http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/inside-the-apple-lightning-cable/ http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-an

http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/inside-the-apple-lightning-cable/ http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/r... Presumably Apple can tell that the USB cables are "fake" by either the exclusion of the small security bits in the cable's chip, or perhaps that large enough quantities of "fake" cables all use the same cloned chip from one original cable somewhere. The cable may work fine, but if the OS determines that it's not a valid security chip at the end of the cable, you get the "if you electrocute yourself don't sue us" disclaimer warning.