
Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List - suraj
http://www.eevblog.com/2014/02/24/element-14-holding-orders-based-on-us-government-watch-list/
======
mindslight
Of course they do, it's yet another chance to punish their customers.

I ordered from Newark/Element14 once, doing battle with and finally prevailing
over their extremely clunky online system. It took several days for my $100
order to even ship, and it eventually showed up in two gigantic boxes (a few
4ft pieces of heat shrink tubing had obviously required their own 4ft long
box). The packing materials and shipping must have totaled at least $100, to
say nothing of the obviously manual labor.

I've no idea how they stay in business.

~~~
kasbah
In the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items
always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have
to spend at least £20 to pay by card).

The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them
though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are
just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective
they are pretty awful) but orders will ship from the US and take longer.

~~~
mindslight
I guess that at least helps me understand why RPi went with them as a
distributor, even though their business seems archaic on this side of the
Atlantic.

I don't know what you mean by Digikey being awful from a designer's
perspective - I've long considered their parametric search a bona fide design
tool. So much so that I actively avoid designing in parts that Digikey doesn't
stock.

~~~
kasbah
Digikey's and Farnell's parametric search are the best from a user's
perspective. All the sites are pretty terrible from a designer's perspective.
I concluded this from working out how to generate HTTP requests for them for
my pet project:
[https://github.com/kasbah/1clickBOM](https://github.com/kasbah/1clickBOM)

------
TallGuyShort
>>> (International customers have to fill out silly forms with US distributors
and manufacturers saying we won’t use the parts in nuclear weapons –
seriously)

True. One of my first jobs was at a US electronics manufacturer / parts
distributor. I remember we had to fill out paperwork for every export and all
of our products (mainly smoke detectors) had to be classified as something to
the effect of "parts that could be used to build a nuclear weapon".
Ridiculous.

~~~
mrbill
A lot of smoke detectors use the radioactive isotope americium-241 in an
ionization process to detect smoke. Get enough smoke detectors, and you can
have a good amount of radioactive material.

Read up on David Hahn, who hit the news in '94 for trying to build a breeder
reactor in his back yard using sources scavenged from among other things,
smoke detectors.

~~~
anigbrowl
Thank you. It's depressing how quick people can be to dismiss something as
stupid without considering how those rules came about in the first place.

~~~
nraynaud
And so what? some guy stabs someone with a screwdriver and the US regulate the
export of them between Commonwealth countries, still without regulating the
AK-47 in its own country? There is more regulation on CNC machining center
than on firearms. It's stupid. The US doesn't refrain from sending hellfires
missiles on weddings, which kills more surely than the once in a lifetime
freak who assemble some mildly radioactive stuff in his backyard. If it's for
the radiations, I see people playing with X-ray on youtube everywhere, there
is 0% chance of chain reaction, nobody cares about chemical contamination in
the US, so I don't know why they would freak about a mildly radioactive
contamination in a foreign country either.

What I begin to see, is an entire world under occupation.

~~~
wbl
That's because an AK-47 is an AK-47: it's not a game-changer. But a CNC
machining system that lets you build silent ship propellers can dramatically
change the threats the world faces.

~~~
marshray
> But a CNC machining system that lets you build silent ship propellers can
> dramatically change the threats the world faces.

Bullshit. (and yes I know about the Toshiba incident)

~~~
GFischer
I didn't know about it, so I had to look it up

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba-
Kongsberg_scandal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba-Kongsberg_scandal)

~~~
marshray
Thank you for elevating our level of discourse a bit :-)

------
handelaar
The most impressive thing about this is that someone managed to successfully
complete an order at Element14, where registration before ordering is
compulsory (and can take up to a dozen attempts because the site throws random
500 errors almost everywhere), and where Visa cards are required to have start
dates even though most of them don't, and where they don't answer your email
telling them about the errors.

~~~
lgeek
> registration before ordering is compulsory

It's mostly a B2B company, I think it's natural their website won't be
optimised for other types of users. You can still add items to the basket and
see total charges without being logged in.

> where Visa cards are required to have start dates even though most of them
> don't

Are you sure? I guess it could be different on your local version of the
website, but it's not the case on the UK one:
[http://i.imgur.com/fcPF3Qv.png](http://i.imgur.com/fcPF3Qv.png)

~~~
handelaar
Very sure, since I had to report this on Thursday last. Was just about to lob
in a Raspberry Pi and show you, but the World's Lousiest Ecommerce Site
bounced me out completely, sent me to cpcireland.farnell.com, logged me out
and now wants me to reregister _there_ solely to show you a GIF. Sorry, but
not worth it. You're just going to have to believe me.

~~~
Fuxy
I can confirm that Element 14 in the UK sucks.

I somehow managed to order a RPi from them a year ago without trouble but
after taking more then 2 and a half weeks to even bother to ship it i just
cancelled the damn thing and bought it off Amazon.

Luckily now i know of a lot more small and helpful websites that would ship
stuff in a decent time frame.

Can't avoid using them for more specialized part unfortunately. Don't expect
much from them though.

