10 ms·

>According to Air Force Research Laboratory slides dated Aug. 3, 2020, however, the service suspected that several transistors and microchips inside the sequenc

>According to Air Force Research Laboratory slides dated Aug. 3, 2020, however, the service suspected that several transistors and microchips inside the sequencer were fake >The lab also found signs that Teledyne had destroyed evidence related to the case, the lawsuit said. Teledyne appeared to have replaced five microchips on the sequencer before sending it to the lab 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. Based on the number of failed and severely cost overrun military projects I'd say it applies to way more than just this situation

markdown 4y ago
> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. USA corporations trying their hand at vertical integration. Normally they stick to 1st world tier corruption (directly buying off politicians) which is a scale far greater than anything the third world can imagine.
kurupt213 4y ago
My first thought was that someone stole components. There is no reason for this kind of fraud. The government pays whether stuff is on time or not.
- jorblumesea 4y ago
  What? You replace real working parts with fake/non-working stuff, and you pocket the diff in cost. You cut all QA b/c you know it's fake, no need to test. The government pays, but, you have a much higher profit margin if you just fake everything.
  - sieabahlpark 4y ago
  - killjoywashere 4y ago
    I'd say it's far more likely that Teledyne let an unauthorized, or improperly cleared, technician touch the production line, who then stole the parts for intelligence purposes and replaced them with stuff he acquired by other means (desoldered them from home stereos, purchased on eBay, whatever). That would motivate a cover-up. No American, particularly someone working in the defense industry, wants fighter pilots to die. Unless of course they have other allegiances.
    - xnyan 4y ago
      Greed is much more common than sabotage. Everyone at every level of production uses 3rd party materials and counterfeit has the potential to be cheaper than non-countfit.
      - killjoywashere 4y ago
        Defense contractors generally pay about 10% less than market for any given service, so I don't discount the possibility that my hypothetical technician may have stolen the goods in order to get some extra money. A poor financial situation is easily the most common motive for the direct perpetrators of espionage.
      - staticautomatic 4y ago
        That seems maybe plausible if the components are worth a lot or you steal a lot of them. Is either of those things true here?
    - thrdbndndn 4y ago
      This is such a naive view. Optimism bias is also a thing, they don't necessarily need to "want fighter pilots to die", but it won't stop some people trying to pocket some money ("it may never be used anyway").
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      This is so hilariously naive I almost don't know what to say. If anything it's the other way around nobody cares about the soldiers as long as the bottom line is met. I mean just look how the US treats their veterans, to proof the point.
  - addicted 4y ago
    Is it worth the risk though? I suspect deliberate fraud like this will be caught by the military, it will lead to scandal, and not only will it cost money but will likely lead to prison times for the people involved.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > it worth the risk though? Can speak from the perspective of a finance professional constantly rolling his eyes at insider traders. Many people assume enforcement is far weaker than it is. That leads them to make stupid choices. For a period of time, during the Iraq War, enforcement was weak around military procurement. But the wheels of justice grind slowly, and I guess every generation needs its examples.
      - rosywoozlechan 4y ago
        > But the wheels of justice grind slowly, and I guess every generation needs its examples All the covid relief and stimulus fraud that's slowly being investigated is another example of this. All you have to do to disabuse yourself of the idea that law enforcement is weak is go to justice.gov and click news. https://www.justice.gov/usao/find-your-united-states-attorney https://www.justice.gov/usao/find-your-united-states-attorne... Click on any of the states, click news. Tons of covid fraud being prosecuted already in all of these places where small fry's thought they could get away with this. Medical fraud is another example. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdms/pr?keys=covid&items_per_page=25 https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdms/pr?keys=covid&items_per_pa...
        mrguyorama 4y ago
        Okay, and that's great and all, but the DOJ basically doesn't go after big fish anymore. As the commenter above you points out, lot's of these kinds of things still end up being revenue positive
