4 ms·

> I've never had this issue We're talking about counterfeits. You don't believe you've ever had this issue, but why would you be certain?

LatteLazy 7y ago
At the risk of going all zen... If I receive a counterfeit good and it's so good I don't notice, was it really counterfeit?
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I guess there's safety concerns from sub-standard components burning out, or storage sizes being fraudulent and you only noticing when it's too late, or good-old lead paint, or more issues. But yeah, I have never even had a hint of any suspicion that anything I've bought on Amazon was a fake.
  - toast0 7y ago
    > storage sizes being fraudulent and you only noticing when it's too late It's good practice to run all your new memory cards through a storage test application to confirm it can store what it says. Doesn't mean it's not counterfeit, or that it will continue to accept writes to the full disk, but it's probably ok (and you may have sequential write/read stats as a result)
  - LatteLazy 7y ago
    I read a really interesting article once about a 128MB sd card having its firmware flashed so it claimed to be a 512MB. You saved files and when you got to the "128th" MB it just started writing at the 0th sector again... I thought that was a very clever fraud. Can't find the article now...
  - LatteLazy 7y ago
    I read a really interesting article once about a 128MB sd card having its firmware flashed so it claimed to be a 512MB. You saved files and when you got to the "128th" MB it just started writing at the 0th sector again... I thought that was a very clever fraud. Can't find the article now but I'll check on desktop later and share if I can...
    - fmajid 7y ago
      Probably this: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918
    - fenwick67 7y ago
      This is a very common problem. SD cards have microcontrollers running on-board that the manufacturers can reprogram to report any size.
- DataWorker 7y ago
  Like a router with a backdoor in it? Vitamins contaminated with carcinogenic material because testing and purity cost a lot but are invisible. Sadly I think most consumers have your mind set, they’ll never learn what caused their cancer or why they’re part of a giant botnet. American zen masters.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    > Like a router with a backdoor in it? Vitamins contaminated with carcinogenic material because testing and purity cost a lot but are invisible. Both of these things can and do happen with items at B&M stores and other vendors. Think about the whole cable modem backdoor that was recently discovered... Or the various cases of food poisoning that happen seemingly regularly... You aren't safe just because you purchase items thru a different "trusted" source. This is the outsourced world we live in today. When everything is outsourced, the possibility for counterfeiting, tampering, and maliciousness rises - because nobody can be held accountable (diffusion of responsibility). At one time, it was possible to trace things back far enough to find the original culprit and prosecute them. Today, if you're lucky, you might find a reasonable suspicion of a company - who will instantly (sometimes with a literal click of a button) close up shop, move everything, and re-open the next day under a new name. Furthermore, even if you ask around about them, nobody knows nuthin'.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      The purpose of a "brand name" is to provide insulation against this. If you have a brand that you trust, and you buy from that brand regularly, and the brand is based in your country, then they're more trustworthy because you know you can sue them or drag them into the mud in the court of public opinion. Whereas buying "the same" stuff from some random company in China gives you no such protection as they can just fold or trade under a different name. Food poisoning is an interesting case to bring up. If you know that a neighborhood restaurant has food poisoned you or someone you know, then you stop buying food there. And if you buy something from a physical store like Best Buy or Safeway, you also know there's someone you can sue and somewhere you can go if the product is recalled by the manufacturer. Those companies have a brand to protect and will take steps to do so. So no, the brand isn't dead and it is still a good proxy for quality of service or quality of merchandise. I forgot that for about 8 years until Amazon reminded me.
- fmajid 7y ago
  Death by electrocution: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1283818/woman-electrocuted-while-answering-iphone-may-have-been-using-fake https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1283818/woman-electr... https://legacy-uploads.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2016/09/10314-CounterfeitiPhone-WP-HighRes_FINAL.pdf https://legacy-uploads.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/20...
  - LatteLazy 7y ago
    Um... You're article doesn't mention amazon, everything in it happened in China, and there is no actual evidence the issue was the charger or that the charger was "fake". Its just someone who electricuted themselves while using a phone.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  If a non-counterfeit good has a 1/1,000,000 chance of burning your house down, and the counterfeit has a 1/10,000 chance, you're going to have overwhelmingly happy consumers in both scenarios. There's still a major harm.
fmajid 7y ago
Yes, I had purchased a bunch of Apple USB Ethernet adapters from them and they seemed to work OK. Then one day I brought my new 2015 12" MacBook and they don't work. In the Network control panel, the adapter name is random Chinese ideograph. On closer inspection with a magnifying glass, it becomes apparent the labels on the adapters are not precisely centered the way Apple's are. I returned them for a full refund, even after 1.5 years, but I can't shake the belief they knew about it. Furthermore, when they find out something is a counterfeit, they should be required to notify all known past purchasers and offer them the option of a refund or exchange.

