Potential counterfeit X550 cards (or Yottamark fail)

[Terry Kennedy]

I ordered an "Intel Corp X550T1 Converged Network Adapter X550" from Amazon (link), making sure to select the "Ships from and sold by Amazon" version. This was for a "can't fail" application, so it was worth paying a little more to make sure I got a genuine retail Intel card. At least, that was the plan...

What arrived was a clamshell (no outer box) with the same ASIN (B01D3ZDWG2) that I ordered, also claiming it was an X550-T1:

The card in the box was (allegedly) an X550-T2, with a (probably non-Intel) sticker claiming it to be X550T2BLK and made in Thailand:

So, I went to http://www.yottamark.com and got a "500 - Internal server error." - not a great sign. I tried http://verify.yottamark.com as shown on the Yottamark label on the card:

and entered the code as shown on the label, and got this:

Note that it shows the MAC address as B49691B49691 - the first 24 bits are repeated as the second 24. It does show a manufacture date of "Week 12, 2019" and a manufacturing location of "CR" (not Thailand as shown on the probably non-Intel sticker on the back of the card). Some of this information agrees with the front of the card:

However, the actual MAC address on the card sticker is B49691503654. Clicking on the "Contact The Manufacturer" link on the Yottamark page redirects through a "Page not found" at Intel to the Intel homepage - not particularly useful.

What we have here is either:

1) A complete inattention to detail on the part of Intel and Yottamark, where they completely defeat the purpose of the Yottamark serial number by providing a generic MAC address - counterfeiters can just duplicate as many of this sticker as they want and slap them on cards, combined with a complete lack of enforcement by Intel of the integrity of their distribution chain.
2) A counterfeit board made harder to detect by the lack of care demonstrated by Intel and Yottamark regarding product serial numbers / MAC addresses on the Yottamark stickers / website.

Note: Any links in this post other than ones that explicitly say "(link)" or which are actual URLs shown in the post are auto-inserted advertising links and not related to this post's content.

 

[Evan]

MAC address sticker on front of card is not on the genuine (100% assures) cards I have (maybe that’s new) but the rest looks pretty good, if it’s s fake it certainly at a quick glance looks original.
Strange for sure !

 

[Terry Kennedy]

Strange for sure !

At this pont I'm leaning toward "bozos at Intel / Yottamark". Over at HardForum somebody posted the same type of question back in May. His X550-T2 pictures look like mine, complete with the suspicious-looking "X550T2BLK" sticker, except that his has an additional "CAN ICES" (FCC-like approval for Canada) sticker on the bottom. His card's Yottamark is 0134 8109 4669 4557 3154 5695 and it comes up as a valid Yottamark with MAC A0369FA0369F (same repetition of first 24 bits). His card's MAC sticker matches the first 24, but then has a different last 24, like mine.

Somebody needs to explain to Intel / Yottamark that "the standard for unit-level brand security" (per Yottamark here) is useless if they return a generic MAC identifier and not the identifier for that particular unit.

On the other hand, maybe Intel understands this at some level, because according to this Intel page, they are transitioning to BradyID from Yottamark.

Edited to add:

There is an Intel Community post here where someone reported the same problem 2 years ago (!) where the Yottamark site returns the wrong MAC address. At that point Intel said that Yottamark was "updating their database". Since it still isn't up-to-date, maybe that's why they switched to BradyID.

 

[Terry Kennedy]

I decided to save the X550-T2 for a future application that required 2 ports and order another X550-T1 from Amazon. I selected this "Tangxi Intel X550-T1 Ethernet Converged Network Adapter" for $144.67 new. This appeared to be a real Intel card in the listing, and the pictures showed real metal heatsink screws instead of the plastic pop pins that showed in other listings.

The card arrived in an Intel-looking cardboard box with the plastic clamshell, card, and extra low-profile bracket inside, along with a "Network connections" CD. It certainly looks like a real Intel card, mostly identical to the previous X550 I showed in the original post. The only differences are an older PCB revision, no Yottamark sticker, a MAC address starting A0369F (which is what older X550 cards used), and the sticker reads "PCI-E x4 ETH CONV NTWK ADAPTER X550-T1" instead of "INTEL(R) ETH CONV NTWK ADAPTER X550-T2"

The card arrived with older NVM and UEFI / PXE firmware (NVM is the card's own operational microcode; UEFI / PXE are provided to the host CPU for use when booting). The NVM would not update directly to 2.00 (the latest) - I had to download and run the older 1.86 version from Intel's web site first, then update to 2.00. The UEFI / PXI firmware updated with no problems.

I think this card is either a) legitimate Intel card produced for the white-label market, or b) "ghost shift" card produced in the same factory that makes them for Intel. There is none of the lower-quality silkscreen, etc. that some of the other fakes shown here in the past exhibit.