        rosywoozlechan 4y ago
        I don't know of any big fish where's there's sufficient evidence that they have committed crimes and where the DOJ has decided to not charge. What are some examples?
  - MilStdJunkie 4y ago
    I've been with a few separate orgs that had this exact thing happening. When you flag it, they come down from on high saying "oh, it's been waived", trusting that no one will actually ask to see the waiver. Two of those orgs ended up paying fines, nothing compared to the profit, but eh, better than nothing.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  There's definitely reasons: profit = revenue - costs. If revenue is fixed, the only way to make more money is to reduce costs. Using cheaper parts with less/nonexistent quality control is one way to do that. Or even just straight up laziness. The "trust but verify" approach is more work than just trusting your suppliers to never make mistakes.
ajross 4y ago
> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. I dunno, that's the intended interpretation from the headline, but the article doesn't really substantiate it. The way you'd see "fraud" in a never-used item like an ejection seat is that it just wouldn't have its components. The expensive stuff would be missing, which to my eyes would be the explosives/rockets, absolutely not the electronics. What they found was that the electronics looked "shoddy", which isn't (again, to my eyes) the same as "fraud"[1]. More like "we can't get the original parts anymore for this order, just use this off-the-shelf transistor instead", or "crap, we stuffed the wrong parts, pull them out and rework them by hand". [1] In the way you mean it. Obviously if it's not the specified part then it's not delivering the item ordered. But not really "3rd world tier corruption".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dandelany 4y ago
  It's a military fighter jet. EVERYTHING is spec'ed out to the MAX. "We can't get the original parts, just use this off-the-shelf transistor" IS fraud.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    I would assume that everything is speced out to low weight, high G-force tolerance, and robustness under vibration. In those cases, even changing the solder formulation could be catastrophic.
- deepspace 4y ago
  The allegation of fraud refers to Teledyne destroying evidence by replacing potentially faulty chips before sending a unit to the investigation lab.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    How does a manufacturer of some defective part get ahold of that piece of evidence from a plane crash? NTSB investigates civilian aircraft accidents, and this kind of thing couldn't ever happen. But someone(s) on the DoD or Air Force investigative teams collected this evidence, and at some point someone sent evidence back to the manufacturer, allowing their opportunity to tamper with it? And they weren't even careful enough to not make it blatantly obvious? It's as upsetting as it is crazy.
lallysingh 4y ago
I remember bad capacitors being quite a problem a few years ago for laptops and other systems. They would blow a year into service.
- Maursault 4y ago
  Only a few years ago, very recently? Or could it have been throughout the naughts?[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
  - skhr0680 4y ago
    The last time I got a new computer with bad caps was 2010-11. Between that and ROHS solder, the mid 00s were a Bad Time
  - themaninthedark 4y ago
    If you are going to use naught, you must refer to the time period as "The Naughties". I prefer the "Turn of the Millennium" myself.
- mikewarot 4y ago
  My friend who does electronics repair says he's been shotgunning (replacing all of a part, without testing them) Electrolytic caps in transistor radios since the late 1950s. He said it almost always worked. So, obviously, it's a long standing problem.
  - bearjaws 4y ago
    It was particularly bad for a few years due to supply chain issues. I worked at BestBuy at that time and it was easily 30% of our workload, computer comes in acting weird, take the side panel off and see a bunch of blown caps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
  - Accujack 4y ago
    Electrolytics have a limited lifespan, that's not due to poor quality like the PCs with caps blowing out. Almost any old electronics will need caps replaced if they haven't already been.
Melatonic 4y ago
Teledyne the name even sounds like the prototypical evil 1980s movie super corp
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Yes! I immediately thought of T2's Cyberdyne Systems and Alien's Weyland-Yutani. Real question: Does anyone know the meaning of suffix "-dyne"?
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    “the force required to accelerate a mass of one gram at a rate of one centimetre per second squared” Probably why a lot of aerospace companies used it in their name.
    - water-your-self 4y ago