LatteLazy 7y ago

At the risk of going all zen... If I receive a counterfeit good and it's so good I don't notice, was it really counterfeit?

chrisseaton 7y ago
I guess there's safety concerns from sub-standard components burning out, or storage sizes being fraudulent and you only noticing when it's too late, or good-old lead paint, or more issues. But yeah, I have never even had a hint of any suspicion that anything I've bought on Amazon was a fake.
- toast0 7y ago
  > storage sizes being fraudulent and you only noticing when it's too late It's good practice to run all your new memory cards through a storage test application to confirm it can store what it says. Doesn't mean it's not counterfeit, or that it will continue to accept writes to the full disk, but it's probably ok (and you may have sequential write/read stats as a result)
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  I read a really interesting article once about a 128MB sd card having its firmware flashed so it claimed to be a 512MB. You saved files and when you got to the "128th" MB it just started writing at the 0th sector again... I thought that was a very clever fraud. Can't find the article now...
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  I read a really interesting article once about a 128MB sd card having its firmware flashed so it claimed to be a 512MB. You saved files and when you got to the "128th" MB it just started writing at the 0th sector again... I thought that was a very clever fraud. Can't find the article now but I'll check on desktop later and share if I can...
  - fmajid 7y ago
    Probably this: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918
  - fenwick67 7y ago
    This is a very common problem. SD cards have microcontrollers running on-board that the manufacturers can reprogram to report any size.
DataWorker 7y ago
Like a router with a backdoor in it? Vitamins contaminated with carcinogenic material because testing and purity cost a lot but are invisible. Sadly I think most consumers have your mind set, they’ll never learn what caused their cancer or why they’re part of a giant botnet. American zen masters.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  > Like a router with a backdoor in it? Vitamins contaminated with carcinogenic material because testing and purity cost a lot but are invisible. Both of these things can and do happen with items at B&M stores and other vendors. Think about the whole cable modem backdoor that was recently discovered... Or the various cases of food poisoning that happen seemingly regularly... You aren't safe just because you purchase items thru a different "trusted" source. This is the outsourced world we live in today. When everything is outsourced, the possibility for counterfeiting, tampering, and maliciousness rises - because nobody can be held accountable (diffusion of responsibility). At one time, it was possible to trace things back far enough to find the original culprit and prosecute them. Today, if you're lucky, you might find a reasonable suspicion of a company - who will instantly (sometimes with a literal click of a button) close up shop, move everything, and re-open the next day under a new name. Furthermore, even if you ask around about them, nobody knows nuthin'.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    The purpose of a "brand name" is to provide insulation against this. If you have a brand that you trust, and you buy from that brand regularly, and the brand is based in your country, then they're more trustworthy because you know you can sue them or drag them into the mud in the court of public opinion. Whereas buying "the same" stuff from some random company in China gives you no such protection as they can just fold or trade under a different name. Food poisoning is an interesting case to bring up. If you know that a neighborhood restaurant has food poisoned you or someone you know, then you stop buying food there. And if you buy something from a physical store like Best Buy or Safeway, you also know there's someone you can sue and somewhere you can go if the product is recalled by the manufacturer. Those companies have a brand to protect and will take steps to do so. So no, the brand isn't dead and it is still a good proxy for quality of service or quality of merchandise. I forgot that for about 8 years until Amazon reminded me.
fmajid 7y ago
Death by electrocution: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1283818/woman-electrocuted-while-answering-iphone-may-have-been-using-fake https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1283818/woman-electr... https://legacy-uploads.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2016/09/10314-CounterfeitiPhone-WP-HighRes_FINAL.pdf https://legacy-uploads.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/20...
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  Um... You're article doesn't mention amazon, everything in it happened in China, and there is no actual evidence the issue was the charger or that the charger was "fake". Its just someone who electricuted themselves while using a phone.
ceejayoz 7y ago
If a non-counterfeit good has a 1/1,000,000 chance of burning your house down, and the counterfeit has a 1/10,000 chance, you're going to have overwhelmingly happy consumers in both scenarios. There's still a major harm.

fmajid 7y ago

Yes, I had purchased a bunch of Apple USB Ethernet adapters from them and they seemed to work OK. Then one day I brought my new 2015 12" MacBook and they don't work. In the Network control panel, the adapter name is random Chinese ideograph. On closer inspection with a magnifying glass, it becomes apparent the labels on the adapters are not precisely centered the way Apple's are. I returned them for a full refund, even after 1.5 years, but I can't shake the belief they knew about it. Furthermore, when they find out something is a counterfeit, they should be required to notify all known past purchasers and offer them the option of a refund or exchange.