“There’re a lot of chiselers out there,” Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek sighed. Congressional angst over counterfeit parts has understandably focused on ersatz electronics, many of them from much-mistrusted China, but as head of the Defense Logistics Agency, Harnitchek has found fakes in everything from air filters to rubber tubing. “There’re folks that counterfeit those, believe it or not,”
More at Breaking Defense
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on information collection under the Fastener Quality Act of 1999 (FQA).
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Status updates from the ‘Open Cases Reports’ …
Here’s an interesting blog post about how a chip producer uses “Windows Update” to deploy driver software that kills off clones of its popular product.
More at Hackaday …
Watch That Windows Update: FTDI Drivers Are Killing Fake Chips.
The article also refers to interesting forensic work to compare authentic and bogus product.
Third NDIA Supply Chain Summit, Tuesday, December 9th, Crown Plaza, Rockville MD
Increasingly, supply chains for defense products are being threatened by forces seeking to access technical intellectual property, to alter products performance, to disrupt operations, or to benefit economically from the robust U.S. defense market. These threats can come from insiders within the defense industrial base and their suppliers; terrorist groups;nation states (adversarial and friendly) and activist hackers. Threats can also come from dishonest merchants of counterfeit components seeking financial gain.
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Status updates from the ‘Open Cases Reports’ …
Conventional wisdom holds that counterfeit parts do not enter the supply chain through Authorized Distribution. Electronic part distribution experts claim such events are so improbable, the user community need not apply counterfeit avoidance practices when acquiring parts through authorized channels. Many of these experts have acknowledged, however, that the handling of product returns presents a possible point of vulnerability.
This essay discusses a counterfeit part escape through authorized distribution illustrating a vulnerability associated with processing products returned by customers. Authorized Distribution professionals have referred to this incident as a rarity and, therefore, neither a call for concern by the user community, nor worthy of the attention it has received. I offer some further thoughts to consider before dismissing this escape.
Status updates from the ‘Open Cases Reports’ …
The following article includes important insight into the Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) market and its approach to counterfeit part avoidance…
“Why the EMS industry must go to these lengths is the result of a consistent failure to recognize the desperate situation it is now in. But there’s a gap between what high-end (read: capable) and low-end test houses can detect, and the emphasis to date has been on keeping costs as low as possible, not on ensuring components are valid.”
Circuit Assembly Online Magazine – Fixing Disorder in Counterfeit Mitigation.
A proposed revision to AS5553 is out for committee vote.
The following is a summary prepared by G19CI committee representatives describing the proposed changes and rationale for these changes.
