Chop shop electronics

On 17 August 2011, Boeing warned the U.S. Navy that an ice-detection module in the P-8A Poseidon, a new reconnaissance aircraft, contained a "reworked part that should not have been put on the airplane originally and should be replaced immediately." In a message marked "Priority: Critical," the company blamed the part, a Xilinx field-programmable gate array (FPGA), for the failure of the ice-detection module during a test flight. The finding is that clever counterfeiters are selling old components as new, threatening both military and commercial systems. The article concludes that now that electronic products are everywhere, the threat of recycled electronics parts is everywhere as well. Although we will never be able to eliminate the threat of recycled components completely, we can and should reduce the risks they pose.