      I believe stockbrokers also are interested in the kinematics of a gram.
      - tomcam 4y ago
        Cocadyne Industries
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Right here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne
    - throwaway2037 4y ago
      I feel silly reading your reply. I didn't think dyne was a standalone word!
  - gumby 4y ago
    I think it’s short for “dynamic” given the vintage of the names, like ”ola” was popular in the early decades of the 20th century, hence “Shinola” shoeshine or “Motorola” car radios. It is also a non-SI unit, but that might be too obscure — or might motivate nerds like the teledyne founders!
typeofhuman 4y ago
This exposes a major vulnerability in our military tech that can be (has been ?) exploited by our adversaries - likely the ones actually building the chips!
- kube-system 4y ago
  The big push from the top to make chips in the US makes a lot more sense now.
  - legutierr 4y ago
    It didn't make sense already? I don't know if you need this as a separate justification—the global chip shortage and Chinese saber-rattling over Taiwan should be justification enough.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      It already made a lot of sense. And it made sense decades ago. But now that we have evidence that it has already impacted operations I can see why leadership across multiple organizations is taking it more seriously. There’s a lot of potential problems in the world, but leadership doesn’t always take them seriously.
bee_rider 4y ago
It reflects poorly on the company, but if it was really third world tier corruption, we wouldn't find out about it until the parts started screwing up during a war. I'm sure Russia would love to be worrying about specific transistor models in their ejection seats, at this point! (note, I'm aware of the pedantic point that Russia is definitionally not third world, they are just another point of comparison in this case).
- Jedd 4y ago
  > ... note, I'm aware of the pedantic point that Russia is definitionally not third world This is true, and if you wish to be pedantic, or at least true to the original definitions, Russia is a 'second world' nation state. Whether that aligns to what you thought you were qualifying, I do not know. Refer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
- baybal2 4y ago
  A one known military corruption case was exactly about the airforce being sold black painted toilet paper rolls as ejection seat charges.
- balsam 4y ago
  Pretty sure a transistor-level of accident analysis would be only possible in peace-time? But the 1st LT was parabellum, so maybe it counts. (Forgive my grammar)
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    Ukrainians are sending Russian hardware to US and other allies for analysis - immediately. But if your only ally is Iran and North Korea, perhaps you really don't have so many options...
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Maybe the best source for Russian military tech since the German reunification when the BRD inherited the not too badly maintained frontline stuff from the NVA. Which was not, as opposed to most other Warsaw pact nations, export variants of Russian hardware. As a frontline state in the Cold War East Germany gear was close to Red Army/Air Force/Navy specs.
pkrotich 4y ago
> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. The use of "3rd world" term makes me cringe a little even in this context. Isn't it more comparable to Boeing Conspiracy and Corruption [1] or even the Fat Leornard US Navy corruption [2] - which are indeed first-world corruptions? Definition of 3rd world has changed overtime - but overall we can agree that; it now means developing countries with (1) high rates of poverty, (2) economic and/or political instability, and (3) high mortality rates. Yes, above factors are indeed very conducive for corruption and fraud, but does it imply there's no corruption in "First-world"? I think the difference is it’s hidden (not as consequential) and some accountability come about sometimes... e.g MDHS Welfare fraud [3] [4], not to mention Covid related frauds. To me the term has aged and similar to saying to someone "that is so ghetto"... which its use has declined considerably as a regular American vernacular. Another intersting term often used wily-nily with negative connotation of otherness is "Banana Republic" - which is very interesting when you consider the origin and who brought such conditions that led to the term being coined. I didn't mean to inject "wokeness" to the discussion; for one I was born is so called 3rd world country (so perhaps a little sensitive?), and more importantly I'm obsessed with origin and use of words and phrases overtime as contemporary vernacular. [1] - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-conspiracy-and-agrees-pay-over-25-billion https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-... [2] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal [3] - https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/803399172/mississippis-ex-welfare-director-5-others-arrested-in-massive-fraud https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/803399172/mississippis-ex-wel... [4] - https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/us/brett-favre-mississippi-governor-texts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/us/brett-favre-mississippi-go...
