthread CPUs don't take too much silicon. That's but an example.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    63. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by tibit · · Score: 1

      Moore's law only talks about a number of transistors, not about how performant a chip is! If your design scales to multiple threads/cores, and can utilize simpler and faster cores, then you can stay with a fixed number of transistors. Current architectures are not an end-all be-all, yaknow.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    64. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you for policing your part of an extremely large system which covers many industries.
      I wish we had 500,000 more contractors just like you.

    65. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      Yes, seconding this. People just don't seem to realize the completely insane amount of money it takes. It's also not a one-time payment; any time you change technologies you literally need to build an entire new facility.

      So any time we change technologies it would be practical to on-shore manufacturing. Except for labor costs and environmental policies. And we're against slave wages and pollution anyway, so we're just supporting our beliefs with our pocketbook, correct? It's not like China is eating the cost of building a new facility, they're passing it on in component prices. Maybe that's a hard sell for American corporations, because despite being recognized by the legal system as a 'person', they are soulless when it comes to choosing ethics over profits. But the government has the added incentives of promoting jobs and national security.

      And really, billions in relation to a multi-trillion annual budget is an 'insane amount'? The US Federal government will waste more this year on canceled boondoggle projects than a fab facility costs.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    66. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by tibit · · Score: 1

      There is a lot of counterfeiting going on in the passive component market. Most electronic equipment is brought down by passive components failing. There were few chip fiascos, and those usually didn't even have anything to do with the chip but with packaging and mounting (say nVidia gpus). Most of the electronics I repair have problems with passive components. Shorted out SMT capacitors, dried out electrolytics, a broken track, a poor connector somewhere. Sometimes a failing passive component can take semiconductors with it, especially power semiconductors. I'd say if you're repairing stuff, you'll be better than 50% successful if all you have for replacement parts is passives and wire. With modern SMT assemblies, we're often talking of parts that cost lestt than $5 to buy qty 1. I've had a laptop 3 years ago where a $0.20 ceramic capacitor shorted out and would prevent the machine from running. Plenty of oscilloscopes and other T&M equipment with bad tantalums -- too many to count. All cost on the order of $1.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    67. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      If you hold the contractors responsible, then the contractors will have to check every single part to make sure it's authentic, a very expensive proposition even for military parts. Of course, if that's the standard set for all contractors, then they'd all have to do it so they wouldn't feel the need to cut corners.

      Except that Mil-Spec parts already have a premium price due to tighter tolerances and higher quality control. The suppliers should be held to their contract that already states clearly what the requirements are. It is the standard set for all contractors, it's simply not being enforced despite being paid for. It's corruption in the system, it's costing us money not saving it.

      And BTW, the contractor wouldn't have to check every part for authenticity if they used a trusted supplier. The only people who would have a problem are the ones injecting the counterfeit parts into the supply chain. It's not a China vs US manufactured issue, it's lax quality control allowing intentional abuse of the system.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    68. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by guruevi · · Score: 1

      I myself was a contractor for a few years and although I do agree with you that not all of us are corrupt, you and me are some of the very few that take pride in our work and actually know what they're doing. The sad thing is, there are a few that are through and through corrupt and the majority doesn't know what they are doing so they waste insane amounts of time and money simply because they have no idea so they also get enumerated as corrupt. Then there are the contracting companies that are corrupt and tell their employees to stretch out time. I am very good at my job and can usually finish way before a deadline, one of the contracting companies wanted me to stretch a 2 day job to 2 weeks. I've seen a group of contractors try to implement an e-mail system and they wasted a full year of their employer's time and still had nothing to show. The local sysadmin finally got sick of it, sat down for a weekend and implemented the whole thing on his own time.

      That's the state we are in right now, companies and governments are afraid to hire because of unions that made it so they can't fire them so they hire contractors. Contractors don't work for the people that hire them, they work for their own or for their contracting companies so the loyalties lay elsewhere and they can't get fired because they have a contract.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    69. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by stewbee · · Score: 1

      I spend many unpaid hours improving products, no charge to the government

      And this would probably be illegal. Government contracts require [1] that all work done on a job is billed appropriately. If you are not reporting your time properly, then your employer can loose their ability to contract and bill the Government. I too worked for a DOD contractor, and I swear that at least once or twice a week we would get clarification on how to fill in our time card. They were paranoid about this stuff.

      Additionally, as a taxpayer, I want DOD contractor to have proof of the actual amount of work required to complete certain projects. That way, when bidding for new work, there is a valid barometer for the government to make valid comparisons between contractors when awarding the contract. For example, suppose that the government has 20 million to develop a new system on an aircraft. Suppose contractor A said it would take 2 years develop, and they would require 16 million to complete the job. Company A has kept an accurate record of their time card practices and has a history of no significant overruns. Now company B says that they can complete the project in one year and do so for 10 million. However company B does not have good time keeping practices, but they still bid the contract based on their actauls from previous programs, so they aren't intentionally underbidding the time required, they are just basing it on bad baseline data. On paper, most people would choose B if the only requirements were cost and time to complete (and all other factors ignored). Realistically though, company B will take as long as company A (assuming similar design process and manpower) and they would probably end up costing the government more that company A. (10 mill * 2years = 20 million > 16 million of company A).

      [1] I say probably illegal, because when I first started working for the contractor, it was policy that if you worked between 40 and 45 hours, those were on your time and you were not to fill in those hours on our time card. They changed it since. How this worked with the Government requirements for billing them, I am not sure but this is why we had a staff lawyer on site to figure this stuff out.

    70. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      I'd really rather not have the Mark I "Lowest Bidder" air-to-air missile fizzle out and slam into a populated area by mistake.

      Lowest bidder isn't the problem. And removing that encourages cronyism. It's a quality control issue. It's the fact that the government purchasers are 'not spending their own money'. It's easier to accept poor quality despite paying a premium than it is to fight the corrupt system. Put a carrot and stick policy in place at gov't receiving facilities. Just like businesses, you do lot checks on received components. Inspectors receive a bonus that is paid by the supplier for every sub-standard part received. Vendors get a scorecard (quality, on-time delivery, price) that determines future business (or continuation of current contract). And failure on the inspectors part to make reasonable attempts find and report sub-standards parts results in sanctions. And anyone, at any level of federal government that intentionally interferes with the QC system risks prosecution.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    71. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by SleazyRidr · · Score: 1

      I'm another person who can't understand how a person would happily work unpaid overtime. Would you explain it to us?

    72. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by SleazyRidr · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you'd benefit if TPTMBG listened to Nidi. If your company is putting out quality equipment on time and on budget, then they'd benefit immensely from their competitors being blacklisted after not delivering to spec.

    73. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Relayman · · Score: 1

      Lowest bidder is the problem. In the Cisco counterfeit scandal, Cisco business partners were finding that the only way they could win a bid was by using, let's say, parts of dubious origin. If they were counterfeit, so be it (two words: "plausible deniably." And I'm wondering how many of these parts were "third shift" parts.

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    74. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Relayman · · Score: 1

      plausible deniability. We need to be able to edit posted comments and an email notice when someone replies to our comment.

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    75. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Relayman · · Score: 1

      "And this would probably be illegal." For many businesses: Illegal is only illegal if you get caught. Patent violations are allowed until someone sues you. And a lot of people breaking the law are running around with multimillion dollar bonuses in their pocket.

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    76. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My previous job was with what would usually be considered to be a defense contractor/subcontractor. Our equipment was officially COTS ("commercial off the shelf") but the only buyers were (directly or indirectly) the government. The products were designed with standard commercial parts. Unfortunately, the lifecycles and volumnes of defense and commercial products don't align so well. For example, we had a product that we were still producing 15 years after its design, and the rate of production was never more than 5 in a month. Thus, many parts would go obsolete. If we knew about it, we would often try to make "lifetime buys" of parts and store them until needed, but sometimes this didn't happen or more likely, the estimate of how many were going to be needed changed. At that point, we'd be desperately trying to find any of the original parts. That's when the parts brokers would get used. Often they would find a few leftover pieces that could be used; sometimes, it turned out that what was found was counterfeit. Some of the fakes were very hard to tell. If you didn't have an original next to it you couldn't tell them apart by looking at them. It wasn't that we were trying to save money as much as just get a few more produced. The usual alternative was a redesign which given design, fabrication, and engineering testing times, would be at least a couple of months of delay. It isn't good when you have to go the customer and say "We could make it last month but we're not going to be able to deliver any more for the next couple of months." It really isn't good when the customer replies with "but I need it to be able to perform my mission". The final test of the products was nearly what for a commercial product would be the initial design acceptance testing so we expected that if it passed, the unit would work but there were some concern about not knowing what the future reliability might be.

      In short, we weren't trying so much to make (more) money but just find a way to meet customer demands. We tried to be careful but it can be a hard problem.

    77. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by stewbee · · Score: 1

      I agree, but with the amount of money that we are talking about in these contracts makes compliance a less risky proposition. One of the possible side effects of being found guilty of fraudulently billing the government is the denial of bidding on future contracts for some amount of time (usually measured in years). If say over 90% of your business is from the Federal Government contracts, I would say it is in the company's best interest to be compliant.

    78. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by jittles · · Score: 1

      There is no contract type available from the government that would cover uncharged OT. For instance, a Cost Plus Fixed fee contract only allows you to make money off of the money that you spend. If you do not pay the employee overtime, you cannot charge for their time.

      On a firm fixed price contract, the company brings in the same money regardless. They may "make" extra money by exploiting salaried workers, but the government does not pay any more for this.

      On a Time and Materials contract, again you cannot charge the government for anything that you did not spend.

    79. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      But why should I care if the Taliban have designs on all of central Asia? If the people of central Asia are ball-less enough to allow the Taliban to take them over and impose their oppressive rules on them, that's their own fault. I have no problem with western countries lending a little support here and there, perhaps some weapons caches, definitely some military advice (just like the French did with us back in the American Revolution) to help out people that are fighting for freedom, but sending your own troops into a place to install a government makes you no better than the people you're ousting. Now instead of the Taliban being the oppressors, the Americans are the oppressors. Foreign rule by anybody is oppression.

    80. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      What's all this talk about a "fab"? You don't use a "fab" to build resistors, you just build a simple factory. A "fab" is used to make high-end semiconductors. I'm fairly sure the places that make resistors, capacitors, etc. are not normally called "fabs". According to Wikipedia, "fab" is short for semiconductor fabrication plant. Resistors and capacitors are not semiconductors, they're dirt-cheap passive components, the manufacture of which has all moved to Asia.

      Anyway, Lockheed-Martin doesn't have the experience and expertise to set up a factory making resistors, and they're probably not interested in becoming a vertical monopoly like that. So they have to buy their commodity components from other companies that make them. Those companies are all located in Asia now; there are zero in the USA. So that's where they have to buy them. If someone did invest enough to start a company making these things here, their prices would be much higher than the Asian-made stuff, and the defense business alone probably isn't enough to make it worthwhile, as the volumes are much too small.

