The time has come to help the industry with some positive action on component counterfeiting - you have seen the surveys, you have seen the articles - some of you unfortunately have had some direct expensive experiences with counterfeit components - way beyond time for some action here - the time is now.. I have set up a list which you may choose to subscribe to. The aim of the list is to exchange information on counterfeit components coming into the market with the information exchange aimed at reducing this fraudulent and potentially dangerous practice. To subscribe to the listing send an email to combatcounterfeit-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field. Once you have subscribed you can post to the list by emailing to combatcounterfeit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx For those of you (like me) with multiple email accounts please make a note of the email address that you subscribe with to avoid bounced messages OR you can register multiple times if you wish with different email addresses. I am also setting up a data base of components that were obtained in good faith by the end user which turned out to be counterfeit, with the intention of establishing exactly who the "bad boys" are in this area. This list will NOT be available on line but will be compiled and held on a secure server. The aim of that listing will be to advise people on the potential risk levels of buying long lead time components from brokers or other sources. The potential buyer will be able to call in and get information on whether the component they are trying to source has a history of counterfeiting, and whether the company they intend to purchase from has any "strikes" in this regard. For further details on this database please email me directly at john@xxxxxxxxxxx In the meantime if you have been "bitten" by counterfeiting or want to mitigate problems occurring, join the list above and lets work together to try and reduce it. John Burke