Fake Open Pandora

[Exophase]

No one buys 100 of something to try to reverse engineer it, just 1 would suffice.

100 people can reverse engineer parts of it independantly like this, so it would be much faster with more units.

Or one unit is disassembled then high resolution pictures are taken of it and everyone can look at it to try and guess part numbers and trace layout. What is it you guys think reverse engineering is exactly?

 

[mcobit]

On an eight layer board, you have a high risk to destroy some in the process, or not?

 

[RunningSpoon]

Reverse-Engineering.. for me it's deconstruction of device and learning how it works.


I had to do some "R-E" with my vocational school project. I destroyed three devices to figure out how it was made. Of course I had datasheets of that device, so it was easier.


I agree with Exophase when he said "no one buys 100 pandoras", but I think some of those units would be reverse-engineered. Depends of their skill it could take 1 to 10 Pandoras.


Anyway, I think ED won't sell them those 100 Pandora's.. atleast not as cheap as they would like them >

 

[WizardStan]

On an eight layer board, you have a high risk to destroy some in the process, or not?

So get five. 100 is a bit excessive

 

[mcobit]

Well, yes.

 

[MrChops]

I say give them whatever deal your giving link. More distributors the merrier.

 

[Stephane Hockenhull]

Well, when we have official distributors (will mainly be me, Craig, Fatih and Link at some time), I'll put those on the website as well


Aaaah, got an eMail from a Chinese company to my OpenPandora account.


They want to buy 100 Pandoras from me.


That's how this works


So.. umm... they first offer it for a low price to different companies and THEN ask the manufacturer when they get interest in the product?


Interesting

no, that's not what they are doing.


remember how they said they can only take orders of 15 units at a time for now ?


its a classic fraud.


- they buy 100 devices at full price from the original manufacturer


- send 15 of those high quality devices to a few suckers as bait for $166


- if the suckers are happy they tell them they're ready to ramp up production and take an order of 1000 ~ 10,000 units at 166$


- receive the bank wire transfer $166,000 to $1,660,000


then either they never produce anything and run away with the money, or produce and ship half-assed clones for 25$ each and run away with the money.


they're taking a $5,000 $50,000 (thx WizardStan) risk "investment" of 100 real Pandoras to defraud someone of $166,000 or more a shot


( 100 units / around 15 baits per sample = about 7 "fishing lines cast" so almost 1.2 millions in orders of 1000 non-existent units ).


those 100 Pandoras are to be BAIT for some suckers.

 

[Stephane Hockenhull]

I say give them whatever deal your giving link. More distributors the merrier.

they don't intend to be distributor, they don't even want to reverse-engineer the device.


at the most they'll copy the case and cram a cheap MIPS clone system in there or even one of those NES SoC clones.


but the cloning isn't the goal.


they just want to scam someone into taking a huge order and never ship anything or ship some quickly made clone just to be "legal" then they can argue that they shipped what the customer ordered and blame translation error for the confusion.

 

[WizardStan]

they're taking a $5,000 risk "investment" of 100 real Pandoras to defraud someone of $166,000 or more a shot.

$50'000

 

[Stephane Hockenhull]

look up the episode http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rw6fc "The Wrap Up"


chances are that's what those guys are doing.

they're taking a $5,000 risk "investment" of 100 real Pandoras to defraud someone of $166,000 or more a shot.

$50'000

ah, yes, my bad.


good catch. :lol:

 

[Stephane Hockenhull]

Still not sure how they're going to balance the books from the 450euros to the $166 or whatever they were charging... Seems a bad game plan to me

Well, they might expect to get it for such cheap price... I'm sure any big company producing millions of their product could give such a huge discount.

ED: Maybe you can sell them 100 pandoras for $500 each and then buy them back at $168 to make a 200% profit!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA


I know you're saying this as a joke but if what I'm certain they're doing is spot on, ED could buy back his own Pandoras or at least a good chunk of them.


by asking for 50 samples while dangling a 10,000 Pandora order deal.


if they agree he'll get 50 of his Pandoras back (keeping the rest of the money from the 100), then he can change his mind about ordering 10,000 more.


altho they'll probably want to keep more of the baits for other "customers" and only agree to sell him 15 "sample" units.


I find this quite amusing


I'd say don't sell them the units because I have serious doubts they'll be used for good and would be basically aiding them in their (most probably) scam, but on the other hand it could be really funny.

 

[Nardella]

I would be interested in buying a extremely cheap Pandora. No wireless, USB host, nubs, 2nd SD card, rechargeable battery. Along with poorer screen, ram, cpu, nand. At <70$ usd

 

[Binky]

I think the screen is a major cost-factor, as is the design process, so keeping the same case would be important

 

[Hitnrun]

Wow let's all ask the company for quotations of 20 pandoras each, and let them order more from OpenPandora thinking "well at least SOME of these asking would buy"!

 

[T.T.]

Still not sure how they're going to balance the books from the 450euros to the $166 or whatever they were charging... Seems a bad game plan to me

Well, they might expect to get it for such cheap price... I'm sure any big company producing millions of their product could give such a huge discount.

ED: Maybe you can sell them 100 pandoras for $500 each and then buy them back at $168 to make a 200% profit!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA


I know you're saying this as a joke but if what I'm certain they're doing is spot on, ED could buy back his own Pandoras or at least a good chunk of them.


by asking for 50 samples while dangling a 10,000 Pandora order deal.


if they agree he'll get 50 of his Pandoras back (keeping the rest of the money from the 100), then he can change his mind about ordering 10,000 more.


altho they'll probably want to keep more of the baits for other "customers" and only agree to sell him 15 "sample" units.


I find this quite amusing


I'd say don't sell them the units because I have serious doubts they'll be used for good and would be basically aiding them in their (most probably) scam, but on the other hand it could be really funny.

haha we could scam the scammers


ED sells the pandoras


then we have a bunch of people (link, ED, Craig, etc) go and buy 15 "sample" pandoras for 166.


If we get manage to buy all the "sample" pandoras, we get money, and they don't have the opertunity to scam anyone.

 

[Prometheus]

I would have to strongly advise against such - giving scammers your address and suchlike is really, seriously, not a good idea.

 

[gadgetoid]

I would have to strongly advise against such - giving scammers your address and suchlike is really, seriously, not a good idea.

Have to agree with this. At the end of the day, a scam like this is a criminal activity dealing in large amounts of money, and isn't a tin-pot, one or two guy deal. You wouldn't pull this shit on a drug-dealer who was pulling scams, don't try it here.


The best you could get away with is shipping them a few community made Ppp pandora's


Relevant: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/

 

[RunningSpoon]

That Powerbook prank was quite interesting to read, but that shows what could happen if you try to scam the scammer. Maybe this "Jeff" guy had to chance his identity or worse.


If someone here thinks of pranking the scammer, make sure you read Gadgetoid's link and be ready for consequences. I'm pretty sure everyone here is only kidding, but just in case, I want to highlight the risks.


No need to reply me "You are overreacting", because that's what I did, but we can never be too careful, now can we?

 

[-Tj-]

Jeff probably did chance his identity, and seeing how easy it is to look up peoples' information online (and thinking of the internet as a tool criminals can use as well) the methods he used according to the article seemed very weak in terms of self defense. I do wonder what the aftermath of all that was. My Google-fu isn't strong enough right now since it's still too early in the morning.

 

[diligentcircle]

Maybe this "Jeff" guy had to chance his identity or worse.

Jeff probably did chance his identity

What do you two mean, "chance his identity"?