- jonhohle 4y ago
  I’ve always found the evolution of third world very odd. How does something go from countries that are not Cold War participants to developing countries? I tend to thinking it in the original context and often find myself misunderstanding people when they use the term. I know definitions change, but it seems like an odd transition.
  - brezelgoring 4y ago
RF_Savage 4y ago
Just at the start of the chip shortage. Add in the problem that many military designs ware qualified decades ago and are based on what was available then, which are now obsolete. There has been problems with counterfeit chips and parts infiltrating the market for decades. The margins are also very good.
humanistbot 4y ago
This immediately made me think of Boeing and VW tier corruption, not a third-world country.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  This is because we don't find out about 3rd world corruption because they happen in a framework of lower accountability and transparency. How long would the world have gone on thinking Putin had a world class military if he never failed to invade Ukraine?
rmbyrro 4y ago
> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud Yeah, 1st world tier corruption doesn't take just one life, it fakes Weapons of Mass Destruction photos in the 3rd world to falsely justify the killing of hundreds of thousands and the disruption of the lives of millions.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  If you're talking about the Iraq war, this was one of the most disapointing things the west ever did... i mean... I totally expected them to "accidentaly" find something with a CNN crew just randomly being there.. like one of those "we just 'liberated' this iraqi building, here camera crews, you can go inside with us, so we all look in the basement together, who knows what's in there, might be barrels of radioactive fuel, that we totally didn't put there ourselves, promise!", and not even that... But somehow, american still speak about "fighting for freedom" and act as if they're the "good guys", while they go and destroy another middle eastern country.
  - _gabe_ 4y ago
    > When the president ultimately decided that the Iraqi regime must be ousted by force, he was influenced by five key factors: > 1) Saddam was a threat to U.S. interests before 9/11....He had developed WMD and used chemical weapons fatally against Iran and Iraqi Kurds. Iraq's official press issued statements praising the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. > 2) The threat of renewed aggression by Saddam was more troubling and urgent after 9/11. > 3) To contain the threat from Saddam, all reasonable means short of war had been tried unsuccessfully for a dozen years. > 4) While there were large risks involved in a war, the risks of leaving Saddam in power were even larger. The U.S. and British pilots patrolling the no-fly zones were routinely under enemy fire, and a larger confrontation – over Kuwait again or some other issue – appeared virtually certain to arise And probably the biggest factor: > 5) America after 9/11 had a lower tolerance for such dangers. But let's just ignore history and claim that there was no other impetus for war other than making accusations that turned out to be false. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121504452359324921 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121504452359324921
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
This raises some interesting questions about "unit testing" hardware. I would assume one would design a board with some regular self testing. (This coukd of course be the problem). And it would be moderately hard to cheaply fake a chips that met the requirements of form factor, power and so on - and still was able to respond to some basic interrogation but also was flawed in some way (ie the way that cuts out the expensive bit) Inwoukd love to know the specifics here of how fake chips walk that line. Cos otherwise it feels like "OMG any electronics could fail at any moment and there is nothing we can do"
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Self-testing most analog and sensing hardware is next to impossible in a circuit. Even testing them via specially designed test points can just not be possible at times. A complex microchip can be easily caught. Simple one... Not necessarily.
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    would you be able to explain why? Is there some minimum chip complexity that we should just accept in order to do such testing?