    81. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Then again if your ass isn't the one out on the front lines, I suppose such things don't matter.

      My ass isn't on the front lines because I have no desire to sacrifice my life so that some big corporations like Halliburton can make more money by oppressing people. It's too bad that so many other people have been conned into doing so.

      Sometimes QC'd trusted sources are actually worth the investment if it's critical that the end products are required to be reliable and actually work first time or every time.

      There are no domestic sources for these commodity parts. If you want to trust them, the best way is to thoroughly test each component before using it.

    82. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Because doing it in the US would be more expensive. Right now we live in a world where it's cut cut cut. So the pentagon is forced to go to sources outside the US.

      Why would happen if the Pentagon said they need a 23% increase in budget to buy all parts in the US?

      Now, effrontery who thing realizes that it's worth the increase, because of the number of jobs and tax revenue it will generate, and quality quality will be easier to control.

      Praise the troop, and cut their budget. Welcome to the republican world.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    83. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Yes, it it was built in the US, they would have a mere 77 billion in the bank.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    84. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      Lowest bidder is the problem. In the Cisco counterfeit scandal, Cisco business partners were finding that the only way they could win a bid was by using, let's say, parts of dubious origin.

      That's not a problem with lowest bidder. That is a problem with the purchaser not really caring whether they get what they order. If the specification calls for Cisco gear and bidder B gets the contract over bidder A because they are supplying counterfeit gear, it's contract fraud. They don't get away with it because there is some inherent problem with lowest bidder contracting. They get away with it because the purchaser isn't holding the vendor to the contract requirements. Would it be a price problem if you went to a restaurant, ordered prime rib, and got hamburger instead? Would you accept it, or tell them this is not what you ordered? Would you continue to go there because their prices were lower on 'prime rib'?

      We need to be able to edit posted comments and an email notice when someone replies to our comment.

      Every board I frequent that has comment editing has broken and incomprehensible topics due to people coming back and editing their comments. When they get called out on something stupid, go back and edit. On one board a major contributor got pissed at the board admins and went back and purged the content of every comment he wrote over a very long period of time. Now none of those threads make sense. Preview is a much better solution.

      And I get e-mails every time someone (not anonymous) replies to my comments on Slashdot. The feature is there. Look under Account -> Messages -> Comment Reply

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    85. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      So what? the people buying the components pay for it.

      And a good designer would take into consideration, EOL use of a fab. Even if that means stripping out all the equipment and turning it into a training facility.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    86. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      ...an uninformed, knee-jerk comment.

      Trusted foundry is not cheap. It is not feasible to manufacture all electronics used by the federal government in the United States. This has been a well known problem for a long time. Here is an excerpt from a 2005 report.

      http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ADA435563.pdf

      "Most leading edge wafer production facilities (foundries), with the exception so far of IBM and possibly Texas Instruments, are controlled and located outside the United States. The driving forces behind the “alienation” of foundry business from the United States to other countries include the lower cost of capital available in developing countries, through foreign nations’ tax, market access requirements, subsidized infrastructure and financing incentives (including ownership), and the worldwide portability of technical skills, equipment and process know-how."

      I keep reading this, and find it confusing and at odds with my experience. National Semiconductor doesn't/didn't have any fabs in China. Neither does Texas Instruments. Nor Linear Technologies. Nor Analog Devices, nor (as noted) IBM. Even when you move to the likes of Broadcomm, Qualcomm, and LSI, who don't have their own fabs, all their silicon is being made in contract fabs in Taiwan, not People's Republic Of China, and Taiwan contains the three largest foundries in the world (IIRC.) I think the critical phrase in here is "leading edge wafer production facilities": if you need 12 inch wafers with sub-45 micron features, it's possible all the manufacturing capacity is in the PRC. But it's not been my experience that much of production military stuff is using leading-edge electronics: they're using chips that have been run through military and industrial qualifications, and that's not brand-new stuff. Either I'm missing something, or sourcing parts securely isn't as big an issue as it's being made out to be. (Or the problem is actually that they want the cheapest stuff, and aren't willing to pay for parts made through non-PRC fabs.)

      --
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    87. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Wrong.
      Man you are seriously stupid.

      Not every electronic device magically needs twice the transistors in the same cm.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    88. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      NO, it's the ability to poison their water, and make them work long hours in horrid conditions.

      Add to that people buying based ONLY on cost and we ahve a problem.

      This is why we need to tarrif the goods coming from any country that doesn't meet our EPA guidlines as well as OShA requirements.
      Now we can compete on quality, and security.

      EPA rules only 'kill jobs' because we seem to think it's OK to poison them there foreigner.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    89. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      The need MILSPEC existing parts. Because manufacturer can change for a part, and it can slip from spec. May time this won't matter in the casual consumer marker, where 'it must be a bug, just reboot' is SOP

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    90. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      They could. If the components. where spread into several different board instead of one 'GPS' unit.

      I don't think they are, but it would be a solvable engineering problem to do so.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    91. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We know it's not the engineers that are the problem. It's your bosses. Your bosses, and their bosses, and the de-facto bosses of the the financial business that influence their actions.

      We know you do the best work in your field. Nobody doubts your skill or your dedication.

      We don't trust the people that run or own your company. They are, in fact, greedy and corrupt.

    92. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "It is not feasible to manufacture all electronics used by the federal government in the United States."
      wrong,.

      "It is not cheap to manufacture all electronics used by the federal government in the United States."
      Correct.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    93. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      If it was pork, then it would ALREADY be manufactured in the US. What congressman wouldn't want to ahve all the electronics the federal government needs done in their state? hell, even 1%.

      Forcing the pentegone to get all it'sd parts from US suppliers would fix the economy. Yes, it would be more expensive.

      AS a middle class citizen and tax payer,I have no problems paying more for stuff made in the US.

      Of course, we would employees a few million and start new companies to move to an all US development for military electrons, so a larger tax base. That alone will pay for the increase in costs.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    94. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      NO, you could make a business just one military needs. BUT you would need to put a law in place that forces military contract to buy US, when ever possible regardless of price.

      YOU could expand that to computers; which I'm sure intel and IBM would love.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    95. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by DinDaddy · · Score: 1

      Hold contractors accountable for once and this crap will stop happening. As it is, the contractors have no incentive to self-police.

      Indeed. I might go farther. Since this practice in fact endangers the lives of military personnel, and could be looked at as treason, make the penalty death for knowingly doing this in combat mission critical components.

    96. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's good the tech noticed it and reported it but metal fasteners range in shades of silvery and brown to different degrees depending on grade. Also the bolt heads are stamped with lines or numbers to indicate grade. So it's pretty obvious when you replace something with something different in such a case. A few years back TRW had an issue where brake rotors carefully manufactured in Chinese plants so that the ones that did not go through QC were of inferior materials. In that case there was no way to see a difference except in wear and warping later for a tech.

    97. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Relayman · · Score: 2

      But then we run into "too big to ban." When a big defense contractor violates the law, the federal government can't ban them because they may be the sole supplier of some big defense program. So they slap them on the wrist and let them go on bidding.

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      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    98. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      Investigators traced more than 70 per cent of the cases to China. Nearly 20 per cent led to the United Kingdom and Canada, the lawmakers said.

      I will point this line. Only 70% of the counterfeiting cases came from China. 20% of the cases came from the UK and Canada. If the US buys a lot more parts from China than from UK and Canada (which seems reasonable, but I don't know), then the evidence that parts bought from China are particularly more dangerous than parts from anywhere else is actually pretty weak. I'm not sure if the committee even looked at all at the problem of substandard parts built by US companies - given that the committee took evidence mainly from US manufacturers, who would obviously directly benefit from any change in policy, the lack of balance seems a little suspicious. Nor do we know of what proportion of the total procurements these 1800 cases are. It's possibly far cheaper to solve this problem by implementing tightened inspection regimes than the more drastic strategies certain people have advocated.

      Also, to the people suggesting the US merely spend more to employ US producers, the flip side of that is that this money has to come from somewhere. If it doesn't come from increased taxation on everyone, then it'd come from other services. And I'd suggest that a billion dollars would do *far* more good saving lives in the healthcare industry than dealing with a problem that has never led to a loss of life or any mission failure so far. The US spends too much on its military already, and the situation is such that it seems like a frontline soldier who volunteers himself into a dangerous environment is far better protected and far more looked after than a civilian back at home, that he is supposedly protecting. Defense policy needs to keep that balance in mind, and accept that sometimes risks in the military are acceptable ones.

    99. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      Also I note that I'm the only one to mention the significant number of counterfeits from Canada and the UK in all of over 200 comments, so, hmm, that's interesting.

    100. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by fuzznutz · · Score: 1

      You logic flaw is thus: If the Chinese can do it profitably, it can be done. Your complaints notwithstanding, if they can do it, we can do it. The problem is that short term thinking and willingness to offshore risk for profits, is one of the biggest reasons we are in a world of hurt regarding manufacturing capacity regard real world issues of national security.

    101. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the real parts are sourced from China as well. Often the real and "fake" products are manufactured by the same Chinese factories: the factory ships the requested quantity to there US middleman, but actually fabricates a bigger batch than requested. The extra parts are not "licensed" by the US middleman, and can be sold directly to customers, without the US middlemen getting 99% of the profit.

    102. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As an engineer working for a large American corporation I think your rebuttal is misplaced. We're not mad at the workers at the company. We're mad at the board of directors who make decisions that put a lot of money in their back pocket at the expense of the employees, shareholders and customers. Outsource labor, lay off local employees, save costs and give yourself a fat bonus. So what if the quality goes down a little. Is it still meeting specifications? Then it's fine. We used to make equipment that was over engineered but now if we can save costs we'll swap out to a cheaper imported part. Once in a while (more often than not) the part will not meet spec or a batch of them will not meet specs causing inventory bottlenecks and even production shutdown. But hey, we are theoretically saving money by doing this so...

    103. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Counterfeiting parts requires manufacturing facilities, which can't be easily hidden. I could guess, though it's only a guess, that China tends towards complete counterfeit parts, while the fraud in the UK and Canada is focused more around reinserting defective or refurbished parts into the stream.

    104. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by geekmux · · Score: 1

      I cannot even begin to fathom outsourcing a multi-million dollar defense system to a country that has mastered "consumer-grade" electronics.

      Because a handful of multi-million dollar defense systems is not a sufficiently large market to build a factory for making resistors, capacitors, and various other commodity parts in a high-cost market like the USA. If you made it a requirement, then that multi-million dollar defense system would now cost a few tens of billions of dollars apiece.

      It's easy to throw around "expensive" US-manufactured numbers like that when you fail to take into account the impact of failure when you do NOT maximize quality control. What makes you think it won't take "tens of billions" to fix the mess that has been created, even before we address the fabrication issue?

