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EETimes: Engineers arrested for selling Intel test CPUs on eBay

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Gillbot said:
No, it's a moral decline of society. You used to be able to leave your house and car unlocked and reasonably expect people wouldn't bother you or your items because they were honest. Now, it's the opposite, you have to assume they are dishonest.
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Sorry, I think people who say this are misremembering the past. I asked my grandmother about this the other day and she people have always been shit, and she would know (worked in corrections for most of her life).

Sort of like the idealized version of reality that you see in 50s sitcoms.
 
Depends where you live, maybe. 20 years ago we left our doors unlocked all the time, now I won't unless it's just stepping out around the corner. I don't think society has changed that much, but I'd say I'm in general less trusting of strangers than I used to be.
 
Idontcare said:
I once loaned a friend my car for about a month.

With your logic, had he decided to sell my car instead of returning it to me then it would have been my own fault for having not secured it in some manner that would have made it neigh impossible for my friend to steal it from me.
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Yeah right because my posts totally relate to, cars, guns, drugs, segragation, terroists and the talliban. Whatever you say crazy one.
 
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Yukmouth said:
Yeah right because my posts totally relate to, cars, guns, drugs, segragation, terroists and the talliban. Whatever you say crazy one.
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Ah, now the backpedaling starts I see.

Perhaps you didn't understand your own post?

Yukmouth said:
What boggles my mind is that they actually went to jail, where they'll surely be learning how to sell stuff that's far more profitable and infinitely more destructive to the community. How about you be a responsible company, digitally mark the chips you send out, buy some of the ebay items yourself for tracking purposes and stop sending chips to companies who don't care about your policy? I don't see how creating convicts out of them is helpful to anyone.
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Now you tell me what it is that you consider to be "far more profitable" while simultaneously "infinitely more destructive to the community".

Help me understand how none of what you posted was intended to imply drug trafficking, grand theft auto, arms black market, or illicit activities which have connections to funding terrorists organizations across the globe (ya know, the kinds of stuff that is "infinitely" more destructive).
 
wow there is a 10 core sandy bridge xeon ES on ebay now for 1600 and those chips sell for 5000 each from intel.

The guy has 8 for sale and those 8 chips alone are worth 40,000 dollars
 
Yukmouth said:
What boggles my mind is that they actually went to jail, where they'll surely be learning how to sell stuff that's far more profitable and infinitely more destructive to the community. How about you be a responsible company, digitally mark the chips you send out, buy some of the ebay items yourself for tracking purposes and stop sending chips to companies who don't care about your policy? I don't see how creating convicts out of them is helpful to anyone.
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Sorry, but I have to call you out on this post.

This is one of the dumbest posts I have ever read on AT. Love Intel (or hate them) it is absolutely not their fault that someone stole their loaned property and tried to make money from it. You cannot even make a case of ignorance here, where someone who bought an ES from ebay is now re-selling, and was busted.

These are engineers that KNOW what they are doing, and are just trying to make an extra buck.

This is no different than selling equipment stolen from your worksite, or more similarly, vendor equipment that is at your worksite. Intel provides these ES, but it extremely clear that they are not to be sold.

If anything, companies like Intel or AMD should be applauded for busting these types of operations because they are ultimately protecting the consumer from purchasing a CPU that is not properly supported. It protects both their interests (reputation, quality, and support) while ensuring that CPUs that you buy, regardless of where, are legimate retail CPUs meant for standard users.
 
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ExarKun333 said:
😱
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and they are full clocked chips that turbo to 2.8ghz.

There is another guy that has 4 and is selling them for 1100 each.

If I needed a server I would pick up 4 of those and save about 20k

One add says tested on hp server board so we know where he got these haha
 
The only reason they got caught was so the taiwanese pigs could get their hands on these ES's and sell them themselves.
 
Yukmouth said:
Get over yourself. It's like you putting a gun in my hand and expecting me not to blow your brains out, 50/50 chance no? QUOTE]
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Hey look, an internet tough guy! You're the one that needs to get over yourself, and should be disgusted for admitting you'd deliberate shooting someone just because you had a gun.
 
MrTeal said:
California Penal Code Section 485:
One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.

YMMV of course, but generally if you find it and know or might know where it came from, it's not yours. If you don't know where it came from, many places require you to turn it in to the authorities, who will hold it until such time that it's determined to be abandoned and you get to claim it.
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Try quoting the penal code of a non-crazy place like Florida, North Dakota, etc.

