The article below is an example of the way that corner cutting and overlooked creative profit boosting can even impact military purchasing for secure hardware and systems. Corner cutting protected and nurtured by the Republican approach to contracting and industry oversight is the main reason for this and also why it will not go away anytime soon.
And on top of that, the more outsourcing there is the more examples of unsanctioned work by dubious subcontractors can be slipped in. It always helps to have past present and future GOP (mostly) lawmakers and civil service oversight employees working for these companies.
Just like all the boondoggles and no-bid contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan the disappearing money and windfall profits are an on-going disease that has gotten far worse in the past decade.
this article in New Scientist: "The phoney chips that could cripple military tech" is just another example, tip of the iceberg, of rot, much of it undetected throughout government purchasing due to Republican neutered oversight.
Corrupt practices in Pentagon contracting has penetrated the government far more thoroughly and effectively than the Soviets ever did during the cold war and the potential harm from unrestrained profiteering and evasion of oversight is more worrying than what alarmists say our actual "enemies" might do.
While the Pentagon and allies of the US worry that rogue states might insert sophisticated "kill switches" inside critical microchips, the military's computer hardware continues to be vulnerable to a far more mundane form of attack: dubious chips.
A UK-based electronics firm has revealed that a classified avionics system it made for a military aircraft failed when installed in a test plane.
The GOP nurtured environment that validates the notions that private industry can do no wrong and is being hampered by intrusive government meddling has long since proved to be fundamentally wrong and dangerous. The lessons learned or not learned about suppliers cheating the government and the taxpayer is as old as the nation and before even. The same corner cutters and cheaters have been trying the same scams ever since the first substandard Ocher or stone tools were slipped into a stone-age bargain or a consignment of Babylonian donkeys... and all through history. It was ancient before the continental congress cheated by chiselers and ripoff artists and down through every single administration since. Profiteers in the Civil War and Warbucks millionaires in WWI and WWII and military procurement ever since have continued to play the age old games but with new more sophisticated methods to circumvent relatively toothless and behind the curve checks... It is a reality and it can be dealt with and kept to a minimum or allowed to get out of control.
Sure most of the time contractors are honest and reliable... but there is a whole lot of money up for grabs and mistakes and intentional cheating happen regularly and with ineffectual checking or pretend checking only allows or even encourages it to get worse. And if not discovered accidentally then it will only come to light when there is a catastrophic problem.
What shocked the firm – whose source spoke to New Scientist on condition of anonymity – was that the chip came from an authenticated defence supplier. "It was the genuine article – but our supplier had the chip bonded by an unqualified third-party outfit which has now disappeared."
For example in private and government procurement of aircraft replacement parts there is a constant war with counterfeiters and reworked junk parts or substandard parts made of inferior materials that don't meet specs or have phony test/inspection documents. And Mil spec parts are even more lucrative. Substituting ordinary parts just needs a sloppy oversight system and some fake certs and it makes shady operators a lot more money faster than ordinary commercial grade parts. The disease has spread far and wide and while our pets die from Chinese pet food and our toddlers might chew on lead-painted toys and ones laced with other toxins (or we live in house with tainted imported sheet rock walls) none of these have quite the impact of say a plane failing due to substandard parts and taking out a neighborhood with no terrorist device involved. Likewise equipment failure in theater or in combat could be potentially disastrous.
Combating such fakes is not easy. "Counterfeiting operations are becoming well-oiled global machines with a complete support ecosystem around them," warns Ruth Thomson, a product authentication expert with R&D firm Cambridge Consultants in the UK.
Nice to think that a crucial piece of equipment might fail in the field due to Republican defense of their buddies in the private sector ripping off the Government. National security imperiled by Republican mind-set? Impossible and they never have to answer for it either.