~~~
stephen_g
That's strange - their shipping is incredible in Australia - you order
something before 6pm and it shows up by courier the next day if it's in stock
(the website tells you how much of each part they have in each warehouse, and
how long it would take to ship). That used to be for any price - but now you
have to pay postage for orders under $50.

Before that, I once bought $15 of parts including a $6 micro controller, which
was in stock in the US. I got everything else courier end the next day, and
then the micro controller three days later.

You do pay for it though - you can get things half the price other places, but
it's awesome for quick prototyping.

------
greenlakejake
This is actually great news. It has been impossible to find out whether you
are on the US watch list. Now you have to do is get an Australian with your
name to order something from Element 14 and now you know.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
The whole list is freely available right here
[http://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt](http://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt)

~~~
talaketu
There is no "JONES" on that list.

------
jonesetc
I never would have imagined that an Australian ordering from a UK company
would have to feel my pain, but welcome to the club.

My father has the exact same name as the blogger, which also makes up 2/3 of
my own name. We've had similar orders from out of the country held up for
weeks, been extremely slowed when trying to fly. It's not a very fun game.

------
joe_the_user
Damn, I'll have to eat my words...

In an earlier hn post, I actually suggested that if you use a name that's
common enough, like David Fricken Jones, the US would never have the guts to
flag it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240983)

But here we are. David Jones... Not a lot of people affected by that, huh.

~~~
xzel
Between all the squabbling in this thread, your post shines through like a ray
of sunlight. You don't see this type of thing often on the internet without it
being faked. Life is good sometimes.

------
cmicali
Glad to see the EEVBlog here.. I have been learning a LOT from his videos. If
you are at all interested in electronics I would highly recommend checking it
out.

------
danpat
Export restrictions have been in place for a very long time.

Another relatively well-known distributor that got bitten is McMaster-Carr, a
mechanical parts supplier (with a very nice web design -
[http://mcmaster.com/](http://mcmaster.com/)).

After shipping something to a location they shouldn't have, they were
penalized in 2003 and they no longer ship outside the US. Which is a damn
shame, because they have a great catalogue of stuff that's very easy to
navigate.

~~~
driverdan
They aren't exporting anything to this guy. He's an Australian picking up his
order in person in Australia. US laws don't apply.

~~~
girvo
Except for the fact that our illustrious government here in Australia seems
intent on becoming Little America. I'd assume that's why this dumb law is
applied.

------
nl
I laughed at this:

 _The “fix” is to move your name to the 2nd line so it doesn’t get flagged_

------
superuser2
I hate to say it, but from an engineering/UX perspective, a secure and
reliable federal identity API would make a lot of sense.

As long as they're going to have a blacklist like this, they may as well do it
correctly. Names do not individually identify people and it's ridiculous that
security-sensitive processes still use names as primary identifiers in this
era.

You're also not actually losing any anonymity - an online order is already
linked to a physical address and a credit card (which is in turn linked to a
real identity). A central ID API only gets Big Brother-ish if its use is
mandated for previously pseudonymous interactions (say, HN or Reddit
comments).

------
fredgrott
an obvious hacker question

What happens when you change your name to a dead terrorists name?

Is there no in government somewhat curious about all the holes in their watch
list implementation..

~~~
mnordhoff
Obvious USG answer: The same thing as happens if you have a living terrorist's
name. The no-fly list includes dead terrorists in case terrorist identity
thieves impersonate them; the Treasury OFAC SDN list (more relevant here,
though I do not see David Jones on it) includes dead people because their
money does not automatically disappear from their bank accounts and their
Amazon Free Super Saver Shipping packages do not immediately disappear from
the shipping company's horse-drawn wagons.

------
TuxLyn
What happens if some one has name like John Doe ? This is the stupiest
implementation of system ever. It needs an award. Seriously, very funny
article.

------
cheeseprocedure
I had no idea grep was so effective in fighting terror.

~~~
ChuckMcM
You have that backwards, it _instills_ terror, how many engineers are out
there saying "Oh crap, my name just won the latest watchlist round of regex
golf!"

------
happyscrappy
I find it quite humorous that the governments that actually signed these deals
are given a free pass, brilliant.

~~~
reversi_online
The U.S. waving around the biggest stick in human history has nothing at all
to do with that, I'm sure.