I agree, however, that if one of us found an ES in our backyard that we would reasonably be expected to know that it belonged to intel and that we shouldn't sell in fleabay. Of course, if you just sold one ES chip one time then intel probably wouldn't bug you about it. Sell $82k worth of them, however...
 
Idontcare said:
People do dumb stuff, it blows my mind. Like the US Senator (salary is like $200k) who ended up going to jail for 10yrs because he accepted a $50k bribe.

Regardless the ethics involved, how was the risk of losing $2m in compensation plus your freedom ever worth the reward of nabbing an extra $50k one-time payout?

Does not compute.
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If he took $50k per week in bribes (not impossible for a sleazeball like that), he would get a cool $2.6 million per year. Even $50k per month would get him a 300% raise of $600,000. Fortunately, we know that this was a one-time, isolated incident. And he's very very sorry.
 
bryanW1995 said:
Try quoting the penal code of a non-crazy place like Florida, North Dakota, etc.

I agree, however, that if one of us found an ES in our backyard that we would reasonably be expected to know that it belonged to intel and that we shouldn't sell in fleabay. Of course, if you just sold one ES chip one time then intel probably wouldn't bug you about it. Sell $82k worth of them, however...
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Don't be so sure about that.
 
grkM3 said:
wow there is a 10 core sandy bridge xeon ES on ebay now for 1600 and those chips sell for 5000 each from intel.

The guy has 8 for sale and those 8 chips alone are worth 40,000 dollars
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Would not surprise me at all if Intel and/or the feds were letting the ES's "walk" to find out all they can about the illegal supply chain before pulling it all down.

Law enforcement is always about more than meets the eye. Don't be naive.
 
Idontcare said:
Would not surprise me at all if Intel and/or the feds were letting the ES's "walk" to find out all they can about the illegal supply chain before pulling it all down.

Law enforcement is always about more than meets the eye. Don't be naive.
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Very good point. There is no fool-proof way to sell stolen goods. Even if you sanded-off all available marking on the ES's, sold them to a distributer, and didn't actually sell them yourself, you still could get ratted-out if someone down the chain gets busted and fesses-up about how they got them.

Just because they are for sale, does not mean that no one cares they are available.
 
ExarKun333 said:
Very good point. There is no fool-proof way to sell stolen goods. Even if you sanded-off all available marking on the ES's, sold them to a distributer, and didn't actually sell them yourself, you still could get ratted-out if someone down the chain gets busted and fesses-up about how they got them.

Just because they are for sale, does not mean that no one cares they are available.
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THis ^

Sometimes manufacturers buy items off of ebay to get the "seller's" info, then they push that person to see where they got it from and so on.....
 
Joepublic2 said:
Sorry, I think people who say this are misremembering the past. I asked my grandmother about this the other day and she people have always been shit, and she would know (worked in corrections for most of her life).

Sort of like the idealized version of reality that you see in 50s sitcoms.
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Well said. This is a trend with most old people. They misremember the facts. "Back in my day..." It could even be argued that society is better today than it was 50 years ago. But, I doubt that is the case.

Fact is we are imperfect people capable of doing wrong. No one can chose if they were born, where they born and what parents (if any) they had. Yet so many people are arrogant for things they had no control over...
 
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There needs to be a statute of limitation on something like this. If one of my customers doesn't come and get their computer after 3 years, they won't find it here anymore.

Likewise if Intel doesn't ask for their stinking processors back after some amount of time then they lose rights to it. That would stop the innocent aquiring of Intel owned es cpu's. (The guys busted on ebay did outright theft and unjust profit.)

After 10 years don't come to me asking for your es cpu back. I highly doubt i'll have it (or even be able to find it).
 
formulav8 said:
I wonder what condition they would expect the cpu to be in after 10 years. 🙂
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I doubt they would care. That said, it can and does happen. Most often, you will go back to the company after many years and ask if you can scrap the part since you don't need it anymore. In my experience you have about a 50% chance of them saying yes (or no), and sometimes they will want it back.

You signed the contract in the first place to get the part, so you are really responsible for the storage and upkeep. If you are lucky, there is a clause in the contract to enable you to return the property rather than maintain it indefinitely.
 
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