[PLUG-TALK] Fake USB/SD drives

[alan at clueserver.org]

> A couple of years ago I bought a USB drive on eBay advertised as 256GB.
> I formatted it ext4 because I have very large files, and it seemed to
> work OK for a while, then suddenly my file browser announced that it
> was out of space. This was after copying only a little over 30GB to it.
> The long and the short of it was that it was really a 32GB drive, which
> clever fiends in China had hacked so it would look like a 512GB drive.
> On eBay I complained loudly and eventually secured a refund from the
> vendor. Then I put the matter out of mind as problem resolved.
>
> Now I am trying to buy a 1TB microSD card, and encounter the same crap.
> I can find them on eBay for as little as $11-12, but when I look at the
> seller's feedback I find numerous negative responses, most of which
> relate to the same issue.
>
> Worse, looking on Amazon I find 1TB microSD cards going for $25-30, all
> with strange brand names, sounding suspiciously Asian. Now, this
> bothers me. On eBay I am cautious. But Amazon?
>
> More to the point, I am curious how these fiends are doing this. Any
> ideas?

Hardware Hacking by Bunny Huang has a chapter on fake drives and how to
spot them. The serial number data will show up as bogus. Worth getting the
book just for that.

Q: Why do programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas?
A: Because OCT 31 == DEC 25.