“Normally, the story would end there; you’d RMA the material, get an exchange for the lot, and move on. Except there were a couple of problems. So I kicked into forensic mode. Very low serial numbers are a hallmark of the “ghost shift”, i.e. the shift that happens very late at night when a rouge worker enters the factory and runs the production machine off the books.” A fascinating in-depth peek into the grey-market of China.
i.e. the shift that happens very late at night when a rouge worker enters the factory and runs the production machine off the books.”
Rouge? Really? What is this, world of warcraft?
Obviously the intended word was “rogue”. I hope.
Edited 2010-02-24 20:05 UTC
I don’t get it. Are you mocking the spelling, or the article for using a word from World of Warcraft? It seems like the latter. You do know that word existed long before WoW and RPGs and computers yeah?
It’s a common misspelling of “rogue”. Usually by young, illiterate World of Warcraft players, I believe. I’m guessing the post was trying to allude to the idea of OSnews going downhill in some way.
Edited 2010-02-25 15:28 UTC
Better dead than red I always say…
Oddly that’s the EXACT same thing I latched onto – though WoW isn’t the first thing that comes to mind with it, it does rank right up there with a subject being a ‘mute point’…
I think the only time Kingston makes any DDR2 RAM is when a rogue worker enters the factory and puts substandard materials into the machines. I would have avoided their flash memory even before you linked to this story.
But it does answer the question of “Why those Asian stallholders at the Joondalup markets were selling Sony flash drives”.
In my experience, Kingston already put substandard materials into their products by design. I’d almost think that their products’ reputation would be improved by someone making look-alike products after hours.
Of course, most flash memory is about the same; it’s the controller chips they design that they can cheapen.
How can you read the card information as he did in his article? Just curious…
According to the article, he used Linux, then looked under the /sys directory. That’s where the kernel exports a lot of its information about the devices and buses it found, the corresponding drivers, and the connections that exist between them.
It can be a bit of a maze to find the directory you’re looking for, but once you have it, you’ll find a lot of files with names corresponding to a specific property.
I don’t have a machine with SD reader around, but for example my USB stick can currently be found as /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb1/1-7. In it are files like manufacturer and serial, containing the corresponding info.
Note that these are “virtual” files, so you may not be able to read them using your favourite editor. Use of the command line and the cat command may be necessary to read these files.
Which having worked in manufacturing I know isn’t the least bit uncommon. I used to work for a plastics company that among the myriad of products sold simple styrene injection molded cups…
Further down the production line you would see them being divided into rows to be stamped – the first three rows stamped dixie on the bottom with a heat gun, the next two rows stamped the “Shaws” brand on them, and the final row could alternate between three other companies.
Most every computer component in a pre-build comes from OEM’s and quite often are rebranded. See Hitachi/Fujitsu when it comes to laptop hard drives.
Or even system memory – You order the four cheapest 1 gig DDR2/800 stick off new-egg dimes to dollars three of them will have the same exact brand and model number chips on them…
OEM repackaging – nothing new. Not every brand out there has it’s own fabs.
I used to use that to my advantage – back when Sony products were actually good I’d buy Kyocera – same product, made in the same plant, but because you could only get it mail order here in the Colonies and because it lacked the ‘sony name’ it usually cost 30% less.
Or just take a look at Apple Cinema Displays which for the most part are LG panels under the hood.
Which is why I usually say save yourself 30-50% on the price and go buy a LG.
Edited 2010-02-26 04:13 UTC