    105. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Apple has billions in the bank because they have all their stuff built in China...

      It doesn't cost $80billion to run a fab and if Apple can't afford to run their own fab then who exactly do you suppose can afford it?

    106. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      It might very well cost that much to fix the mess, but that's OK because it's not an up-front cost, it's an after-the-fact cost. Big up-front costs are always much worse than even bigger after-the-fact cleanup costs, because people always buy based on up-front cost. Just look at inkjet printers.

      How do you think the American taxpayer is going to react to the idea that we need to spend billions of dollars to set up government-financed electronic component factories, during a time when budgets and debt are the top issues? Tell them it'll save money in the long run? We're talking about the people who voted for Bush and Obama here.

    107. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I spend many unpaid hours improving products, no charge to the government, and make sure what I do works properly.

      The government (and most defense contractors) REALLY don't like that. For the government it's simple - they cannot accept volunteer work/service (which is what unpaid hours are). The defense contractors tend to want to know that their bids are correct. I know there's rampant underbidding, but when you back up the bid with numbers from past projects you might end up underbidding even when you try to bid accurately because the next guy doesn't do unpaid hours.

      Thank you for making things better than expected, but please understand the (bureaucratic, mostly bullshit) reasons that it may be bad. There's also the issue that the higher quality ends up being relied upon and a switch in vendor creates a serious issue when things are built 'only' to spec.

    108. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Khyber · · Score: 0

      Yea, right, which is why my company has been stripping down and reusing the same LED wafer fab tech (both silicon and sapphire), just slowly working down in chip scale, using the same processes. All it takes is a software tweak and an engineer with half a brain.

      Sorry, just because nobody else in the industry has the brains to think of such things, does not mean some other enterprising guy like me hasn't already made the solution.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    109. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The government can fire you for so many seemingly mindless 'infractions' that if you tried to follow them all you COULD NOT GET WORK DONE. So I don't buy this whole 'can't fire them' idea - if someone wants to fire you in government, you're gone. Contractors and their unions are another matter.

    110. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      According to the webcast of the committee I viewed, counterfeit as defined in their investigation includes both senses.

    111. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think we should spend the Billions to build here. All components used for US Gov., Military, Law Enforcement should be built in this country. Why support the economy of rivals? This is a good way to put thousands to work. We need to climb back to being number one in manufacturing, as we do costs will go down quality will go up and the economy will stabilize. this is not a COST issue its a National Security Issue. As long as we outsource critical and noncritical components both mechanical and technological we will never truly be sure that our national security has not been compromised from the get go.

      kjb

    112. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I don't think you understand a) the components they are talking about and b) the complexity and precision required to create a working GPS receiver, let alone one that can also transmit or store that data in some way to make it useful.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    113. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, Apple has billions in the bank because their markup is atrocious. They get to keep MORE of their money because it's built in China, but that's a secondary issue.

    114. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because when I spec out a file server at $1/GB, the managers say "I can buy a 1 TB drive for $100.

    115. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Relayman · · Score: 1

      But the purchasing agent doesn't use the equipment; he/she just buys it for others and can't tell the difference between prime rib and hamburger. I'm not speculating; I'm telling you what happened. The point here is that Defense Department procurement is essentially encouraging vendors to sell them counterfeits, all in the name of saving money. My source is from 2007: Fakes: Can You Tell The Difference?

      Thanks for the tip on emails. I'll check it out.

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    116. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Many USG components are required to be manufacturered in the US. I'd argue most, though I've no basis for fact of this. The key word here is "manufactured". If, for instance, a plane is assembled in the US, and the fuselage and engines are made by a US company, this would "suffice". It's the government, FFS: you better believe there are reams and reams of paperwork defining "manufactured", "assembled", etc. in the contracts.

      For instance, Beretta and FN have made manufacturing plants in the US to try to get US contract.

      I believe even Toyota made plants in the US to capitalize on government contract potential.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    117. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and that fab's good for what, maybe a couple of years until everyone else's process feature size shrinks and you have to retool it?

      Fabs aren't just about cost - environmental factors are huge. Fabs use and thus can leak/discharge all manner of nasty stuff. There are regulations, penalties, lawsuits etc. in the US over such things, and indeed the abovementioned semiconductor company for which I worked in the mid-1990's has multiple Superfund sites. China doesn't give a shit about the planet or anything that lives on it, so it's a natural for dirty or potentially-dirty industry.

    118. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But once you build the fab, you have a fab. It makes money. It's an asset.

      When you spend millions weeding out counterfeit parts in a given year, you're in the exact same spot next year. In fact, you're even worse off, because every year we spend manufacturing things overseas makes it that much harder to ever bring the jobs back home.

      Put another way, the net present value of a fab is likely higher than the NPV of searching for counterfeits. But since when did corporate America ever care about long term benefits? Short term profits and padding your own bank account are all that matter. And in the short term, fabs are expensive.

      There was an article here recently about 10% of Chinese farmland being completely poisoned by heavy metals. In order to operate an electronics fabrication plant one needs access to heavy metals. There are no heavy metal extraction and purification operations in the U.S.A. right now. One mammoth cost of operating a heavy metal mining and refining plant would be to satisfy regulations to prevent heavy metal contamination of the surrounding countryside.

      So once you have a heavy metal mine and electronics fab plant you have an asset. Until you have the mine you still have to buy your material from China. If you start lobbying your legislator today we *might* be able to start mining our heavy metals here in America within 10 years.

    119. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And also consider that outsourcing has been the plan for ICs since the 1970s. It's been obvious since the 1960s military ICs would never be viable economically as a separate captive market. So MOSIS was created as an ARPA project (centrally aligned with another project: Arpanet). MOSIS is the very basis of todays Fabless IC manufacturing. MOSIS was a key justification for Arpanet funding. MOSIS is why I've been on the "net" since the early 1980s.

      The problem is that it worked "too well" (and the US made choices that assure the US would be even less viable economically for siting IC foundries). The assumption was that the post-WWII monopoly on industry would never change and the US would always be the only place where leading edge technology was created. That was definitely not going to hold and HAS NOT HELD. There are many leading edge technology areas now where the US is on par with subsaharan Africa for technology knowledge and capability.

      Most foundries are in Asia: TSMC (Taiwan), UMC (Taiwan), Global Foundries (Singapore/Dresden), Samsung (Korea), NEC (Japan), Hitachi (Japan), SMIC (China)

      And if you subtract Intel x86 lines, those are the majority volume and growing. TI shut down many of their digital IC fabs and started outsourcing to TSMC.

    120. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Yes, but there's also the cold, hard reality that some things just aren't made here any more, so for those things, the USG probably grants a waiver. A lot of electronic components (esp. the dirt-cheap commodity ones) just aren't made here anywhere. So the govt can demand that company A (an electronics design company) build a product here, and they do: they don't make it themselves, but they'll outsource it to an assembly company. We have a bunch of those companies here in Phoenix, as we also have a bunch of defense contractors here like General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, etc. Those contractors probably don't make their own electronics, but they do outsource the manufacture to local assembly companies. Those companies get the components from wherever they can; if there's American mfgrs, they probably get those, but if there aren't any, well they can't just throw up their hands, and some small assembly operation certainly can't make their own components (all they do is make the PCBs and assemble them), so they have to buy them from Taiwan or China.

    121. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My ass isn't on the front lines because I have no desire to sacrifice my life so that some big corporations like Halliburton can make more money by oppressing people. It's too bad that so many other people have been conned into doing so.

      Yup. That's why we went into Afghanistan, so Halliburton can make money oppressing people. [Shakes head]

    122. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      You do realize Afghanistan has significant mineral reserves, right?

      Osama's dead, and AQ is gone. There hasn't been a valid reason to be in Afghanistan for a long time.

    123. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I think they are coming from China on purpose...Just like the drugs, baby food, electronics, electrical components, toys, cribs, cars and almost anything else you can buy in the US comes from China. It is terrifying but true that China, despite having virtually no quality control in place in over 50% of it's industrial supply chain, no matter what the product-supplies 90% of consumer goods sold in the United States. I literally shudder when I think about how much of what is sold in the United states under the brand names of legitimate American companies are goods that are actually manufactured in China and distributed through Chinese owned distributorships here in the U.S.

      This is a major problem that is not unique to the military, nor will the military solve it. The only answer is in completely restructuring the economy to stop making it more attractive to manufacture goods overseas than to do so here. I don't agree that we can't do it-we CAN do whatever we choose. It's all a matter of economics.

    124. Re:Why are these parts even coming from China? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      See, I can understand why private companies will source goods from China - they're just chasing their bottom line, it's capitalism 101. If we're not happy about it, we can regulate as needed (via tariffs etc), but at least it's understandable.

      But why the fuck is U.S. government sourcing critical components for military systems from China, a not-so-friendly country and a potential adversary? Government is supposed to be a non-profit, and military is one area where "national security" is not just empty words - especially when we're talking about actual equipment that's in use on battlefield today, and its failure directly causes lost lives. It's just insane.

  4. Bogus parts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can attest to this. A former employer tried to buy some parts for some ham radio related products we made. We got 500 of them. ALL of them were completely useless. They LOOKED authentic, but when connected to a known good test fixture, they proved to be utterly useless. We were very fortunate, in that we had purchased them from a legitimate dealer, who refunded our money.

    This is a serious problem.

    1. Re:Bogus parts by am+2k · · Score: 1

      We were very fortunate, in that we had purchased them from a legitimate dealer, who refunded our money.

      How is getting a legitimate dealer luck? Isn't that something you should make certain when choosing your supply channels?

    2. Re:Bogus parts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tottally agree, because this is not only for the subject you were talking about, but for all elecronics equippements used by human kind , witch means more than 40% of the human kind belive their lives directly or indirectly on electronics equippements and they dont deserve to be cheeted , so as human kind my self i say is more important the human life than proffit on bad mannagers.

  5. why not outsource all of it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Contrary to what many people think, China doesn't just produce low quality stuff. They'll produce the iPad and the iPhone. They'll make whatever quality level you want to pay them for. They make 99% of the consumer stuff you buy, from the cheap-ass wallmart plastic crap to the highest end consumer electronics and computer parts.

    So: the US military could get very high quality stuff for much cheaper than paying Americans to make it, just like Apple outsources the iDevices to China to make, and same for many, many other business entities. There is plenty of precedent for outsourcing your military hardware - many countries outsource it to the USA, in fact. So given China's major advantage in manufacturing, maybe it's time for the US to start outsourcing military production to China.

    Then there's no issue about counterfitting. Buy whatever quality you want from the Chinese supplier.

    1. Re:why not outsource all of it? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      You don't outsource when you can't control quality. Especially in important things like aircraft and weapon systems.

      Boeing tried that approach with the 787 - took them 5 years to recover. Up front cost for a lot of these things is only a small portion of the total investment. Yes, China can make things at very high quality levels. The issue is can you be comfortable that they are doing that (and not ripping off your IP which is another issue).