markdown 4y ago

> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. USA corporations trying their hand at vertical integration. Normally they stick to 1st world tier corruption (directly buying off politicians) which is a scale far greater than anything the third world can imagine.

kurupt213 4y ago

My first thought was that someone stole components. There is no reason for this kind of fraud. The government pays whether stuff is on time or not.

jorblumesea 4y ago
What? You replace real working parts with fake/non-working stuff, and you pocket the diff in cost. You cut all QA b/c you know it's fake, no need to test. The government pays, but, you have a much higher profit margin if you just fake everything.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  I'd say it's far more likely that Teledyne let an unauthorized, or improperly cleared, technician touch the production line, who then stole the parts for intelligence purposes and replaced them with stuff he acquired by other means (desoldered them from home stereos, purchased on eBay, whatever). That would motivate a cover-up. No American, particularly someone working in the defense industry, wants fighter pilots to die. Unless of course they have other allegiances.
  - xnyan 4y ago
    Greed is much more common than sabotage. Everyone at every level of production uses 3rd party materials and counterfeit has the potential to be cheaper than non-countfit.
    - killjoywashere 4y ago
      Defense contractors generally pay about 10% less than market for any given service, so I don't discount the possibility that my hypothetical technician may have stolen the goods in order to get some extra money. A poor financial situation is easily the most common motive for the direct perpetrators of espionage.
    - staticautomatic 4y ago
      That seems maybe plausible if the components are worth a lot or you steal a lot of them. Is either of those things true here?
  - thrdbndndn 4y ago
    This is such a naive view. Optimism bias is also a thing, they don't necessarily need to "want fighter pilots to die", but it won't stop some people trying to pocket some money ("it may never be used anyway").
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    This is so hilariously naive I almost don't know what to say. If anything it's the other way around nobody cares about the soldiers as long as the bottom line is met. I mean just look how the US treats their veterans, to proof the point.
- addicted 4y ago
  Is it worth the risk though? I suspect deliberate fraud like this will be caught by the military, it will lead to scandal, and not only will it cost money but will likely lead to prison times for the people involved.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > it worth the risk though? Can speak from the perspective of a finance professional constantly rolling his eyes at insider traders. Many people assume enforcement is far weaker than it is. That leads them to make stupid choices. For a period of time, during the Iraq War, enforcement was weak around military procurement. But the wheels of justice grind slowly, and I guess every generation needs its examples.
    - rosywoozlechan 4y ago
      > But the wheels of justice grind slowly, and I guess every generation needs its examples All the covid relief and stimulus fraud that's slowly being investigated is another example of this. All you have to do to disabuse yourself of the idea that law enforcement is weak is go to justice.gov and click news. https://www.justice.gov/usao/find-your-united-states-attorney https://www.justice.gov/usao/find-your-united-states-attorne... Click on any of the states, click news. Tons of covid fraud being prosecuted already in all of these places where small fry's thought they could get away with this. Medical fraud is another example. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdms/pr?keys=covid&items_per_page=25 https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdms/pr?keys=covid&items_per_pa...
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        Okay, and that's great and all, but the DOJ basically doesn't go after big fish anymore. As the commenter above you points out, lot's of these kinds of things still end up being revenue positive
        rosywoozlechan 4y ago
        I don't know of any big fish where's there's sufficient evidence that they have committed crimes and where the DOJ has decided to not charge. What are some examples?
- MilStdJunkie 4y ago
  I've been with a few separate orgs that had this exact thing happening. When you flag it, they come down from on high saying "oh, it's been waived", trusting that no one will actually ask to see the waiver. Two of those orgs ended up paying fines, nothing compared to the profit, but eh, better than nothing.
Rebelgecko 4y ago
There's definitely reasons: profit = revenue - costs. If revenue is fixed, the only way to make more money is to reduce costs. Using cheaper parts with less/nonexistent quality control is one way to do that. Or even just straight up laziness. The "trust but verify" approach is more work than just trusting your suppliers to never make mistakes.

ajross 4y ago

> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. I dunno, that's the intended interpretation from the headline, but the article doesn't really substantiate it. The way you'd see "fraud" in a never-used item like an ejection seat is that it just wouldn't have its components. The expensive stuff would be missing, which to my eyes would be the explosives/rockets, absolutely not the electronics. What they found was that the electronics looked "shoddy", which isn't (again, to my eyes) the same as "fraud"[1]. More like "we can't get the original parts anymore for this order, just use this off-the-shelf transistor instead", or "crap, we stuffed the wrong parts, pull them out and rework them by hand". [1] In the way you mean it. Obviously if it's not the specified part then it's not delivering the item ordered. But not really "3rd world tier corruption".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dandelany 4y ago
It's a military fighter jet. EVERYTHING is spec'ed out to the MAX. "We can't get the original parts, just use this off-the-shelf transistor" IS fraud.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  I would assume that everything is speced out to low weight, high G-force tolerance, and robustness under vibration. In those cases, even changing the solder formulation could be catastrophic.
deepspace 4y ago
The allegation of fraud refers to Teledyne destroying evidence by replacing potentially faulty chips before sending a unit to the investigation lab.
- Maursault 4y ago
  How does a manufacturer of some defective part get ahold of that piece of evidence from a plane crash? NTSB investigates civilian aircraft accidents, and this kind of thing couldn't ever happen. But someone(s) on the DoD or Air Force investigative teams collected this evidence, and at some point someone sent evidence back to the manufacturer, allowing their opportunity to tamper with it? And they weren't even careful enough to not make it blatantly obvious? It's as upsetting as it is crazy.

lallysingh 4y ago

I remember bad capacitors being quite a problem a few years ago for laptops and other systems. They would blow a year into service.

