3 ms·

Ken Shirriff's teardowns are the best. In particular, this comparison between different USB AC adapters was quite illuminating: http://www.righto.com/2012/10/

Ken Shirriff's teardowns are the best. In particular, this comparison between different USB AC adapters was quite illuminating: http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-ap... The legit ones have quite a bit of complexity inside their inconspicuous package. The fake one carry some not-so-innocuous surprises inside.

stygiansonic 11y ago
One other thing I've learned about counterfeiters is that there is almost no product too cheap to counterfeit. If there is a suitable demand for the product, there will be counterfeits. You can see this in the cheap USB AC adapters above, but also in items like the Casio F-91W[1], a cheap retro watch that has made a comeback in recent years. Search on eBay and you'll find tons of them, mostly for really cheap prices, i.e. < $10 or even < $5. It's virtually impossible to identify a fake on the auction site, and even when you first have it it's difficult to tell. (Here[2] is one test, and a teardown comparison between fake vs. real) So, just assume anything super-cheap is fake, and you won't be let down. However, there are some real differences. You'll notice that the band might look/feel slightly cheaper, and most importantly, the thing doesn't keep time. I have a legit F-91W, and for the most part, the watch doesn't gain/lose more than maybe 1-3 minutes per year. The fake ones, however, are fast/slow by 10-20 minutes per month. This is likely where they are saving money, i.e. the quartz oscillator thingy is either cheap or doesn't have calibration or whatever. The battery life is also likely far worse than most Casios, (though I have not confirmed this) which are generally excellent in this respect. This is a watch that is regularly available on Amazon for a legit price of < $15. (Right now, it's ~$10) And there are tons of fakes out there. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_-_Phiklc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_-_Phiklc
- pthreads 11y ago
  Cool. Thanks for the links. I used to have a genuine Casio years ago and loved it. Ran for about five years on the same battery. Wanted to buy one again and almost bought one online.
- cortesoft 11y ago
  So you are saying I should sell my fakes for the same price as the real ones?
- qb45 11y ago
  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W According to secret documents issued to interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, obtained and released by The Guardian, "the Casio F-91W digital watch was declared to be 'the sign of al-Qaeda' and a contributing factor to continued detention of prisoners by the analysts stationed at Guantánamo Bay. Briefing documents used to train staff in assessing the threat level of new detainees advise that possession of the F91W – available online for as little as £4 – suggests the wearer has been trained in bomb making by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." United States Military intelligence officials have identified the F91W as a watch that terrorists use when constructing time bombs. One learns something new every day. Good that I went with the W59 instead :)
  - cmdkeen 11y ago
    The irony is that a huge number of people in the UK military wear the F91W as it does everything you need a watch to do, is dirt cheap and hard to break. Don't know if the same applies in the US, but I wouldn't put it past the prospect that at least one guard at Guantanamo wears the same watch...
  - pjc50 11y ago
    This does sound like a classic example of someone in the intelligence service being bad at conditional probability. "All the people we captured wear F91Ws" does not imply "everyone wearing an F91W is a terrorist"!
    - qb45 11y ago
      Actually, they say they found time bomb detonators based on this watch. United States Military intelligence officials have identified the F91W as a watch that terrorists use when constructing time bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Al_Qaida_watch_timer_on_perf_board_84071_-abc.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Al_Qaida_watch_timer_on_p...
      - ska 11y ago
        You're missing the point about conditional probability. P(has a F-91W | is a terrorist) != P(is a terrorist | F-91W) Via Bayes theorem you can fix this with a ratio P(is a terrorist)/P(has a F-91W) So if the global population of people with F-91W is large relative to the population of terrorists, you are going to have a lot of false positives. e.g. say that 100% of terrorists have a F-91W, that there are 10,000 terrorists, and that 100M people have F-91W then you still only have a .01% chance that a given F-91W wearer is a terrorist. Obviously there is more information to go on than just a watch, but that's the point you were replying to.
- gambiting 11y ago
  Well, I guess the answer is that in some countries $15 is quite a lot of money, so people want to have a "casio" watch but for 1/3 of the price. That's the market these watches are made for, not the rich economies of the west.
cordite 11y ago
I'm surprised the HP touchpad charger got such high regards. I admit, it seemed to do well with non Apple devices, though it would make an annoying high pitch noise when idling.