      One thing I would have liked to know is exactly WHAT counterfeit items were found? Bad bolts? Counterfeit components? Whole boards?

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:why not outsource all of it? by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      So the US military is having a problem with the quality of their outsourced hardware and your solution is more outsourcing...

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    3. Re:why not outsource all of it? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      So given China's major advantage in manufacturing, maybe it's time for the US to start outsourcing military production to China.

      Come to think of it, why outsource just production? Why not the entire military? China has plenty manpower to spare, and it's cheap, too - so they can compensate for any technological deficiencies. Just think about it - why waste a $100K smart bomb, where an infantry platoon can do the same, while costing orders of magnitude less - and it's reusable, too!

      ~

    4. Re:why not outsource all of it? by camperdave · · Score: 2

      Maybe they can hire Chinese soldiers too. Why pay brave young Americans to die on foreign sands in a vain attempt to protect oil conglomerates, when there are billions of Chinese who will do it for a fraction of the cost?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    5. Re:why not outsource all of it? by geekmux · · Score: 1

      Contrary to what many people think, China doesn't just produce low quality stuff. They'll produce the iPad and the iPhone. They'll make whatever quality level you want to pay them for. They make 99% of the consumer stuff you buy, from the cheap-ass wallmart plastic crap to the highest end consumer electronics and computer parts.

      So: the US military could get very high quality stuff for much cheaper than paying Americans to make it, just like Apple outsources the iDevices to China to make, and same for many, many other business entities. There is plenty of precedent for outsourcing your military hardware - many countries outsource it to the USA, in fact. So given China's major advantage in manufacturing, maybe it's time for the US to start outsourcing military production to China.

      Then there's no issue about counterfitting. Buy whatever quality you want from the Chinese supplier.

      I seriously hope you're not trying to equate iDevices to defense weapon systems when it comes to reliability and longevity. Sure, Apple makes a decent product, but it's still consumer-grade hardware. I expect my Macbook to perhaps hold up a little longer than the average laptop, but I don't expect any consumer-grade device to last longer than 5 or maybe 10 years, and that's not even taking into account the issues related to RoHS manufacturing. Not exactly the same quality standards needed for our defense systems. Not even close.

      And your own comments are exactly why we should NOT be outsourcing to China...if they do in fact make "99%" of consumer-grade electronics we buy in the US, then their workforce and quality programs haven't exactly been "stressed" to the levels absolutely necessary when building military-grade hardware.

    6. Re:why not outsource all of it? by izomiac · · Score: 1

      Hmm... I can just picture it now. China starts going on again about how Taiwan isn't a sovereign nation, so the US dispatches a carrier fleet to the Taiwan Strait and tries to fire a warning shot at an interloping Chinese warship. The missile blows up inside the missile launcher. So, do we blame that on shoddy Chinese workmanship, or did it do exactly what was intended?

      IOW, other countries are fine with buying weaponry from the US as they're our allies and, beyond that, wouldn't stand a chance of winning a war against us so it's a moot point if the weaponry is designed to be loyal to its manufacturer. The US doesn't have that kind of relationship with China. Heck, we already have enough issues with them stealing military technology as-is.

    7. Re:why not outsource all of it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "I seriously hope you're not trying to equate iDevices to defense weapon systems when it comes to reliability and longevity. "

      I seriously hope you don't believe the iDevices are the only thing China can make.

      They produce most of their own military hardware, including some excellent, world class missiles and phased array radars. They'll make whatever you ask them for to mil-spec, and the US taxpayer would get a far better value for the money. The same military could be had much cheaper, which the usa NEEDS right now because its crippling debt is the single biggest national threat, not a bunch of middle eastern people with oil.

    8. Re:why not outsource all of it? by fluffy99 · · Score: 1

      Contrary to what many people think, China doesn't just produce low quality stuff. They'll produce the iPad and the iPhone. They'll make whatever quality level you want to pay them for. They make 99% of the consumer stuff you buy, from the cheap-ass wallmart plastic crap to the highest end consumer electronics and computer parts.

      So: the US military could get very high quality stuff for much cheaper than paying Americans to make it, just like Apple outsources the iDevices to China to make, and same for many, many other business entities. There is plenty of precedent for outsourcing your military hardware - many countries outsource it to the USA, in fact. So given China's major advantage in manufacturing, maybe it's time for the US to start outsourcing military production to China.

      Then there's no issue about counterfitting. Buy whatever quality you want from the Chinese supplier.

      Totally irrelevant when there's a middleman such as an electronics components vendor involved who is either intentionally substituting or unaware of the parts quality. Apple provides most of the parts to the Chinese assembly factories and watches them very, very closely. You simply can't do that through middlemen.

    9. Re:why not outsource all of it? by Vskye · · Score: 1

      Really? I find it hard to believe that someone even gave you a +1 as Anonymous, yet alone even agree with you.

      US Military fab / manufacturing needs to stay in the US and actually employee people in the US.

      --
      Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
    10. Re:why not outsource all of it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have never gone through the trouble of importing goods from China have you? It is a hellacious process. Factories open & close continually, contracts are about as useful as the paper they are written on, and the chances of being left high & dry is common. Can inspect everything all ya want, but it's easy for them to hose those purchasing on a whim.

    11. Re:why not outsource all of it? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Using foreigners to protect your country is almost guaranteed to end badly. It's part of the reason Rome was repeatedly overrun.

      Words like "mercenary" and "Hessian" still anger knowledgeable US citizens to this very day.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    12. Re:why not outsource all of it? by greed · · Score: 1

      That's how we built the railroad in Canada.

      Then we felt bad and put up a memorial to all the Chinese workers who died. It's near the Skydome, off the north-west corner. Doesn't really make it right.

      Immigrant labour in the New World is, well, basically how the New World got started.

    13. Re:why not outsource all of it? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Immigrant labour in the New World is, well, basically how the New World got started.

      ... and continues to function, judging by the portrayal of ethnics in TV shows and movies.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    14. Re:why not outsource all of it? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      I think his point is that you get what you pay for, and outsourcing or not, a deal that seems too good to be true is usually too good to be true.

    15. Re:why not outsource all of it? by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      But it does not seem to be a quality issue, simply a issue that the US military is known as a company that you can get away with ripping off.
      It does not matter how much you pay someone they will always prefer to double their profit margin if they can get away with it.

      And no outsourcing is not some miracle cure all solution. I have been involved with companies who have outsourced and been ripped off since day one.
      The difference between them and the US military is that the independent company learned its lesson and decided on that spot no more outsourced contractors.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    16. Re:why not outsource all of it? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1
      Well, I'd argue that outsourcing, when done well, can save money. I mean, we hear of the various horror stories, but obviously we don't hear of the corresponding cases where people *don't* get ripped off and instead get what they wanted for cheap. What's the overall state of outsourcing? We just don't know. It's like buying from ebay or whatever - the ebay sellers on the other end are just people. They aren't a monolithic mass. Sometimes you get a good deal, and sometimes you get screwed over. A simplistic 'outsourcing = bad' approach, while appealing, IMHO doesn't capture the full picture.

      Regardless, the US probably *can* implement policy to get better deals out of outsourcing. They need to take a more aggressive position with respect to inspections and demanding quality assurances from the suppliers. And also, I feel like the full scale of the problem is rather overstated - as the article says, nobody's died or anything and the costs we are incurring are only in the mere millions. When plenty of US aircraft have fallen out of the skies for mechanical problems - not problems with counterfeit electronics - despite the parts involved being built in the US, there seems to be a lot of noise being made over nothing.

    17. Re:why not outsource all of it? by geekmux · · Score: 1

      "I seriously hope you're not trying to equate iDevices to defense weapon systems when it comes to reliability and longevity. "

      I seriously hope you don't believe the iDevices are the only thing China can make.

      They produce most of their own military hardware, including some excellent, world class missiles and phased array radars. They'll make whatever you ask them for to mil-spec, and the US taxpayer would get a far better value for the money. The same military could be had much cheaper, which the usa NEEDS right now because its crippling debt is the single biggest national threat, not a bunch of middle eastern people with oil.

      The "crippling" debt we're being crushed under has a hell of a lot more to do with the financial industry and massive deregulation over the last couple of decades than damn near any war we could ever fight now or in the future. What we've spent in 20 years on defense the financial industry managed to vaporize in 2 years.

      And what the US "needs" right now is to be able to trust their manufacturers(hence the very reason of this article). My apologies if Communist China doesn't seem to make it to the top of my list as "trusted sources". Go figure as to why.

      And I never said that China can only make iDevices. I merely stated that consumer-grade electronic crapola is what they've mastered over the last decade, and the overall skill set and capability would be put into question if we started shifting a ton of mil-spec requirements their way. And that's not even taking into account the underlying corruption that could result when dealing with a Communist Nation.

    18. Re:why not outsource all of it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks Mr. Wang. Now go back to running your slave-labor sweatshop & enjoy the ride home in your stretch limo.

      People think America has a large disparity in wealth. **ABSOLUTELY NOTHING** compared to the spread in China.

  6. similar in aerospace by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Informative

    Similar problems occur in large shipments of commodity aviation components, like shims, nutplates, etc.

    A less than scrupulous outsource supplier could sprinkle 20% of the product yeild with improper components, and if the batch is large enough, never get noticed. This doesn't negate the issues that "bogus parts" cause downstream in the product's lifecycle. Bad shims (made from incorrect, but "similar" materials) can promote dielectrics to form in important assemblages, manifesting all sorts of failures.. all kinds of thing can go wrong because somebody some place didn't want to follow what was in the order to the letter and cut corners somewhere.

    In electronics, I could see this being manifest in diodes that are of the wrong class being used where, eg, zener diodes are required for proper operation, or the use of poorly formulated capacitor electrolytes in mission critical noise filters, and failsafes.

    The effects would be equally diasterous, and vexing to maintenance and service people. The properly sourced equipment simply shouldn't fail in those ways. The component choices were made for that specific reason.

    It does not surprise me that chinese manufacturers are the big sources of this problem. The quality of manufacture and qa process from cheap factories are tied directly to the cost per unit: you get what you pay for.

    1. Re:similar in aerospace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does not surprise me that chinese manufacturers are the big sources of this problem. The quality of manufacture and qa process from cheap factories are tied directly to the cost per unit: you get what you pay for.

      Ha. Back during the tech bubble, I worked for a large fiber optic component manufacturer. For some markets, such as underwater cables, all components & subcomponents had to be made in North America.

    2. Re:similar in aerospace by Required+Snark · · Score: 1
      I have a friend who used to work in quality control for the defense industry, and he told me that this kind of thing has been going on a long time. Sometimes you could tell just by looking at the packaging that the parts were not what they were supposed to be. Still, it was very hard to get vendors taken off the approved list. I'm not going to name names, but some of these were large firms that you may have heard of.

