The Navy Bought 59,000 Fake Chinese Microchips

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Wow, you have to be stupid or have some huge brass balls to sell fake processors to the U.S. Navy. It's not like they don't know where they bought them....or how to find you. :eek: Thanks to [H] forum member "fright" for the link.

Last year, the U.S. Navy bought 59,000 microchips for use in everything from missiles to transponders and all of them turned out to be counterfeits from China. The chips weren't only low-quality fakes, they had been made with a "back-door" and could have been remotely shut down at any time.
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Everything we have made in china could have a back door ;). When there's a war or anything all they have to do is flip the switch and the war's over lol.
 
China is just protecting itself in case america by accident pointed those missiles in their direction, same would be true if china was the super power and america were supplying the chips.
 
Hey, US Navy, I got an idea. Make sure you're not buying mission-critical and warfare usage microchips from China.
 
I don't get the quoting from the org article from wired
"The chips turned out to be counterfeits from China, but it could have been even worse. Instead of crappy Chinese fakes being put into Navy weapons systems, the chips could have been hacked, able to shut off a missile in the event of war or lie around just waiting to malfunction."

Based on wired article it was only counter-fit flow quality chips.
 
Why are we buying military hardware from the only country that has the ability to pose a threat to us in the future?
 
Plus, there's a bunch of American jobs we aren't funding with taxpayer money.
 
They know fighting against america gun to gun is a bad idea. Cyber attacks and electronics is the way to fight
 
Comforting to know that in order to rule a country they plan to take down it's military before it leaves the factory.
 
SonicTron said:
Hey, US Navy, I got an idea. Make sure you're not buying mission-critical and warfare usage microchips from China.
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Hey, US Congress, I got an idea. Protect U.S. industries so we can remain competitive with nations like China that have almost zero labour rights.

Hey, US citizens, I got an idea. Stop voting for free-market Republicans. They're selling us out to China.
 
This is why all aspects to US national security needs to be kept in the US. Seems obvious to me.
 
Thug Esquire said:
Hey, US Congress, I got an idea. Protect U.S. industries so we can remain competitive with nations like China that have almost zero labour rights.

Hey, US citizens, I got an idea. Stop voting for free-market Republicans. They're selling us out to China.
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Unfortunately, loyalty and honor takes a backseat in a capitalist society.
 
I thought the government wasn't allowed to purchase chips that weren't made in the U.S.?

Wasn't the the whole reason behind this deal?

http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Intel-opens-its-22nm-Fab-Achronix

I remember reading in a different article that the reason they went straight to Intel is because they have working Fab plants in the U.S. (where as I think Global Foundries' is still in the middle of coming online) and they needed to manufacture them within the country before they would ever be considered for purchasing.

Was that false information I read, or have they changed said policy?
 
Counterfit microchips are actually a huge problem in the electronics world these days, especially when it comes to military production.

Electronci components like chips usually go obsolete pretty quickly, so when you are building very low volume stuff, like navy shipsets of power cabinets or command centers they often design in a chip, and replacing that chip when it goes obsolete after 5 years would often require an entire board respin, which is not cheap or even practical to do every couple of years.

So instead defense contractors (and many others) get their chips - after they have been obsoleted by the original vendor - from chip brokers. Supposedly reliable companies that buy out the remaining stock from the original vendor, and buy back components from other companies that are unused, then hold onto them for a few years until they can't be found elsewhere, and resell them fro as much as 50 times the price in some cases.

Problem is, chips can be found anywhere, and you can't fully test them all, so often these vendors wind up with counterfeits.

They can be either low quality ones (like in this article) where they are non-functioning and just look like the original chip (square black thing with legs, sanded down and resprayed with a template so they have the markings of the chip people want) used, desoldered from old electronics (may or may not work), binned lower end components sanded down and resprayed as a higher end component (sortof like buying a Athlon II 2.2Ghz, sanding down the top and reprinting it so it looks like a Phenom II X4 3.7ghz.) or - the fear is - that in the future there will be chips that can be remote deactivated by the likes of china.
 
What would it cost to have global foundries make all the chips for the US Navy? Maybe it would be worth it so our missiles can't be switched off like a lamp?
 
Thug Esquire said:
Hey, US Congress, I got an idea. Protect U.S. industries so we can remain competitive with nations like China that have almost zero labour rights.

Hey, US citizens, I got an idea. Stop voting for free-market Republicans. They're selling us out to China.
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Don't vote for Dems, because it costs here in the state give greater incentive to go overseas.
 
Parmenides said:
Don't vote for Dems, because it costs here in the state give greater incentive to go overseas.
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Yes vote for republicans instead, because they wouldn't allow businesses to go over seas... oh no they're iron willed and won't bend to lobbying at all!
 
The part of the story that didn't make it into the article would be that the navy paid ten times the list price of name brand chips for these cheap counterfeits.
 