Maursault 4y ago
Only a few years ago, very recently? Or could it have been throughout the naughts?[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
- skhr0680 4y ago
  The last time I got a new computer with bad caps was 2010-11. Between that and ROHS solder, the mid 00s were a Bad Time
- themaninthedark 4y ago
  If you are going to use naught, you must refer to the time period as "The Naughties". I prefer the "Turn of the Millennium" myself.
mikewarot 4y ago
My friend who does electronics repair says he's been shotgunning (replacing all of a part, without testing them) Electrolytic caps in transistor radios since the late 1950s. He said it almost always worked. So, obviously, it's a long standing problem.
- bearjaws 4y ago
  It was particularly bad for a few years due to supply chain issues. I worked at BestBuy at that time and it was easily 30% of our workload, computer comes in acting weird, take the side panel off and see a bunch of blown caps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
- Accujack 4y ago
  Electrolytics have a limited lifespan, that's not due to poor quality like the PCs with caps blowing out. Almost any old electronics will need caps replaced if they haven't already been.

Melatonic 4y ago

Teledyne the name even sounds like the prototypical evil 1980s movie super corp

throwaway2037 4y ago
Yes! I immediately thought of T2's Cyberdyne Systems and Alien's Weyland-Yutani. Real question: Does anyone know the meaning of suffix "-dyne"?
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  “the force required to accelerate a mass of one gram at a rate of one centimetre per second squared” Probably why a lot of aerospace companies used it in their name.
  - water-your-self 4y ago
    I believe stockbrokers also are interested in the kinematics of a gram.
    - tomcam 4y ago
      Cocadyne Industries
- djbusby 4y ago
  Right here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    I feel silly reading your reply. I didn't think dyne was a standalone word!
- gumby 4y ago
  I think it’s short for “dynamic” given the vintage of the names, like ”ola” was popular in the early decades of the 20th century, hence “Shinola” shoeshine or “Motorola” car radios. It is also a non-SI unit, but that might be too obscure — or might motivate nerds like the teledyne founders!

typeofhuman 4y ago

This exposes a major vulnerability in our military tech that can be (has been ?) exploited by our adversaries - likely the ones actually building the chips!

kube-system 4y ago
The big push from the top to make chips in the US makes a lot more sense now.
- legutierr 4y ago
  It didn't make sense already? I don't know if you need this as a separate justification—the global chip shortage and Chinese saber-rattling over Taiwan should be justification enough.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    It already made a lot of sense. And it made sense decades ago. But now that we have evidence that it has already impacted operations I can see why leadership across multiple organizations is taking it more seriously. There’s a lot of potential problems in the world, but leadership doesn’t always take them seriously.

bee_rider 4y ago

It reflects poorly on the company, but if it was really third world tier corruption, we wouldn't find out about it until the parts started screwing up during a war. I'm sure Russia would love to be worrying about specific transistor models in their ejection seats, at this point! (note, I'm aware of the pedantic point that Russia is definitionally not third world, they are just another point of comparison in this case).

Jedd 4y ago
> ... note, I'm aware of the pedantic point that Russia is definitionally not third world This is true, and if you wish to be pedantic, or at least true to the original definitions, Russia is a 'second world' nation state. Whether that aligns to what you thought you were qualifying, I do not know. Refer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
baybal2 4y ago
A one known military corruption case was exactly about the airforce being sold black painted toilet paper rolls as ejection seat charges.
balsam 4y ago
Pretty sure a transistor-level of accident analysis would be only possible in peace-time? But the 1st LT was parabellum, so maybe it counts. (Forgive my grammar)
- WHATDOESIT 4y ago
  Ukrainians are sending Russian hardware to US and other allies for analysis - immediately. But if your only ally is Iran and North Korea, perhaps you really don't have so many options...
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Maybe the best source for Russian military tech since the German reunification when the BRD inherited the not too badly maintained frontline stuff from the NVA. Which was not, as opposed to most other Warsaw pact nations, export variants of Russian hardware. As a frontline state in the Cold War East Germany gear was close to Red Army/Air Force/Navy specs.