      Perhaps it has become even worse in the last few years since he was involved. Or perhaps they are paying more attention since so much stuff now comes from Asia?

      --
      Why is Snark Required?
    3. Re:similar in aerospace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I had a conversation with a PR guy at one of the major network vendors. They're seriously considering bringing their marketing shirts manufacturing back to the US, because out of 6 suppliers from China, every single one of them tried to cheat them on their orders eventually. They'd order 1000 unit lot of 10 ounce shirts, and there'd always be a sprinkling of 8 ounce shirts from the the 2nd or 3rd run on. A few cents skimped here and there adds up. The vendor said that the cost of doing quality assurance for these suppliers was such that it was getting close to the cost of a local manufacturer who would do the QA properly themselves. When caught, the manufacturers would always treat it like a game and offer a discount on the next lot.

      It's not a big deal if the quality of a t-shirt isn't quite up to scratch, but it seems this attitude is prevalent in the country of manufacturer.

    4. Re:similar in aerospace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The best i have seen is during the construction of HV substation the customer had strict specs regarding equipment but the drywall for the buildings was sourced from a cheap commodity supplier (in China) and the problem we had was that they had sulfur in the drywall which caused all of the electrical components in the electrical protection to corrode and the substation to fail all because someone purchased dodgy drywall. I question if its worth burning your traditional suppliers just to save these tiny percentages...

    5. Re:similar in aerospace by Jeng · · Score: 1

      I'm not going to name names, but some of these were large firms that you may have heard of.

      Please name names. How are these things going to change if they aren't brought to light?

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
  7. Pretty common by mirix · · Score: 1

    I work in the industry and we've had similar problems, even from big name, american outfits. I put the blame on the distributors for that, though. Not sure if it is entirely well founded... as they often have stuff produced in plenty of places, might be difficult to track, with just lot sample testing. I can't see an excuse on military stuff though...

    Wouldn't US gov contracts be big enough to cut distributors and go straight to the source? Whatever happened to military grade, every component tested in america, at least, if not made here?
    They sure fucking pay for the best...

    Hell, for the money they spend they should be able to set up a DoD fab in texas and come out ahead.

    --
    Sent from my PDP-11
    1. Re:Pretty common by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

          That's not the way the government works.

          The government buys from a GSA approved vendor. That vendor buys from whoever they damned well please.

          Way way back in the day, I knew someone who worked in a gov't office. They had a token ring network. I happened to be there, and diagnosed the problem (bad network card). Don't worry, it wasn't a classified network of any sort. :) I wasn't suppose to diagnose anything, but they appreciated the help. They tried to get permission for me to install a network card. Just a single card in a single workstation. I even had a replacement card with me, that would give them at cost.

          They sent the request up the chain. It came back down "denied'". It was instead contracted out to an approved vendor about 100 miles away. They paid about 10x as much for the card, and something like $100/hr labor (including drive time).

          Where did the approved vendor get the network card? Probably the same place I did. It was identical. Do they have any knowledge of where it came from? Hell no.

          So, why can't the government have it's own trained techs on staff, ready to do the work? Because it's "cheaper" to outsource it to 3rd parties. Oddly enough, they pay more to the 3rd party vendors for the labor, than they would to keep a staff in-house. Why does it happen? Because 3rd party vendors are also significant donors to political campaigns.

          So when the 3rd party vendor buys a part from a distributor, who buys it from the manufacturer, is there ever a clear chain of custody? Hell no. The government is a large enough customer to buy everything, directly from manufacturers. For quite a bit of it, it would be cost effective for them to license and manufacture their own units.

          I don't know how anyone can be surprised that substandard part are the norm, regardless of who the end user is. It's not cost effective for anyone to build the *better* part. If they do, it will cost more, and they won't sell.
         

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    2. Re:Pretty common by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 1

      It's crazy, I know. I work in government as well, although not defense.

      The reason for the prices and the hassle is that the 3rd party in question is contracted to provide the service. They have assurances that the work will be done at a certain level, and more important the contract will have clauses for liability. They in turn will have to have certain items in stock (which costs money), have the qualified staff on call (which costs money), and have the proper insurance in place in case something goes wrong (which costs even more money).

      While you were probably more able and more responsive, the truth is that it would have made the brass nervous and set a dangerous precedent. I'm sure they've done their checks on you and that sort, but there was probably no binding contract that governed your activity related to that HW replacement.

      80% of the activity at the government is CYA.

      --
      Wearing pants should always be optional.
    3. Re:Pretty common by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

          I actually agree with you, on not letting me then do the work. Some kid they don't know anything about says "I'll do it". They had much better choices though. There were computer stores in the area. There was one less than 1/4 mile away that would have loved to do it.

          My problem is spending hundreds of dollars to replace a network card. They need a better system in place. Instead of outsourcing to some approved company, they should have shared in-house resources. It's like every agency and every department is in a race to see who can spend the most money. I know when the end of the budget year comes around, they do race. If there's a surplus, they hurry up and spend it on something to justify asking for the same amount or more for the following year. I personally knew of a department spending over $100k on anything they could think of, just so they would get the same money the following year. Everyone got new computers, chairs, and other assorted crap. It was all just slightly better than the ones they got at the end of the previous year. They actually had a hard time finding things to buy, because they were just a small department.

          But back to the network card expense. Why can't a congressional field office get someone from a national guard facility to fix their computer? Oohh, we can't have that, they're different branches of the government. Who cares that it's all government, and they had a location just a few miles away that *did* have people trained to do it. (ha, training. insert card here..)

          I guess I'd be complaining less if I was getting a huge paycheck as part of the system. :)

          I was being recruited by a huge gov't contractor. Their sales pitch was that I'd be getting about $200k/yr if I was in the states, or over $400k/yr if I went overseas. While overseas, I'd have no expenses. I'd be provided everything. Food, housing, transportation. That would all be care of the military base I was at. I'd even be working side-by-side with soldiers making a small fraction of what I'd be making. The only significant difference in our responsibilities would be that if shooting started, they'd get guns, and I'd have to duck.

          Why could anyone get a deal like that? Because the contractor had billion dollar deals to supply and support equipment. There are soldiers trained to support the same equipment. All of it was COTS. So the contractor orders it from Dell, Sun, Cisco, or whoever, marks up the price, and sends someone like me out with it.

          I wouldn't *mind* making 8 times as much as the other guy. I could be pretty happy working 5 years, and having a couple million dollars in the bank. That's not financially responsible for any organization, government or not, to be doing.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    4. Re:Pretty common by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 1

      Very good observations.

      You're 100% correct on the budget. There's no incentive to save money. If you don't spend it all, you would be penalized by having the amount deducted from your operating budget. Everyone around January there would be a mad dash to think of ways to spend/waste money. Couldn't give raises or performance bonuses to my staff though. I certainly could burn money on consultants though ...

      I hear your dilemna about taking that hefty paycheque and the potential guilt. One of my motivating factors to work in government is to keep people honest, because at the end of the day I'm a taxpayer as well. It's certainly not to be rich. If I was a government agency hiring someone, I'd rather hire someone like you over 99% of the folks I've encountered and you would be much better value for my tax dollar.

      --
      Wearing pants should always be optional.
  8. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nope, no good has come from "Free Trade" with the US. The US doesn't make ANYTHING, so everyone with a FTA with the US just gets their stuff exported to the US without export tariffs, but there's next to nothing that can be bought from the US without paying duties because the FTA only applies to stuff MADE IN THE USA.

    Like holy shit batman, maybe the US should make some fucking products for other countries to buy.

  9. It's not a Chinese problem, it's industry wide by msobkow · · Score: 1

    While the Chinese companies have a lot of the current parts contracts, history is littered with cases of fraud in the big-budget aerospace and military sectors throughout the existence of those industries. The problem does need to be resolved, but the article seems like racist scare-mongering to me considering the history of the issue.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  10. It's much worse by Weezul · · Score: 1

    China engages in an incredible amount of espionage, both industrial and military. I'd imagine they've already modified chips in hard drives, cpus, or motherboard chipsets to help extract information. Forget military secrets, simply snatching some large bank's HTF code gives you vast options.

    We should built fabs here and charge double the price for 'secure' equipment. We'd require that all components used for classified military work were manufactured here, but presumably other companies will jump onboard for select systems.

    --
    The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
    1. Re:It's much worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if this were about backdoors instead of failing electronics, and thus about malice instead of negligence, your solution still envisages anyone outside the US government trusting the US government not to put in backdoors. Really, a "secure" component from the US government would come to the market with exactly the same paranoia as a "secure" component from China. There'd be no justification for the higher price.

    2. Re:It's much worse by DZign · · Score: 1

      True but that espionage is to help their own industry.
      I don't think most fake parts found are espionage/sabotage attempts (except for a few military-specific components).

      Fake parts are just a huge problem in the electronics industry - for everyone.

      I repair old pinball machines, some people I know also do and always look for sources of obsolete ics.
      It's amazing how many times you find a 'stock' of obsolete parts that's available.. sometimes the scam is clear (datemarks that are too recent) but sometimes it's not so obvious and only after testing you see that the parts you received are fakes..

    3. Re:It's much worse by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      I repair old pinball machines, some people I know also do and always look for sources of obsolete ics.
      It's amazing how many times you find a 'stock' of obsolete parts that's available.. sometimes the scam is clear (datemarks that are too recent) but sometimes it's not so obvious and only after testing you see that the parts you received are fakes..

      And presumabllly sometimes the fakes are good enough that they seem to work and get installed but they don't work quite right and/or fail prematurely. Not such a big deal if it's just a pinball machine but potentially a very big deal if it's some more critical system.

      And because of onerous certification requirements critical systems often end up with very long life cycles (redesigning means recertifying which means high costs) so they are likely to run into parts sourcing issues.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    4. Re:It's much worse by jimmydigital · · Score: 1

      I repair old pinball machines, some people I know also do and always look for sources of obsolete ics.

      I've found that another good use for old pinball machine parts is to fake out Libyan terrorists who want you to build them a nuclear bomb. Of course.. experience shows the ruse doesn't hold for long.. so be sure to have a bulletproof vest and time portal handy for a quick escape.

      --
      Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
  11. Eliminate all Chinese imports by Alien+Being · · Score: 0

    Let them fuck over some other country. Their substandard shit is ruining us. They don't give a damn if we spend hundreds/thousands/millions repairing machines that fail due to a $1 counterfeit part they sold us. They don't care if people are injured or killed. They treat their own people like shit so why should they give a damn about us?

    Every product sold in this country that contains any Chinese component should be boldly labelled as such, denied UL approval, automotive safety inspections, etc.

    When and if they become a democracy and start respecting human rights, we can reopen the doors.

    1. Re:Eliminate all Chinese imports by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      When and if they become a democracy and start respecting human rights, we can reopen the doors.

      So where do we get stuff then? Obviously, we can't buy anything American-made, since they don't respect human rights either.

