Waste is a terrible thing to Mine - Now with Military Security and Safety Implications

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Waste is a terrible thing to Mine - Now with Military Security and Safety Implications
† aW Offer Upgrade User ID: 310466 United States 10/03/2008 02:03 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation	Waste is a terrible thing to Mine - Now with Military Security and Safety Implications I've been following this since it was first posted in the BBC back in 2002: A report, called Exporting Harm: The Hi-Tech Trashing Of Asia, details a group of villages in south-eastern China where computers from America are picked apart and strewn along rivers and fields. The transfer of hazardous waste is restricted by a 1989 treaty known as the Basel Convention, but the United States has not ratified it. ... Problem 'ignored' The report suggested that as much as 80% of the America's electronic waste collected to be recycled is shipped out of the country. "Everybody knows this is going on, but they are just embarrassed and don't really know what to do about it," said Ted Smith, head of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, which also helped prepare the new report. "They would just prefer to ignore it." [link to news.bbc.co.uk] Disposable Planet: Recycling Poison Photo journalist Jeroen Bouman gets a rare glimpse inside the illegal Chinese workshops where young teenagers work long hours amid noxious fumes, recycling computers from the US and Europe. The industry has turned four villages in Guiyu, Guangdong province, into toxic waste tips. Drinking water is now brought by lorries from 30 kilometres away. [link to news.bbc.co.uk] Today a Businessweek investigation shows that this practice of ignorance has compromised our military's security and safety. The American military faces a growing threat of potentially fatal equipment failure—and even foreign espionage—because of counterfeit computer components used in warplanes, ships, and communication networks. Fake microchips flow from unruly bazaars in rural China to dubious kitchen-table brokers in the U.S. and into complex weapons. Senior Pentagon officials publicly play down the danger, but government documents, as well as interviews with insiders, suggest possible connections between phony parts and breakdowns. [link to www.businessweek.com] Dreaming Days are Through

† aW (OP) User ID: 310466 United States 10/03/2008 02:17 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation	Re: Waste is a terrible thing to Mine - Now with Military Security and Safety Implications In November 2005, a confidential Pentagon-industry program that tracks counterfeits issued an alert that "BAE Systems experienced field failures," meaning military equipment malfunctions, which the large defense contractor traced to... fake microchips. Chips are the tiny electronic circuits found in computers and other gear. The alert from the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), reviewed by BusinessWeek (MHP), said two batches of chips "were never shipped" by their supposed manufacturer, Maxim Integrated Products in Sunnyvale, Calif. "Maxim considers these parts to be counterfeit," the alert states. (In response to BusinessWeek's questions, BAE said the alert had referred erroneously to field failures. The company denied there were any malfunctions.) In a separate incident last January, a chip falsely identified as having been made by Xicor, now a unit of Intersil in Milpitas, Calif., was discovered in the flight computer of an F-15 fighter jet at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Ga. People familiar with the situation say technicians were repairing the F-15 at the time. Special Agent Terry Mosher of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations confirms that the 409th Supply Chain Management Squadron eventually found four counterfeit Xicor chips. Dreaming Days are Through
† aW (OP) User ID: 310466 United States 10/03/2008 02:27 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation	Re: Waste is a terrible thing to Mine - Now with Military Security and Safety Implications SUPPLIER WARNINGS The owner of Aapex, Marie Gauthier, says her company purchased chips from Hong Kong Fair only once. She says she doesn't know anything about the brochure in which Hong Kong Fair boasts of its "faithful partnership" with Aapex. She says she made chip sales worth $2 million to Port Electronics between 1999 and 2007. "Ninety-nine percent of it was for BAE," she says. BAE engineers regularly contacted Aapex in their search for older, hard-to-find chips, Gauthier says. She told the defense contractor she was buying parts from China. "We notified BAE that this was high-risk," says Gauthier. "They begged us because they said they needed the product." E-mail exchanges, reviewed by BusinessWeek, confirm that Aapex repeatedly warned Port and BAE about parts from China. Gauthier says BAE and Port no longer buy from Aapex. "I got thrown under the bus by BAE," she says. "They did not want to take responsibility, so they pointed at us." BAE declined to comment on her assertion or on the e-mail exchanges. Dreaming Days are Through
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