> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Skeeve Stevens > Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 9:30 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]; > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [c-nsp] Fake Cisco Equipment News Articles - very interesting > > > This is an article which should be VERY interesting to ALL ISP's and > businesses using Cisco equipment. >
After the initial reaction of laughing, I have this to say about it. It is clearly rediculous that Chinese crackers are going to steal national security secrets by using counterfeit WIC-1DSU-T1 cards. I think the majority of counterfeit gear they picked up was probably along those lines. It is a bit more of a national security concern when the counterfeit gear is firewalls. I also am somewhat neutral on the issue of the government buying Cisco routers for $250 that normally sold for $2500, which was also metioned in the article. On one hand I don't like to see my tax dollars enriching some Chinese criminals pocket, on the other hand I would rather not have my taxes go up 90% to pay full price. I am mostly concerned with the following, however: 1) Purchase of networking equipment on credit cards rather than through the authorized government purchasing system. 2) Counterfeit gear getting into the government offices through the regular distributors. In case #1, that is clearly the case of network admins getting denied approval for a project and saying "fuck you" and going ahead with it anyway. While I'm sure lots of people can relate stories of dumb government decisions that required people to make end-runs around them, (ie: the $500 hammer, $2000 toilet seat, etc.) the fact is that we know about those stories precisely because the people in the government who were forced to go through some overcharging scamming vendor, complained to the press about it, rather than secretly slipping some hammer purchases though on a personal expense report. I don't want my civil servants making an end run around some beaurucrat that has his head up his ass, with a credit card and Ebay. I want them going to the press so the resultant citizen outrage gets the anally-inserted beaurucrat fired, or promoted into a harmless little office where he supervises staplers (which is how the government usually deal with embarassingly incompetent civil servants) In case #2, the middlemen/distributors/etc. that the government normally is buying from are selling Chinese counterfeit stuff for full price. Thus, they are buying the counterfeit gear for pennies and selling it for millions, and making a killing doing so. Well, the FBI discovered it, where are the stories of such distributors getting arrested for fraud? All in all, a very disturbing article. Not about the counterfeiting - we all know it happens. But the fact that the stuff got into the government networks in the first place. Ted _______________________________________________ cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