pkrotich 4y ago

> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud. The use of "3rd world" term makes me cringe a little even in this context. Isn't it more comparable to Boeing Conspiracy and Corruption [1] or even the Fat Leornard US Navy corruption [2] - which are indeed first-world corruptions? Definition of 3rd world has changed overtime - but overall we can agree that; it now means developing countries with (1) high rates of poverty, (2) economic and/or political instability, and (3) high mortality rates. Yes, above factors are indeed very conducive for corruption and fraud, but does it imply there's no corruption in "First-world"? I think the difference is it’s hidden (not as consequential) and some accountability come about sometimes... e.g MDHS Welfare fraud [3] [4], not to mention Covid related frauds. To me the term has aged and similar to saying to someone "that is so ghetto"... which its use has declined considerably as a regular American vernacular. Another intersting term often used wily-nily with negative connotation of otherness is "Banana Republic" - which is very interesting when you consider the origin and who brought such conditions that led to the term being coined. I didn't mean to inject "wokeness" to the discussion; for one I was born is so called 3rd world country (so perhaps a little sensitive?), and more importantly I'm obsessed with origin and use of words and phrases overtime as contemporary vernacular. [1] - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-conspiracy-and-agrees-pay-over-25-billion https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-... [2] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal [3] - https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/803399172/mississippis-ex-welfare-director-5-others-arrested-in-massive-fraud https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/803399172/mississippis-ex-wel... [4] - https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/us/brett-favre-mississippi-governor-texts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/us/brett-favre-mississippi-go...

jonhohle 4y ago
I’ve always found the evolution of third world very odd. How does something go from countries that are not Cold War participants to developing countries? I tend to thinking it in the original context and often find myself misunderstanding people when they use the term. I know definitions change, but it seems like an odd transition.
- brezelgoring 4y ago

RF_Savage 4y ago

Just at the start of the chip shortage. Add in the problem that many military designs ware qualified decades ago and are based on what was available then, which are now obsolete. There has been problems with counterfeit chips and parts infiltrating the market for decades. The margins are also very good.

humanistbot 4y ago

This immediately made me think of Boeing and VW tier corruption, not a third-world country.

mrguyorama 4y ago
This is because we don't find out about 3rd world corruption because they happen in a framework of lower accountability and transparency. How long would the world have gone on thinking Putin had a world class military if he never failed to invade Ukraine?

rmbyrro 4y ago

> 3rd world tier corruption and fraud Yeah, 1st world tier corruption doesn't take just one life, it fakes Weapons of Mass Destruction photos in the 3rd world to falsely justify the killing of hundreds of thousands and the disruption of the lives of millions.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
If you're talking about the Iraq war, this was one of the most disapointing things the west ever did... i mean... I totally expected them to "accidentaly" find something with a CNN crew just randomly being there.. like one of those "we just 'liberated' this iraqi building, here camera crews, you can go inside with us, so we all look in the basement together, who knows what's in there, might be barrels of radioactive fuel, that we totally didn't put there ourselves, promise!", and not even that... But somehow, american still speak about "fighting for freedom" and act as if they're the "good guys", while they go and destroy another middle eastern country.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  > When the president ultimately decided that the Iraqi regime must be ousted by force, he was influenced by five key factors: > 1) Saddam was a threat to U.S. interests before 9/11....He had developed WMD and used chemical weapons fatally against Iran and Iraqi Kurds. Iraq's official press issued statements praising the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. > 2) The threat of renewed aggression by Saddam was more troubling and urgent after 9/11. > 3) To contain the threat from Saddam, all reasonable means short of war had been tried unsuccessfully for a dozen years. > 4) While there were large risks involved in a war, the risks of leaving Saddam in power were even larger. The U.S. and British pilots patrolling the no-fly zones were routinely under enemy fire, and a larger confrontation – over Kuwait again or some other issue – appeared virtually certain to arise And probably the biggest factor: > 5) America after 9/11 had a lower tolerance for such dangers. But let's just ignore history and claim that there was no other impetus for war other than making accusations that turned out to be false. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121504452359324921 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121504452359324921

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

This raises some interesting questions about "unit testing" hardware. I would assume one would design a board with some regular self testing. (This coukd of course be the problem). And it would be moderately hard to cheaply fake a chips that met the requirements of form factor, power and so on - and still was able to respond to some basic interrogation but also was flawed in some way (ie the way that cuts out the expensive bit) Inwoukd love to know the specifics here of how fake chips walk that line. Cos otherwise it feels like "OMG any electronics could fail at any moment and there is nothing we can do"

AstralStorm 4y ago
Self-testing most analog and sensing hardware is next to impossible in a circuit. Even testing them via specially designed test points can just not be possible at times. A complex microchip can be easily caught. Simple one... Not necessarily.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  would you be able to explain why? Is there some minimum chip complexity that we should just accept in order to do such testing?