    2. Re:Eliminate all Chinese imports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem is, you're oversimplifying just a wee bit. All "UL" approves is a product's likelihood of causing a fire. UL has nothing to do with long (or short) term reliability. Fuses aren't sexy, but 99.99999% of the time, they're more than good enough to keep a shoddy product from actually burning down a house. And that's all UL cares about.

      Ditto for auto safety inspections. Low-quality Chinese parts are more likely to result in an expensive repair job than an actual life-threatening accident. A plastic cam that breaks & causes something to overheat might turn into a $1,200 repair job, but it's unlikely to cause an actual accident.

      One problem that leads to the tacit acceptance of low-quality parts in China's own domestic market is the low price of labor. When a zipper breaks in China, you pay somebody 80 cents to spend 20 minutes fixing the broken tooth. In America, you end up throwing the whole thing away, because it would cost more to pay someone to spend time performing the repair than to just buy a new one. In China, if your $180 camcorder breaks due to a burst electrolytic capacitor, you can take it to the corner electronics repair shop and pay somebody $10 to open it up, unsolder the bad capacitor, solder in a new one, and send you home with a working camcorder. In America, $10 wouldn't even pay the postage to ship it to a repair center, let alone the $100-200 or more you'd have to pay for the actual repair labor. As labor prices in China slowly approach parity with the US and Japan, much of the problem will solve itself because China's own domestic industry will come to view substandard components as unacceptable.

    3. Re:Eliminate all Chinese imports by Dewin · · Score: 2

      In China, if your $180 camcorder breaks due to a burst electrolytic capacitor, you can take it to the corner electronics repair shop and pay somebody $10 to open it up, unsolder the bad capacitor, solder in a new one, and send you home with a working camcorder. In America, $10 wouldn't even pay the postage to ship it to a repair center, let alone the $100-200 or more you'd have to pay for the actual repair labor.

      I have a TV that, due to some rough handling in a move, had one of the jacks for component input break off. It still worked if you could manage to get a cord to stay in just right (I think we had a solution involving tape, cardboard and clay), but otherwise was very fickle.

      Presumably, somebody skilled in electronics could get a $2 jack and with 10-20 minutes or so solder a replacement into place. Instead, a TV repair shop wanted $75 just to diagnose the problem much less start fixing it.

      I kept the TV (and did not end up getting it repaired), but the fact that someone here in the US would be more likely to spend $500+ on a new TV and just throw away the old one "because it's broken" is stupid, and I'd love to go to some shop around the corner and get it fixed for $10.

      --
      Of course nobody reads the FAQ! If people read the FAQ, the Questions wouldn't be so Frequently Asked.
    4. Re:Eliminate all Chinese imports by Relayman · · Score: 1

      Sorry, those of us who can fix it charge $75. I can make more money doing other things so why should I cut you a $65 break?

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    5. Re:Eliminate all Chinese imports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That said, the jack would cost closer to $0.20 than $2.00, and a cheap soldering iron and a small spool of solder would cost less than half of the "diagnosis fee". Look at it as an opportunity to pick up a new skill.

    6. Re:Eliminate all Chinese imports by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Assuming it's a LCD or plasma TV, by the time you've figured out how to take the damn thing apart and got to to the jack, repaired it, and put it back together you're probably looking at more than an hour's worth of time. I've taken a few apart to do "simple" repairs like that and it's a pain in the ass as generally they are not meant to be taken apart and repaired.

  12. Jail time. Lots of jail time. by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    18 U.S.C. 2154: Production of defective war material, war premises, or war utilities:

    (a) 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.

    For some reason, charges aren't being brought under that law. A few CEOs doing 30 years in the Federal pen would put a big dent in the problem.

    1. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Insightful

      But we aren't at 'war' (except for drugs and cancer). Maybe Michelle Bachman constitutes a National Emergency but I'm not sure that's what the framers of law had in mind.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the War on Poverty and the War on Terror. I think there may be a War on Illiteracy, as well.

    3. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by gman003 · · Score: 2

      Check Proclamation 7463 (signed 2011-09-14, extended annually throughout Bush's and Obama's terms). There's also Executive Order 12947 (signed 1995-24-01 by Clinton), and two more signed in 1979-10-14 and 1995-03-15 that I couldn't (be assed to) find more specifics on.

      We're under at least four "limited" states of emergency right now. With the exception of Israel (which has been under a state of emergency since 1948), we've been under an uninterrupted state of emergency longer than any other country.

    4. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we aren't at war, then why are our troops all over the place? Indeed, why do we even have a huge army, when a standing army in peacetime is expressly forbidden by the constitution? (only a standing navy is expressly authorized, I would presume because of the long lead time on building capital vessels and training crews, and because a navy is necessary to protect merchant vessels from piracy)

    5. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by Simulant · · Score: 1

      I expect they generally walk with a fine. IMO, fraud by US contractors towards the federal government should be treated as something akin to treason.

    6. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      why do we even have a huge army, when a standing army in peacetime is expressly forbidden by the constitution?

      Historically, like Topsy, it just grew.

      Practically, changes in modern warfare, particularly transportation, mean that any major national power that wishes to remain intact must be able to field a trained army in days, and in some cases hours. Not having a standing army is an invitation to disaster. The Constitution probably needs to be amended to account for the change in technology, just as it was when inauguration day was moved forward. (Important note: this is one of the few instances when technology should affect the Constitution. Most of the proposals I see that say things like "The internet means the Constitution is invalid" are garbage.)

      That said, the US military is overextended and a financial burden. It should be intelligently, slowly, and moderately reduced in geographical scope.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    7. Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      North Korea -- Cease fire, but still engaged.

  13. Consider the percentage by msobkow · · Score: 1

    The US budget for 2012 military spending is well over a trillion dollars. 7.5 billion might be a lot in total dollars, but it's 0.075 percent of the total budget. Not a particularly high rate of fraud in that context.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:Consider the percentage by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      The US budget for 2012 military spending is well over a trillion dollars. 7.5 billion might be a lot in total dollars, but it's 0.075 percent of the total budget. Not a particularly high rate of fraud in that context.

      OTOH, setting up a US based fab, even if expensive by COTS standards, would be a rounding error in the DOD's budget.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Consider the percentage by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      The US budget for 2012 military spending is well over a trillion dollars. 7.5 billion might be a lot in total dollars, but it's 0.075 percent of the total budget. Not a particularly high rate of fraud in that context.

      1)The US budget for 2012 military spending includes just about $735 billion (including the VA). Which is well short of a trillion dollars.

      Note that we don't actually HAVE a budget for 2012, any more than we've had one in any year since 2007.
      But the proposed budget is $735 billion, including "Overseas Contingency Operations", which I take as a euphemism for "just in case we need to bomb someone".

      2) It's 0.75%, not 0.075%. Why do so many slashdotters seem to have so much trouble with basic arithmetic?

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    3. Re:Consider the percentage by msobkow · · Score: 1

      A trillion is 1000 billion. 7.5 / 1000 * 100 ==> 7.5 / 10. 0.75.

      Dang. You're right.

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    4. Re:Consider the percentage by idontgno · · Score: 1

      OTOH, setting up a US based fab, even if expensive by COTS standards, would be a rounding error in the DOD's budget.

      Whose fab? In case you hadn't noticed, the DoD manufactures NONE of its own equipment, let alone components.

      So... pay IBM or TI to build and maintain dedicated fab capacity? Any company which won that particular prize would be swarmed by lawsuits and other contract protest actions by every competitor in that space, domestic or not.

      We're in an acquisition environment which requires fairness in soliciting; a "domestic content" rule, explicit or implicit, would probably be the basis of the fastest and most effective contract award protest in history because it would disqualify so many otherwise valid bidders, and the mission-needs argument wouldn't ultimately matter as much as all of the companies getting their fair shot; after all, that's why they contribute to election campaigns and pay lobbyists, as well as why they make strategic partnerships with domestic companies (to put a local face on the bid, and to snare more locality-based political support).

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  14. Prosecute parts counterfeiting as sabotage. by couchslug · · Score: 1

    That is precisely what it is.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    1. Re:Prosecute parts counterfeiting as sabotage. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what happened with our banking system. Shoulda charged them with the same thing. Sadly they are all people of the same kind of levels pulling this BS. Good luck getting any action.

  15. 11 000 US jobs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eleven thousand US jobs are lost to chinese parts being counterfeit by ... someone? Where do the US jobs come into play here? Why is "US jobs this" "US jobs that" being abused for absolutely everything?

    It sounds like a little bit of extra US money is being lost. The jobs are already gone -- or are they saying that 11 000 US counterfeiters are out of work due to the Chinese counterfeiting the parts instead?

    This is pathetic.

  16. When everything goes to china.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd doubt many of the counterfit componets are made in the good ol USA to begin with anyways. Most of our manufacturing plant and industral base has been exported overseas over the past twenty years. This has effects all over our economy, and is directly responsible for the mess you see today (joblessness, the occupy movement, the price of goods going up as transporting them is no longer cheap, etc.)

  17. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    The US doesn't make ANYTHING

    Ford will be so disappointed to hear that.

  18. oh no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the death machines might not work! boo...

  19. oh bs by deodiaus2 · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, we are in a world flooded by cheap Chinese and Indian goods. Unfortunately, when it comes to cheap and quick, I don't think the Chinese or Indian have anything worse than everyone else. Just look at housing in the US. Most of the buildings are shoddly built. Even upper middle class houses fall into this category. I had so many problems with my previous almost new house. Yes, you could have it built by good old blue boys, but I doubt that construction workers really value quality.

    1. Re:oh bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Just wondering, have you bought a house in China to compare your American one to? Have you seen the quality of construction work that passes for "acceptable" around here? There was a news article the other day about a bridge where the construction workers used stones instead of cement and that one construction worker admitted "“I wouldn’t dare ride [any trains that go over this bridge] once its opened."

      I have lived outside Shanghai for 3 years and the way they cut corners in this country is mind-blowing in its thoroughness. Remember the melamine-tainted milk from a few years back that killed all those babies? What about the toys containing lead made for export? Did you know that 10% of oil used in restaurants in China is carcinogenic because it's been recycled using harsh chemicals? In my opinion, the Chinese as a whole are far less concerned about "doing the right thing" than people are in America are. The culture just doesn't see a problem with screwing other people over, if you can get away with it. Doesn't stop at manufacturing, either--people litter shamelessly, don't stop at red lights, and extortion is considered a viable business strategy. Call me racist if it makes you feel better, but I've seen too much to pretend that Chinese culture isn't shit. I didn't come to this country with such notions, but I certainly will leave with them.

      "To be rich is glorious." - Deng Xiaoping

      Articles that mention the stuff I said:
      http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/corner-cutting-exposed-in-jilin-railway-bridge-project.html
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
      http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/world/asia/china-recycled-cooking-oil-poses-risk.html

  20. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by stox · · Score: 1

    Do note that some Fords have so many parts not made in the US that they qualify as foreign cars.