IRSmurf said:
What would it cost to have global foundries make all the chips for the US Navy? Maybe it would be worth it so our missiles can't be switched off like a lamp?
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Or Intel. Anyone with a U.S. Fab where the government can keep a close eye on the chip production facilities.
 
Absolutely ridiculous. So our police departments always use American branded cars, but our military uses foreign made chips? :(
 
IRSmurf said:
What would it cost to have global foundries make all the chips for the US Navy? Maybe it would be worth it so our missiles can't be switched off like a lamp?
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Not feasible.

Military applications use very small quantities of these chips.

Because of this, it is not economically feasible to set up a production line specifically for them. Instead they have to rely on commercial off the shelf chips.

When these commercial off the shelf chips go obsolete, but we are still building things like Aegis missile cruiser parts, the defense contractors are forced to either redesign the whole system, or go to the obsolete chip brokerages for chips, and these are the supplies that are often contaminated with counterfeit parts, because they buy their parts from everywhere. (a little bit from company X, who had some left on the shelf they don't need anymore, a little bit from the original manufacturer when they discontinued them, etc. etc.)

The "backdoor chips" are still science fiction, but could be an issue in the future. Most of the time, it just results in either non-functioning chips or poorly functioning chips that can be weeded out in system testing.

The worst are the ones that almost work perfectly, but then prematurely fail in the field
 
This makes me face palm with both hands. I don't even know where to begin being upset on this one.
 
Conker said:
Everything we have made in china could have a back door ;). When there's a war or anything all they have to do is flip the switch and the war's over lol.
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Like those Chimpokemon er whatever toys on South Park, lol.
 
This article makes me want to bang my head against brick walls until there's no skull left.

What fuckwad in the US military decided it was okay to buy chips from the Chinese Communist to arm our fucking missiles? He should be thrown in Leavenworth to rot!
 
Azhar said:
This article makes me want to bang my head against brick walls until there's no skull left.

What fuckwad in the US military decided it was okay to buy chips from the Chinese Communist to arm our fucking missiles? He should be thrown in Leavenworth to rot!
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Made me sick to my stomach as well. Stalin was right. We'll buy the rope that we hang ourselves with.
 
The quote on the front page, while verbatim from the Business Insider article, is incorrect. The chips did NOT (according to the Wired article which appears to be the original source...) have a backdoor in them.

Wired merely speculated that someone could put a backdoor in counterfeit chips.

Does anyone actually RTFA?
 
Azhar said:
This article makes me want to bang my head against brick walls until there's no skull left.

What fuckwad in the US military decided it was okay to buy chips from the Chinese Communist to arm our fucking missiles? He should be thrown in Leavenworth to rot!
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The same ones who though it was a good idea to buy Titanium from Soviet Communist to build SR-71's? Oh wait.

But really they didn't buy them, brokers bought the chips and fraudulently sold them to government contractor (Raytheon) supplying the arms. The Navy and Raytheon discovered the chips before they made it into systems.
 
Wait, they were low-quality fakes but sophisticated enough to have a backdoor? Something tells me that the Chinese Intelligence agency needs to step up their counterfeiting game ;)
 
Proneax said:
The quote on the front page, while verbatim from the Business Insider article, is incorrect. The chips did NOT (according to the Wired article which appears to be the original source...) have a backdoor in them.

Wired merely speculated that someone could put a backdoor in counterfeit chips.

Does anyone actually RTFA?
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I did read that but it doesn't make it any better.
 
You know, I've been saying that for years. That China or wherever our source was for military IC's could implement a backdoor that would be hard to detect (this one was easy, apparently). These days cyberwarfare is a huge deal. If you can shutdown our computers, either private or military, our country is screwed. Financially, medically, and 90% of the people wouldn't have a clue as to what to do.

I would LOVE to see more high tech manufacturing here in the USA, but I don't see it happening. Costs too much. So, our search for higher profits and returns may be our demise. Who knows really... That's just a paranoid thought. It is partially true, though, as seen from the article.
 
lostinseganet said:
They know fighting against america gun to gun is a bad idea. Cyber attacks and electronics is the way to fight
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There is also financial warfare. They own the largest share of US debt. US politicians have basically sold the US to China.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
Number 3 is almost owning the largest share....I guess.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29880401/The_Biggest_Holders_of_US_Government_Debt
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I want to know how The Federal Reserve and other Government agencies hold 5 trillion in debt, something doesn't seem right when our Government is borrowing from our Government..... and Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling and keep that debt going .

On topic, they need to have a system in place when military hardware is produced and bought, that there are replacement parts available in stock pile, or have alternative systems able to be put into place.
 
darkstarcow said:
I want to know how The Federal Reserve and other Government agencies hold 5 trillion in debt, something doesn't seem right when our Government is borrowing from our Government..... and Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling and keep that debt going .
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What do you think happened to the Social Security trust fund?
 
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