Fake Flash Drives from TopKeen

Fake Flash Drives from Shenzhen Topkeen Industry Co or History of an Order Stas Fomin, stas@custis.ru, stanislav.fomin@gmail.com May 6, 2009 1 / 65

We order 1000 flash 4GB-drives from Topkeen Inc http://www.topkeen.com http://www.topkeen.com is now dead, but they have still a lot of pages, just Google ”Shenzhen Topkeen Industry”. Snow11 ask not confuse Shenzhen Topkeen Industry and Shenzhen Topkeen Electronics http://www.topkeen.net.cn (see comments on slideshare). 2 / 65

Some days ago we got it. . . 3 / 65

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But problem number 1: All flash drives has been broken into pieces. (Badly glued). 5 / 65

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And big problem number 2: All flash drives are FAKE . They ”pretend” to be 4GB flash drives, but actually they are not. 7 / 65

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Looks like normal 4GB flash, FAT32 format 10 / 65

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Also looks like normal 4GB flash, FAT32 format 12 / 65

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FAR manager Looks like normal 4GB flash, FAT32 format 14 / 65

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Trying to play copied file… WTF? 17 / 65

starting from position 7D790000 (hex) = 2105081856 (dec) ≈ 2007 MB all bytes are incorrect 18 / 65

Lets run expert tools… Looks like 4GB flash drive 19 / 65

? starting from 2GB-position read speed increased from 11 MB/s to 32 MB/s 20 / 65

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Again half of flash-memory is bad 22 / 65

FLASH MICROCHIP INSIDE OF TOPKEEN 4GB FLASH 23 / 65

FLASH MICROCHIP SAMSUNG K9GAG08U0M-PCB0 INSIDE OF TOPKEEN 4GB FLASH 24 / 65

FLASH MICROCHIP SAMSUNG K9GAG08U0M-PCB0 capacity 16Gbit=2Gbyte INSIDE OF TOPKEEN 4GB FLASH 25 / 65

This is the answer… 16 G bit = 2 G Bytes ≠ 4 GB 26 / 65 http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/productList.do?fmly_id=672

HERE IS THE PLACE FOR ANOTHER FLASH MICROCHIP CHIP SAMSUNG K9GAG08U0M-PCB0 capacity 16Gbit=2Gbyte INSIDE THE TOPKEEN 4GB FLASH 27 / 65

What now? How to fix? 28 / 65

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First, we need to recalibrate fake flash drives Ask Google about UdTools software, download and run it. For example, see http://forum.flashboot.ru/Files-file-158.html (This soft works only for specific flash microcontroller). 30 / 65

This is UdTools v.1.0.4.6 for chips: AMECO 8208, 6208A, 6208E (MW6208, MW8208) We use it to test and recalibrate fake USB flashes Use Google to find and download UdTools. For example http://forum.flashboot.ru/Files‐file‐158.html 31 / 65

UdTools automatically detects flash drives Just plug-in USB flash drives (1,2,3… ) and click here 32 / 65

ook at this Tab Low quality, high speed (it takes about a minute)… Best quality, low speed (about 30 minutes)… Use "Special Scan" only for very bad flash drives with a lot of bad blocks this mode reduces capacity of a flash drive 33 / 65

Here you can set ANY capacity… 4GB, 8GB,… 32GB,… …and make fake flash drive. Please, do not do it! 34 / 65

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Yes, recalibrating takes a lot of time . Also, 15% of flash drives are completely dead (see next slides). 38 / 65

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Bad soldering. . . 42 / 65

A box of crap — 150 dead flash drives. . . 43 / 65

Next problem: How to glue/stick/bond ”live” flash drives? 44 / 65

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We try to glue them again 46 / 65

By cyanoacrylate. . . But it takes so much time. . . 47 / 65

So we use ”batch processing” 48 / 65

put both pieces together. . . 49 / 65

stack it. . . 50 / 65

take some weights. . . 51 / 65

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press down the stack of flash drives. . . 53 / 65

take hairdryer. . . 54 / 65

and fan flash drives with hot air. . . 55 / 65

especially edges. . . 56 / 65

regularly. . . 57 / 65

press down the weights with your hands. . . 58 / 65

So flash drives are bonded with melted plastic edges 59 / 65

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Yes, flash drive has fair 2GB capacity and bonded now but still ugly because of melted edges, and badly glued ”logo plate”’ also falling off . . . So impossible to present this to customers. . . 63 / 65

So we presented all these recovered flash drives. . . 64 / 65

. . . to students at career fairs 65 / 65

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Fake Flash Drives from TopKeen

by Stas Fomin on Jan 19, 2009

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Fake Flash Drives from TopKeen — Presentation Transcript