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  21. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by mug+funky · · Score: 1

    and the rest come from canada. which still counts as "america"...

  22. Yes but.... by InspectorGadget1964 · · Score: 1

    Well, since the value of the US dollar is dropping rapidly, it is just fair that when you pay in US$ you get less, so a few counterfeit IC’s in the box should be expected and considered fair play

  23. UID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That is what the UID initiative is all about. Contact your local DCMA and tell them to include it in their contracts!

  24. Easy Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about some legislation that says that the U.S. military will only buy from U.S. manufacturers if there is one?

  25. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by Truekaiser · · Score: 1

    they don't make the cars. they just assemble the parts which are made elsewhere. very few parts in a 'american' car are actually made here.

  26. US workers are cheap for the government to hire by nido · · Score: 1

    The federal government gets a substantial part of every US worker's salary.

    Wikipedia has this example tax computation for someone making $40,000/year... About 16% of this worker's wages are paid to the government. If you double the Social Security and Medicare portions (to account for the part the employer pays), this rises to 21%.

    So the effective cost for the government to hire U.S. workers is substantially less than it is for the private sector.

    Yes, they could hire 11,000 US workers to manufacture every single part, and save money overall.

    There, fixed that for you. :)

    --
    Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
    www.teslabox.com
    1. Re:US workers are cheap for the government to hire by tibit · · Score: 1

      I don't know how they calculated it, but for a family of four with a mortgage and an equivalent of one good job, the residual federal tax rate would be around 1-2%.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  27. Re:NHL jerseys by ELCouz · · Score: 0

    Holy Jesus sweet irony !!! ... spamming for counterfeit NHL Jerseys probably made in China, in a counterfeit story! Spammers are getting dumber and dumber!

  28. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

    No good has come from so-called "Free Trade".

    Oh, I wouldn't say that. It's helped export a pile of US legislation and policy that no other government would ever voluntarily accept into the countries that wanted the "free trade" agreements. So it has had some positive effect.

    .

  29. there's no money in that by dutchwhizzman · · Score: 2

    Your assumption makes no sense. Why would you "sprinkle" 10% of cheap parts to be replaced with even cheaper equivalents. You gain a few dollars and risk getting caught. There are plenty of high spec parts that can be replaced with slightly lower spec parts that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars less per item in the lower quality.

    --
    I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
  30. US jobs more important than US lives? by dutchwhizzman · · Score: 1

    I'm reading about money and "US Jobs" in the summary, but for some reason, lost lives due to malfunctioning equipment doesn't seem to be a problem. Sure, it's about weapons, so you'd expect lives to be lost, or it wouldn't be much of a weapon, but what if it's the "good guys" that get killed or deserve a life long government funding of their handicapped existence? If that's not important, you can buy much more inferior weapons, and replace the weapons capabilities with lots of US jobs in the military. That way, you'd spend less on weapons and more people in the US would be employed. Sure, if you're the US government, you should be concerned about US jobs, but at what cost?

    --
    I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
    1. Re:US jobs more important than US lives? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      Well, according to the pentagon, no one has actually died from counterfeit parts, nor has any cases of 'catastrophic mission failure' occurred, at least yet. The argument that these parts are dangerous is still so far purely speculative.

  31. oooOOO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like the middleman/parasite is being left out of the loop for military procurement, and now his panties is in a knot.
    Better make a stink about "counterfeit" parts to try to get back the revenue stream.

  32. All your system belong to us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This would make a good movie plot.

  33. Military vs. Civilian Supply Chains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This makes me really wonder about generic medicine supply chains. They affect all of us -- especially as insurers pressure us to use more generics. Their supply chains are much worse than name brands, there's just as much incentive by the importers to ignore any potential problems, the FDA's regulations are easily circumvented with bribes...

  34. Don't you find it funny by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Don't you find it funny that in the age of "Quality Assurance", six sigma and various other schemes that less actual product testing to ensure a product complies with a standard is going on? Some idiots extracted buzzwords from good manufacturing practices and then pretended the buzzwords were enough and scrapped the good manufacturing practices.
    There's also a lot of rubber stamp certification going on. One blatant example I saw was some guys doing a test with a magnet to find cracks in a welded pipe (MPI) - and the bastards ran the magnet under the pipe to leave scratches to make it look like the test had been done properly but did not crouch down to look under the pipe and actually do the test. In that case they missed some major defects that could be seen easily without even doing the test. If you don't have enough guys to keep the contractors honest you get ripped off.

  35. Words of the weasel by dbIII · · Score: 1

    It's diplomaticly convenient to pretend that there isn't a war but it doesn't fool anyone. So, why did you join the weasels on this or are you merely pointing out that without a formal declaration laws like the one quoted above are difficult to enforce?
    Historically such sabotage has gone unpunished in times of declared war. The most blatant example I can think of was the Liberty ships where the 1930s guidelines from Lloyds, ASTM (think it was ASM back then) and the not so distant lesson of the Titanic were ignored in favour of cost-cutting and using sub standard materials to build cargo ships that were sold at a wartime premium. Many of those ships sank due to cracking in cold weather and hundreds of them had major cracks that required taking them out of service for long periods of time. Now people like to pretend that the builders back then didn't know any better so didn't know to use a test devised in 1905, but books written on the subject in the 1950s are scathing in their criticism and imply that war profiteering was a major factor. The Titanic had that excuse but after that it was about cutting corners and increasing profit at the cost of a nation.

    1. Re:Words of the weasel by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It's diplomaticly convenient to pretend that there isn't a war but it doesn't fool anyone.

      it doesn't matter, because the USA is in a perpetual state of emergency. if it's not a terorrist attack, it's heavy weather, or an earthquake. we can always find an excuse.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  36. Similar in All industries by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    This isn't even just a problem of cheap suppliers. We source some industrial process gear from reputable a reputable American company. None the less every so often we get a shipment with a couple of parts failing Positive Material Identification. Hastelloy, Inconell, and many other exotic alloys all pretty much look the same to the naked eye so this could be down to accident, but none the less it's not just sourcing components from China that could be a potential problem.

    They just don't do quality control like they used to.

  37. US Military Trying To Weed Out Counterfeit Parts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm unclear on how this could "cost 11,000 US Jobs" if the parts are being made overseas anyway?

  38. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by clickclickdrone · · Score: 1

    Do note that some Fords have so many parts not made in the US that they qualify as foreign cars.

    Back in the 70's/early 80's, in the UK, Volvo turned out to be the cars with the highest % of British parts in them even allowing for the fact we 'made' Fords, GM (Vauxhall to us) and other vehicles in the UK but imported Volvos.

    --
    I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
  39. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by WindBourne · · Score: 2

    amazing that you got modded up. America remains one of the largest, if not still the largest (not likely) manufacturer going. USA manufacturers loads. In fact, if you disregard trade with China and oil, we have a positive trade balance with the entire rest of the world. And if you just ignore China, America has a slight trade deficit. Our issue is China. We have a massive trade deficit with China because they are cheating at all aspects. Sadly, many American companies have moved there and now pay congressmen to fight enforcement of our FTA with China and WTO.

    And oddly, with the situation in Europe, China is hard at work trying to get EU to be just as foolish as America has been in return for a few euros. Thankfully, EU is fighting that.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  40. This is how China will defeat the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There is a War brewing between East and West, and this is how China is going to win. By handing over the responsibility of manufacturing weapons to the lowest-bidding multinational outsourcing corporation, we've practically handed ourselves over to our enemies (and China *is* and enemy whether you want to admit it or not).

  41. The Biggest Threat To US Soldiers.. by bridgey655 · · Score: 1

    Is the US government who send them on unjust, illegal wars, based on lies and propaganda for their own selfish gain!

    1. Re:The Biggest Threat To US Soldiers.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus give it a rest already. We all know that the people sitting around drinking Ron Paul Semen Cocktails are against US involvement anywhere. Old news. We don't care.

    2. Re:The Biggest Threat To US Soldiers.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you don't care sucking on the Faux News tit, but others of that that actually care about this country do.

  42. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    The chart you have posted do not support your assertion. Though it is titled "top 12 manufacturing countries" it is based on GDP and GNI, not tons of manufactured goods exported. Since we export a lot of food, raw materials, and in particular recycled materials — we re-use almost none of the steel from our crushed autos in this country, because recycling it produces a great deal of pollution and we like to externalize that.

    Do you have a chart that shows a comparison of tons of manufactured goods exported? Preferably one which does not count shipping materials as goods.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  43. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

    The US doesn't make ANYTHING

    Bullshit. The US manufactures more by dollar value than any other nation. We just don't export any of it.

    Manufacturing JOBS may be down, but manufacturing production is still the highest in the world (again, by dollar value): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#Manufacturing

  44. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

    Who gives a shit about tons exported? That wasn't the question. The question was, does the US manufacture anything? The answer is yes. More than any other country in the world, by dollar value, NOT tonnage. Which matters more? Of course, we don't export manufactured goods, but that is a separate issue from whether we actually manufacture anything.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#Manufacturing

  45. You missed a big one by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2

    Practically zero environmental requirements. As long as the slav^H^H^H^H workers and local residents don't die in noticeable numbers, you can do whatever you like (apart from paying the requisite local government bribes).

    1. Re:You missed a big one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice delusional thinking but obviously you've never been to a fab overseas. They have all the same safety and environmental laws, rules and procedures used in the US. But keeping telling yourself lies because obviously they make you feel better about reality.

  46. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    So, you think that weight is a better scale of how much manufacturing a nation does? You are kidding. Right? Good luck with finding that out since it is considered as useful as CO2 per capita. In addition, the discussion was NOT manufacturing exported, but manufacturing.

    However, LMGTFY.
    And that produced a new report with a graph.
    Heck, here is a http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/16/rising-us-exports-trade-deficit-oil-china/">new article about exporting.

    America is the world #2-3 exporter in terms of manufactured goods (Germany passed us in 2008,9, but we recovered in 2010). The problem is that China CHEATS causing loads of imports to America. That leads to a misperception that America has quit manufacturing. Have them quit cheating, and we will rise to #1 again. When ppl say that USA can not compete, does not manufacture, and does not export, they do not have a single clue of what they are saying, OR they are simply lying to protect something (basically politicians). The best thing that America can do is raise the trade barriers to China, alone. All other major nations, esp. EU nations, have the sanity to say that they will not allow China to do this garbage.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  47. How odd by koan · · Score: 1

    We let the enemy manufacture our military parts?

    And for thoughts on the entire thing my sig says it all.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:How odd by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      China isn't the enemy, whatever people on the internet say. They aren't necessarily our friend either, for sure...

    2. Re:How odd by koan · · Score: 1

      They are, it just isn't apparent to everyone yet.

      I would qualify that by saying I don't believe every single Chinese person is an enemy of the US, but the government for sure, several factions within China for sure, and of course business wise they are our enemy.

