EETimes: Engineers arrested for selling Intel test CPUs on eBay

[Idontcare]

Greatest post, ever! I got a good laugh when I read that last night.

On a side note - all this bickering to some extent is splitting hairs. Some people make no distinction over taking a ball point pen, others think you can take more before it is theft. But lets be realistic here: Who has never walked away with someone else's pen? Gosh, better lock me up, I accidently walked away with a pen, or printed out a map from google maps from my work computer.

What these guys did was wrong. They took property that was not theirs and sold it. Not sure how anyone can defend that...

The difference you are speaking to here is one of intent.

You do not intend to steal the pen, it was an error, an oversight.

Walking into the company stockroom and pocketing a box of pens for the sole purpose of taking them home for personal use is a very different matter because of the intent.

 

[Idontcare]

Easy solution... OTP fuse register and counter in ES chips. Chip bricks itself after a determined time well past their intended use as samples. $0 black market value.

Probably wouldn't even add much complexity to the design of a modern CPU either as everything is already power gated.

There is no "easy solution" because the whole point of an engineering sample is that you are debugging and testing with something that is the "real deal" at that time.

Add in a bunch of stuff and suddenly you don't know what it is that you are debugging - is the chip not working now because of the extra crap you added so as to make it an "ES" or because the part of the chip that you intend to take to retail is borked?

Also, understand that no one sets out to make an ES. You don't tapeout and go to the expense of generating physical samples until you have every reason to believe that the very first samples could be your retail - goes to market - stepping.

You don't tape-out assuming failure is going to be the outcome, and yet the only reason you'd intentionally make a design and stepping that was not sellable as retail product is if you knew in advance that it would be unfit for retail.

 

[bryanW1995]

I remember hearing amd brag that they used first silicon on the 3870 launch, but I haven't heard anybody talk about it since. Is it really that rare, or was daamit just that desperate for any sort if good news back then?

 

[Magic Carpet]

What these guys did was wrong. They took property that was not theirs and sold it. Not sure how anyone can defend that...

Wrong or not, it was their choice. It's easy to make judgements now here. When is the trial?

 

[aigomorla]

dude u guys are all missing the point.

THE CPU WAS NEVER THEIRS TO BEGIN WITH.

Is it that hard to understand?
They TOOK cpu's which should of went to vendors and partners, said they were mailed out, instead pocketed it.

Then they took those CPU's and SOLD them.

How can u guys justify anything?
This is how it is with 99% of the ES's u see in people's hands which arent inside the intel partner group.

There is no debate about if they got caught or not.. or intel wouldnt care.
The raw fact is they did care because vendors would be like WTF u talking about sample ES's, when intel said they sent samples.

I have told you guys my sponsor was in the same boat too.
He was suposed to get samples from intel direct... they never came so he assumed they never sent them.
He met the rep, and when the rep said, how did u like the samples, my sponsor said what samples?

Now how do you think intel feels by telling people they sent out samples only to hear that they never got samples. And later on finding out they were listed on EBAY?

I personally would be very upset, regardless of how many were sold.

 

[Magic Carpet]

If that's the case, it only does bad rep for Intel.

 

[aigomorla]

This is at the factory level...

In cases there are times when the partners get to keep the cpu's.
Intel doesnt always ask for them back, and the partners are asked to destroy them when they are done with testing.

Instead the partners will take the said cpu's and use them in personal machines.
They still arent allowed to ebay them into public hands... they are supposed to be kept inhouse at the partner.

But this isnt an intel partner who got busted... this is the workers at the factory direct.
Hence these cpu's should of went out to partners and never did.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I understand, what you are saying. But it does give Intel a bad rep when a huge number of CPUs get missing and then someone makes it a news article. Really, just shows how a multi-billion corporation can't even get its own security done right. This is an internal affair, really.

Next... I want to see Microsoft employees using illegal copies of Windows

 

[Arachnotronic]

This is at the factory level...

In cases there are times when the partners get to keep the cpu's.
Intel doesnt always ask for them back, and the partners are asked to destroy them when they are done with testing.

Instead the partners will take the said cpu's and use them in personal machines.
They still arent allowed to ebay them into public hands... they are supposed to be kept inhouse at the partner.

But this isnt an intel partner who got busted... this is the workers at the factory direct.
Hence these cpu's should of went out to partners and never did.

You keep mentioning a "sponsor". What exactly does that mean? (I ask out of 100% genuine curiosity!)

 

[TuxDave]

I understand, what you are saying. But it does give Intel a bad rep when a huge number of CPUs get missing and then someone makes it a news article. Really, just shows how a multi-billion corporation can't even get its own security done right. This is an internal affair, really.

Next... I want to see Microsoft employees using illegal copies of Windows

Seeing how they get a stupidly good discount to buy Windows, they would have to be pretty damn cheap to pirate it.

 

[Gillbot]

You keep mentioning a "sponsor". What exactly does that mean? (I ask out of 100% genuine curiosity!)

He can explain more, but typically someone who provides you with a sample to test.

 

[Arachnotronic]

He can explain more, but typically someone who provides you with a sample to test.

What does it take to get "sponsored"?

 

[Gillbot]

What does it take to get "sponsored"?

A Lot.

Think of it this way, they have to benefit some way by providing you with materials. The benefit has to be large enough to justify the security risk and cost of the materials sent to you. More than likely, if you are one lone soul posting on a forum looking for free parts, it's not going to happen. If you have a large fan base or are part of a larger publication you have a shot, but it's still extremely unlikely.

Think of it from their stand point. Why should they send you stuff? Would you send something to someone else to mess with and possibly break for free? What would you get from it if you did send them something?

 

[Owls]

Forgive me for necroing this thread but after having some experience with ES CPUs (both desktop and server) it would be wise to avoid the ES Xeons under any circumstances. Supermicro boards don't even support ES cpus, Asus will but expect issues, and if you plan on taking the cheap route on some ES cpus for ESX forget about it. After ESX/ESXi 4.0 it won't even work.

 

[jrichrds]

I remember when even Fry's Electronics were selling ES of Intel Core2 chips (advertised as OEM CPUs) - reported by everyone buying the chips at the time as it was in a Hot Deals thread. They must've swung a 1-time deal with a shady source.