<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>kevin_thibedeau</author><text>These show up in &amp;quot;trusted&amp;quot; Chinese brands too. Whenever you see a teardown where the markings are ground off a chip with obvious, non-trade secret function (USB serial converter for instance), its most likely a counterfeit that needs to have its fake markings removed to get past first world customs inspectors.</text><parent_chain><item><author>myself248</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d never expect to find these in official products from trusted brands, but off-brand crap? Oh yeah. DIY kits? Absolutely. The parts drawer at the makerspace? One hundred percent.&lt;p&gt;So much stuff on eBay is free shipping, that&amp;#x27;s huge when you only need a few dollars worth of stuff. If I could convince Digi-Key to lick a 55-cent stamp when I need ten of something, instead of charging me $7 for shipping, I&amp;#x27;d have a lot fewer counterfeit parts around.</text></item><item><author>as-j</author><text>This affects temperature sensors&amp;#x2F;parts bought from un-official distributors like ebay or AliExpress, not digikey, farnel, etc. Perhaps I&amp;#x27;ve been too lucky in my career and practiced EE for work, but who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey?? &amp;lt;mind blown&amp;gt;&lt;p&gt;Digikey certainly has a premium, but their speciality is small numbers&amp;#x2F;cut tape&amp;#x2F;etc and they have a small order size which makes them ok for hobby work, and I&amp;#x27;ve used them for small production runs when I didn&amp;#x27;t want to end up with a ton of excess materials.&lt;p&gt;Makes you wonder what other junk is out there, and what purchasing guy figured he&amp;#x27;d save $10 and get it from ebay...?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone</title><url>https://github.com/cpetrich/counterfeit_DS18B20</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>fennecfoxen</author><text>There will be no licking of 55 cent stamps. US stamps have been 100% self-adhesive since 2016ish.&lt;p&gt;The envelope is of course another matter.</text><parent_chain><item><author>myself248</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d never expect to find these in official products from trusted brands, but off-brand crap? Oh yeah. DIY kits? Absolutely. The parts drawer at the makerspace? One hundred percent.&lt;p&gt;So much stuff on eBay is free shipping, that&amp;#x27;s huge when you only need a few dollars worth of stuff. If I could convince Digi-Key to lick a 55-cent stamp when I need ten of something, instead of charging me $7 for shipping, I&amp;#x27;d have a lot fewer counterfeit parts around.</text></item><item><author>as-j</author><text>This affects temperature sensors&amp;#x2F;parts bought from un-official distributors like ebay or AliExpress, not digikey, farnel, etc. Perhaps I&amp;#x27;ve been too lucky in my career and practiced EE for work, but who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey?? &amp;lt;mind blown&amp;gt;&lt;p&gt;Digikey certainly has a premium, but their speciality is small numbers&amp;#x2F;cut tape&amp;#x2F;etc and they have a small order size which makes them ok for hobby work, and I&amp;#x27;ve used them for small production runs when I didn&amp;#x27;t want to end up with a ton of excess materials.&lt;p&gt;Makes you wonder what other junk is out there, and what purchasing guy figured he&amp;#x27;d save $10 and get it from ebay...?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone</title><url>https://github.com/cpetrich/counterfeit_DS18B20</url></story>