stygiansonic 11y ago

One other thing I've learned about counterfeiters is that there is almost no product too cheap to counterfeit. If there is a suitable demand for the product, there will be counterfeits. You can see this in the cheap USB AC adapters above, but also in items like the Casio F-91W[1], a cheap retro watch that has made a comeback in recent years. Search on eBay and you'll find tons of them, mostly for really cheap prices, i.e. < $10 or even < $5. It's virtually impossible to identify a fake on the auction site, and even when you first have it it's difficult to tell. (Here[2] is one test, and a teardown comparison between fake vs. real) So, just assume anything super-cheap is fake, and you won't be let down. However, there are some real differences. You'll notice that the band might look/feel slightly cheaper, and most importantly, the thing doesn't keep time. I have a legit F-91W, and for the most part, the watch doesn't gain/lose more than maybe 1-3 minutes per year. The fake ones, however, are fast/slow by 10-20 minutes per month. This is likely where they are saving money, i.e. the quartz oscillator thingy is either cheap or doesn't have calibration or whatever. The battery life is also likely far worse than most Casios, (though I have not confirmed this) which are generally excellent in this respect. This is a watch that is regularly available on Amazon for a legit price of < $15. (Right now, it's ~$10) And there are tons of fakes out there. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_-_Phiklc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_-_Phiklc

pthreads 11y ago
Cool. Thanks for the links. I used to have a genuine Casio years ago and loved it. Ran for about five years on the same battery. Wanted to buy one again and almost bought one online.
cortesoft 11y ago
So you are saying I should sell my fakes for the same price as the real ones?
qb45 11y ago
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W According to secret documents issued to interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, obtained and released by The Guardian, "the Casio F-91W digital watch was declared to be 'the sign of al-Qaeda' and a contributing factor to continued detention of prisoners by the analysts stationed at Guantánamo Bay. Briefing documents used to train staff in assessing the threat level of new detainees advise that possession of the F91W – available online for as little as £4 – suggests the wearer has been trained in bomb making by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." United States Military intelligence officials have identified the F91W as a watch that terrorists use when constructing time bombs. One learns something new every day. Good that I went with the W59 instead :)
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  The irony is that a huge number of people in the UK military wear the F91W as it does everything you need a watch to do, is dirt cheap and hard to break. Don't know if the same applies in the US, but I wouldn't put it past the prospect that at least one guard at Guantanamo wears the same watch...
- pjc50 11y ago
  This does sound like a classic example of someone in the intelligence service being bad at conditional probability. "All the people we captured wear F91Ws" does not imply "everyone wearing an F91W is a terrorist"!
  - qb45 11y ago
    Actually, they say they found time bomb detonators based on this watch. United States Military intelligence officials have identified the F91W as a watch that terrorists use when constructing time bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Al_Qaida_watch_timer_on_perf_board_84071_-abc.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Al_Qaida_watch_timer_on_p...
    - ska 11y ago
      You're missing the point about conditional probability. P(has a F-91W | is a terrorist) != P(is a terrorist | F-91W) Via Bayes theorem you can fix this with a ratio P(is a terrorist)/P(has a F-91W) So if the global population of people with F-91W is large relative to the population of terrorists, you are going to have a lot of false positives. e.g. say that 100% of terrorists have a F-91W, that there are 10,000 terrorists, and that 100M people have F-91W then you still only have a .01% chance that a given F-91W wearer is a terrorist. Obviously there is more information to go on than just a watch, but that's the point you were replying to.
gambiting 11y ago
Well, I guess the answer is that in some countries $15 is quite a lot of money, so people want to have a "casio" watch but for 1/3 of the price. That's the market these watches are made for, not the rich economies of the west.

cordite 11y ago

I'm surprised the HP touchpad charger got such high regards. I admit, it seemed to do well with non Apple devices, though it would make an annoying high pitch noise when idling.