
U.S. DoD bought phony military gear made in China - spking
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/05/30/dod-bought-phony-military-gear-made-in-china-including-counter-night-vision-clothing-that-didnt-actually-work/
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kev009
Happens a lot. [https://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-
new...](https://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-
news/2017/05/31/Ibis-Tek-Butler-County-fraud-Army-Humvee-plead-federal-
court-6-million/stories/201705310215) the stuff that wasn't covered by this
conviction was largely shit designed to look cool like aluminum bumpers and
tow bars that would fail catastrophically.

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rectang
The U.S. military needs to stop shopping on Amazon. /s

In a way this is refreshing. When the U.S. military buys broken goods from a
U.S. manufacturer, you get the sort of positive feedback loop that strengthens
the military industrial complex. (I'm thinking the F-22 Raptor.) But when
funds leak to China, that feedback loop is broken.

~~~
sambal
What was the issue with F-22 raptor? I’m mostly aware of the F-35 ongoings but
the raptor was a bit before my time

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ProCynic
Given U.S. military budgets, this seems like a rounding error. Especially as
the article claims that this was over a five year period. Four mil a year in
procurement fraud is probably a drop in the ocean.

~~~
dylan604
This makes me sad. I get that rounding errors are a thing. However, a million
here, a billion there, pretty soon, we're talking about real money.

In the real world, most people can't really comprehend the value of
$1,000,000.00. One million might as well be one billion might as well be one
trillion. At the risk of being cliche, if we did not have the loss of the $4
million per year (of just this one specific thing), what else could that money
have been used for instead?

~~~
ForHackernews
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies,
in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the
hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern
brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each
serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with
a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes
that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life
at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity
hanging from a cross of iron."

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

~~~
Roritharr
I wonder if he really meant that though, he basically defined the terms of the
cold war and the subsequent decades spanning arms race.

Not that someone can't regret having to do something they don't see an
alternative to, I just wonder how sincere he was.

~~~
supermanfan
As a student of WW2, there's no indication that Ike was not serious about what
he said in that quote.

In fact, he was offered and declined a presidential ticket immed. after WW2 to
command NATO in Korea. So he wasn't politically-motivated.

One thing you could possibly fault Ike for is that when he criticized the
military-industrial complex (MIC), he pulled his punches: he wanted to add
Congress (a la MICC) but realized that doing so would make them feel defensive
and reduce his support.

The reason Ike talked about the wastefulness of war was that the entire
industrial outputs of the USA, Europe and Japan for almost a decade were
wasted.

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tomcam
Meaning if that’s what the military actually admits to...

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Hamuko
I'm glad that I'm not the only sucker to buy complete crap from China.

~~~
dang
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?

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dejaime
I'd say that the most important military gear is probably still made in China,
smartphones, computers, routers. But I don't really know what I'm talking
about, never been in the military.

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kpremote
For the past 30 years (a very long period of time), the U.S. has bought
mountains upon moutains of crap from China, in both military and civilian
sectors. But there is not even a single high-profile hardware backdoor
incident publicised, except maybe the Bloomberg big hack fiasco. This tells
you something.

~~~
bArray
> (please repeat after me, 30 years)

This is bad form.

> But there is not even a single high-profile hardware

> backdoor incident publicised. This tells you something.

Not so much. If the US military found a hardware backdoor, would they want to
publicly tell their enemy that their strategy is effective? Not only this, but
if they tell their enemies which ones they find, by doing so they also tell
them which ones they haven't found.

The only reason details of these fakes were published was likely because the
Chinese company couldn't reasonably be considered as acting maliciously in
this regard. Rather, they were just trying to turn a quick buck.

~~~
simion314
>Not so much. If the US military found a hardware backdoor, would they want to
publicly tell their enemy that their strategy is effective? Not only this, but
if they tell their enemies which ones they find, by doing so they also tell
them which ones they haven't found.

This thinking can be used to start real wars then, we know X has illegal
weapons, trust us we have proof but we can't show it, sure years later after
lots of deaths and bilions spent on war you find that it was all propaganda.

~~~
bArray
> This thinking can be used to start real wars then, we know

> X has illegal weapons, trust us we have proof but we can't

> show it, sure years later after lots of deaths and bilions

> spent on war you find that it was all propaganda.

That's not what I was talking about. What I discussing is security, you always
need to assume the worst to build good defenses and information leakage only
serves to help those who aim to break your security.

Going to war is another thing altogether. Having overly good defenses have
little consequence (beyond primary resources such as time and money). The
consequence of fighting a war without good reason can be extremely bad in
every sense. That's why wars need to have consequences for those who
incorrectly start them.

~~~
simion314
>That's not what I was talking about. What I discussing is security, you
always need to assume the worst to build good defenses and information leakage
only serves to help those who aim to break your security.

Assuming is not the same as accusing, I am OK if you say that for national
security all sensitive hardware needs to pass some criteria, what I do not
agree is "we know X has backdorrs,weapons but we can't show it to you because
we don't want them to know what we know"