      --
      "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  48. It's cultural by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The reason why someone would risk their reputation for a small increase in profit is cultural. The Chinese have no misgivings about ripping off their customers. Whatever they can get away with, they will.

    Go to the Consumer Electronics Show sometime and talk to the people there. You'll hear horror stories over and over that all follow the same pattern - "The minute we turned our backs, the Chinese contractor started substituting whatever cheap-ass parts they could find."

    It's cultural. They believe if they *can* rip you off and get away with it, then that's the right thing to do. Anyone who does business with them who doesn't have their own people in the factory, doing QC and generally being suspicious, is taking way too much risk.

    1. Re:It's cultural by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I could mod you up to infinity, I would.

      It's not PC, but I don't care:
      They do not have a "Thou shall not steal" or "Thou shall not lie" built into their ethical base.
      After watching my previous company's manufacturer on a trade-show floor talking to people, it was very very clear they were going to be a problem. (And they were.)

    2. Re:It's cultural by Pope · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, American companies never do anything dishonest or illegal to boost profits!

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    3. Re:It's cultural by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Nothing compared to China. I mean, if we removed all regulation, it would get their in a hurry. Right now? not even comparable.
      It's why I stopped working for a company that did business in China. The amount of expected corruption is appalling.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:It's cultural by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yellow flag, false dichotomy, penalty - 10 yards

    5. Re:It's cultural by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      The reason why someone would risk their reputation for a small increase in profit is cultural. The Chinese have no misgivings about ripping off their customers. Whatever they can get away with, they will.

      While I don't disagree with this statement, it's hardly their exclusive domain. You'll find the same swindling assholes in, say (good example) California, where there are people who run businesses, charging top dollar for developers/contractors/consultants and hiring Indians and interns to do the work (albeit relatively competent versions of each).

      This is what you get when your culture has disavowed the existence of a higher power. When there is only "me" and "the state", if "the state" won't find you out, the vast majority will disregard the state if they won't be caught.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    6. Re:It's cultural by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Coming at ya, straight from the land of ethics.

  49. What an obvious attack vector. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    The generals who approved the decisions to purchase critical parts from overseas should be fired. For incompetence. Period. End of story.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    1. Re:What an obvious attack vector. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      WTF are we wasting our money to prop of the military industrial complex if they are going to start outsourcing all those jobs?? The rich owner in each district bribing officials? Is that going to be enough to keep us from finally exercising reason on our foolish military budget? Perhaps there is a good side to this?

      The US government, as should most governments, need to require any work they contract out to be LOCAL so at least they creating a closed loop of job creation. At least then the military is less of a burden... For the majority of this nation we didn't include military as employed because they are not a net positive for the economy but this is just making it so much worse.

  50. The demand curve slopes down. by Occams · · Score: 1

    Those lost revenue predictions are usually based on the strange notion that the demand is the same for both cheap copy parts and original parts at vastly higher prices. It isn't.

    --
    Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
    1. Re:The demand curve slopes down. by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      Yes, it's rather similar to the software piracy figures.

  51. YEEEHAW!!!! TRUST BUT VERIFY, BEEEOTCHES! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Here's what unfettered capitalism and the race to the bottom for costs buys you.

    Regulations make our job creators sad unicorns.

    /teabaggers

  52. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by gorzek · · Score: 1

    Let's not forget that Japanese manufacturers like Toyota have factories in the US, too, so those "foreign" cars are often assembled right here.

  53. The solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trusted foundry is not cheap. It is not feasible to manufacture all electronics used by the federal government in the United States.

    Then it fucking needs to be made feasible. And here's how to do it.

    1) Build new trusted chip plants here in the US which specifically only make parts for national defense and possibly also commercial aviation, medical equipment and space/satellite equipment.

    2) The EPA, OSHA, and any other alphabet soup federal agencies are declared to have zero jurisdiction of any kind whatsoever over these plants.

    3) Pay for these plants with import taxes levied on all imported chips and consumer devices containing imported chips. Consumer electronics are too damn cheap as it is, which fosters a throw-away mentality (there are genuine environmental problems due to this now). Consumer electronics need to be driven back to where they are considered durable, long term usage things again. Tough cookies if they cost more. You'll appreciate them better if you really had to work hard to earn enough to buy them then. Also, consumer electronics need to be designed to be serviceable and upgradeable, not disposable. This will help foster the revival and growth of a new generation of a consumer electronics service industry in the US like we once had in decades past.

    4) Build these plants in 'right to work' states, so the unions can't fuck things up like they did the auto and heavy equipment industries.

  54. Long design life / obsolescence problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I work for a large distributor of electronic components and I see this problem occur frequently. It always happens when the customer chooses to buy their parts from a broker or some other unauthorized disty. Most of the time they do this because either A) none of the major distys have that part in stock and the lead times are too long, or more often B) the part in question has been obsoleted and they can't get them from the usual channel. Mil/Aero and medical design customers especially tend to fall victim to this because their designs have extremely long life cycles compared to products designed in other industries. The testing and qualification phase takes forever for these products so obviously the manufacturers want to keep them on sale as long as possible. A typical IC may have a lifespan of about 10 years before the supplier issues an EOL notice, perhaps giving the customer one additional year to place a last-time, lifetime buy on those parts. Once they're gone, they're gone for good and for whatever reason these customer designs never seem to get updated/redesigned with new parts (lack of resources at the company or maybe the design was done over a decade ago and the files are missing, whatever). The next thing you know, the customer tries to find parts on the grey market. The stuff that's out there is frightening. The parts look perfect but they aren't; they could be empty packages with no die inside or perhaps they were scraped off an old PCB and re-silkscreened on the top with new date codes. Mil / Aero designs almost always specify Industrial temperature grade parts, too; certainly the bogus stuff hasn't been screened/tested for that range.

    I saw one customer do this recently and they got burned to the tune of about $250K after buying parts from a broker. They were told something like, "Oh, these parts were originally sold to Company X but were returned unused." Yeah, right.

  55. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Dollars and tons are both only estimators, because the dollar values go up and down based on so many factors which have nothing to do with the goods themselves, and the tons are only relevant to get a feel for how much stuff is moving around. This country has a lot of service industry.

    I don't think we can't compete on equal footing, but I'm not that interested in competing against slave labor. I think we can manufacture, but only for our own use, luxury goods aside. And I think we do export, but that China is the monster, and it is.

    As for "cheating", we have tariffs and subsidies of our own, that's a crap argument.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  56. Some poorly made products are astonishing by cvtan · · Score: 1

    How about a USB cable to connect a cell phone to a computer that had no metallic conductors in it? Just rubber insulation with the correct connectors on the ends. Granted this was from eBay, but we finally figured out what it was. A wireless cable. It can't be that hard to make an IC package with no chip in it.

    --
    Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
  57. Missing the big picture by MiniMike · · Score: 1

    You are missing the big picture, and the logical outcome of this outsourcing. Eventually, the actual troops themselves will be outsourced to China. When the sh** eventually hits the fan, we will have low-quality troops already in every major Chinese city. Victory will be ours, if the conflict starts on a weekday. What could go wrong with a plan this good?

  58. Har dee har har har by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Badump-Tish

    Be sure to tip your waiter and try the veal.

  59. Counterfeit parts cause air crash by Old+Wolf · · Score: 1

    Tragic, but perhaps less tragic than what could happen if some of the US military systems malfunction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnair_Flight_394

  60. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    actually, dollars, or more accurately money, are NOT estimators. By defintion, it is how we value things so that we can make distinction in value. When you speak of a trade deficit, is it spoken of in terms of tonnage or dollars? Dollars. It is impossible to compare goods values predicated on tonnage. If I sell you a vaccine for a disease that is ravaging your nation, I can sell it for high prices. Yet, for your entire nation, it might only be 100 lbs, but it is the most valuable commodity that you can buy at that time. OTH, do you really think that anybody is every going to assign a high value to mcdonald toys?

    yes, we have a lot of service. But of course, we were talking manufactured goods and that is all the data that we looked at. None of it was exported goods AND SERVICES. It was always exported goods. We are today the second largest exporter of manufactured goods. Obviously the rest of the world disagrees with you. We can and do have the ability to manufacture. Otherwise, we would not be #2 exporter of goods. Simple as that.

    Now, as to China's cheating, We DO have tariffs. Against a very small amount of items. OTH, China has over 400 trade barriers with tariffs on over 1000's of items.
    Likewise, we have subsidies. However, the subsidies are only used for local consumption, not for exports. China's subsidizes exports. In particular, their energy cost is about 3x ours. Yet, businesses pay less than Americas if oyu are int he right industry. Likewise, they out and out give subsidies to companies that move there. Once markets are destroyed in the west, then they quit subsidizing those and move on. Who is doing that in the west?
    Solar panels are being dumped on the west at WELL below costs. The Chinese gov. is actually paying companies that moved there to sell the goods to America. Their goal is to destroy US. They are doing the same in Germany. That is why this is going to WTO.
    Finally, China manipulates their money against western nations. That is not allowed per the clinton treaty as well as their joining IMF/WTO. Yet, they are doing it. At this time, we need to raise barriers to them and say enough is enough. They need to compete.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  61. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    actually, dollars, or more accurately money, are NOT estimators. By defintion, it is how we value things so that we can make distinction in value.

    That was true before currency speculation.

    Solar panels are being dumped on the west at WELL below costs.

    And China is polluting itself to do so. The full costs are being externalized, to China. This is a self-defeating strategy.

    Finally, China manipulates their money against western nations. That is not allowed per the clinton treaty as well as their joining IMF/WTO.

    Uh, have you ever heard of quantitative easing? That's where we print more money to reduce the trade imbalance with China, and then claim that it was for some other purpose. China is hopping mad as we have devalued their dollars by printing money and handing it to banks.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  62. Re:LOL, fucked by "Free Trade" once again! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    No. currency speculation deals with trading against a value. Considering that the $ is the widest accepted standard, then it is not currency speculation to voice a value in dollars.

    There was a real reason why we had anti-monopoly laws. The fact is, that driving a competitor out of business by using subsidizing on other goods, works wonders. That is what is happening in China. They are doing what we regard as illegal here. In fact, what WTO regards as illegal. In fact, what EVERY NATION regards as illegal. heck, if EU were to do this to CHina, they would block them.

    Yes, we did QE1 and 2. But it was to force China to have LOADS of inflation. It worked. But is that money manipulation? Not in the same way as it would be if fixed the dollar to the euro with it being 40-100% undervalued. And that is exactly what China does. Part of me really wants QE3 to happen right now. That will drive China to unhook their money from the dollar. The reason is that they already have their real estate and building material bubble popping, so can not afford to have the hyper inflation that has existed there. The issue is that if we do this, the euro will be screwed. And that is the last thing that Europe needs right now. Instead, it is far better for China to do the right thing, which they are not doing.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.