5 Years In Prison For Selling Fake Cisco Gear 239
angry tapir writes "A Virginia woman was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for leading a 'sophisticated' conspiracy to import and sell counterfeit Cisco Systems networking equipment. In addition to the prison time, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia also ordered Chun-Yu Zhao, 43, of Chantilly, Virginia, to pay US$2.7 million restitution and a $17,500 fine."
speculating about the real purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm wondering whether there was a deeper purpose to importing counterfeited equipment. If such could be successfully sold into government operations, it could then be used for backdoors if it had been outfitted with modified ICs designed to support that. That the importer was in Virginia normally would not be too important, but Virginia and Maryland being prime areas for government installations makes it more suspicious, if they were going to pose as a local supplier. Then, by cutting their price on bids below normal competitors, they could steer their equipment into specific departments.
I think they ought to open up some of those counterfeits, spend some money de-capping some chips, and take a good look at what's really in them.
Cisco Compatible (Score:5, Interesting)
The irony is that nowadays folks legally sell the same equipment as "Cisco Compatible." She went to jail over a sticker.
Re:Cisco Compatible (Score:3, Interesting)
That's Chinese for you. They are pathological about faking - even when the same goods could be sold legitimately - even when they have a good product! They'll still make it a counterfeit.
There's a story I like to tell about stickers. A friend of mine was sourcing some sunglasses. He asks, "Do they have UV protection?" Evidently there's some confusion about translating ultraviolet radiation into Chinese. The translator goes back and forth for a few minutes. Finally the Chinese boss perks up and says, in English, "Oh, yes, we have sticker!" True story.
Re:speculating about the real purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
You might want to look up the "Assassin's Mace". The nearest definition that we seem to have, is "unconventional warfare". It's economic and political warfare, backed by military might. The Chinese have stated, as clearly as possible, that they intend to dominate the United States economically, politically, and militarily within 20 years. About ten years have passed, and they are well down the economic road, politically not so far, and they are indeed working on the military aspect. They actually have a few modern ships, that might be capable of challenging our own ships, one on one - although there is little evidence that they understand strategy, tactics, and fleet operations as well as we do. Likewise with their air power - they now own craft that are capable, in skilled hands, of challenging our best aircraft. The question is, do they have the skilled pilots to operate those craft? That hurdle passed (or not) the next question is whether they grasp the strategic, and tactical use of those aircraft.
Somewhat like the old Soviet, China takes a longterm view of things. They plan decades in advance. And, if they fail to accomplish their mission in 20 years, nothing prevents them from setting a new goal 10 or 20 years further into the future.
Compare that to the United States, where we can't plan 4 years ahead.
I think that ultimately, China will succeed.