To be fair, this story is basically an ad, but a pretty good one, and many featured HN stories are really marketing. Personally, I don’t mind marketing stuff, if it’s interesting and relevant (like this).

But the fact that most comms cables, these days, have integrated chips, makes for a dangerous trust landscape. That’s something that we’ve known for quite some time.

BTW: I “got it right,” but not because of the checklist. I just knew that a single chip is likely a lot cheaper than a board with many components, and most counterfeits are about selling cheap shit, for premium prices.

But if it were a spy cable, it would probably look almost identical (and likely would have a considerably higher BOM).

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woleium 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My apple thunderbolt 4 cable has a computer more powerful than my firs computer in it (ARM Cortex‑M0 core running at up to 48 MHz vs a 286 at 25mhz)

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shagie 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That tickled a memory of a video... and I hunted it up.

Adam Savage's Tested : Look Inside Apple's $130 USB-C Cable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD5aAd8Oy84 (1 minute in "we've been saying that our phones have more computing power than the Apollo guidance computer but I'm positive now that this cable has more computing power than the Apollo guidance computer")

That video is a look at cables (not just Apple's) with Lumafield's CT Scan.

	▲	ssl-3 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Lumifield quite recently showed on Adam Savage's Tested again, with some literal insights on a reasonably-diverse array of different 18650 cells: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD5aAd8Oy84 It's a good watch, and I learned some new stuff about some things that I only knew a little bit about before.

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DeathArrow an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Probably there is someone somewhere trying to make Linux boot on a thunderbolt cable.

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amarant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I also got it right, but for the entirely wrong reasons!

I assumed the "suspicious" cable was a spy cable, and then guessed that the bigger integrated circuit was probably responsible for doing secret spy stuff, while the smaller circuit up top was all that was needed for ordinary cable work. Turns out the cables do basically the same thing (no fancy spying!), and one is just cheaper.

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quietsegfault 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Huh! I originally thought the bottom one was authentic because the main IC looked a lot “nicer”. Then I saw the jumble of wires to the right and rethought.

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bragr 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you look closely at the bottom one, almost all the components are slightly askew, while the top one has everything at neat 90 degrees. And a smaller IC almost always means the more modern/expensive IC. Same for the other components. In fact, the top one has a much higher component count, the small components just don't show up well (look at the pads though).

	▲	sandworm101 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Also look at the number unused/unconnected pins on the chip. The fake seems to be using a generic chip programed to act like the real thing. The extra pins are for functions it doesnt need in this use case. A professional-grade product will use a carefully-selected chip with no extra capabilities or unused pins.

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mcdeltat 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you look at enough cheapo/handmade circuit boards you'll notice they often look like the bottom one. Cramped, untidy, or otherwise odd trace layout, poor part placement, poor soldering. The top one - although looking less space efficient because there's more going on - is layed out better. The design just flows in a way amateur designs don't.