Reversed engineering for fake Chinese sites

There are many possibilities to reveal fraudulent Chinese sites.

If you still doubting on whether a site is fake or real, check out this blog: Avoiding Fake Chinese Sites. It has all the info you need.

But…

Today I like to reveal one of the techniques I use a lot. The reversed engineering technique.

This tool can help you with a lot of great stuff.

KSRplayer from Counterfeit to take down…

Many sites – and especially fraudulent sites – post all kind of info on their site to prove it is a real site. Funny, most of the times, the more info you see, the less real it is.

This week one of my students asked about KSRPLAYER dotnet. I know this name for a long time and the original site was a dotcom. If you check out the dotcom version, you would immediately see that it was shut down because of a US federal court order, because of the sale of counterfeit products. Beats by Dre in this case.

If you are interested in legal about counterfeit, this dotcom is a Walhalla with PDF’s and all kind of info about the judgment.

(Note that I never link directly to fake sites, because I don’t want that you or any other reader accidently comes to these sites and loose your money.)

Back to KSRplayer dotnet. Well this is just a recall of the original…

KSRplayer payment options…

Testing KSRplayer with the criteria as described in the blogs mentioned above, it seems to pass on some very important criteria. For example the payment options. This site offers PayPal, Western Union, Moneygram, Coinstar, AliPay, and bankwires.

Its site even shows for all kind of credit cards. Hmmm so I clicked these logos…. And… A direct link to the DOTCOM version of the site. Not a good sign…

Okay, the payment options are mostly bank transfers, but they offer Paypal.

Let’s go to the check out page… Well there isn’t! You need to ask for the prices and they will send you an inquiry. I bet you will hear that you need to pay by money transfer because the Paypal system is currently not working. (I didn’t tried them out…)

Reversed Engineering

Time for some more investigation: I like to know whether the company images are real or not.

To guide through this process I’ll make a step-by-step guide.

Step 1 Grab the image from their site

First I made a screen capture from the factory image.

Step 2 Visit Google images

Go to Google and select ‘Images’

Step 3 Click the photo camera icon in the search bar

Now you get an option to add a URL or to upload an image.

Step 4 Drag the image to the search bar

Despite what Google says, just drag the image to the search bar.

Step 5 Select the link you need

Google gives many site that use this image.

>> follow this link for the Google results <<

Since all sites are in Chinese, I can only check for the URL names and the image sizes. I think that sites with a larger image might be real. Searching through the pages I stopped at the third page. There is an image sized 500×375. The biggest and probably the original one.

It is from Shenzhen labor dispatch. SZJOBhr.com.cn. Some kind of company for employees. Our image can be found on its front page where it shows its clients. Click here.

Step 6 translate the Chinese language

Below the image it says: 客户名称：奥林巴斯（深圳）工业有限公司

I have no clue. But Google translate is my friend!

Step 7 Translate with Google

Visit translate.google.com and you can translate almost anything. Even complete web pages when you enter the url.

Google tells us, this company is Olympus (Shenzhen) Industrial Co. LTD.

Well this is not definitely not KSR…

Step 8 Search for Olympus (Shenzhen) Industrial Co. LTD.

Back to Google, the Olympus company is a group company of Olympus Global. The address is North District, High-tech Industrial Park, Nan Tou, Nan Shan, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518052 P.R.C.

Step 9 Search for images of Olympus Industrial

There is a guy that took some images of the Olympus company on one of his trips to Shenzhen. Our image is a detail of the middle section of this building.

Step 10 back to step 5 and check other sites

Why are there so many sites that use the same image? This image might be the entrance of some kind of business park. Well this aligns with Step 8. But why is there only the Olympus logo on the building? This is not the answer.

And checking the addresses on the other sites that use this image: these addresses are all different…

At this point I have no clue why so many Chinese sites (about 100) use this image and have different addresses… Hmmm maybe it is a stock image and these companies use this image because they do not have a real factory. But it’s a guess…

Step 11 testing some other links.

Well the building appears in many blogs and text that have no relation with the image. I think I’m on a dead end. But then on page 4 there is another 500pix image from 2007. That’s an old one!

The translation tells us it really is the Olympus factory in Nashan District Shenzhen. Check this.

Step 12 back to the beginning

The image from KSRplayer is absolutely fake. The text on the building and at the gate are photoshopped (and even poorly done).

At the ‘about us’ page KSRplayer has another image of their company. It’s an artist impression. Doing steps 1-12 again, you can find many sites with this image too. No no no!!! I’m not going to do this again!

So one thing for sure. KSR is not in those buildings!

Final note about KSRplayer.

It’s not a company I would trust. There are too many indications that it is fraudulent. And maybe I’m too harsh on them. So one last Google search on ‘KSRplayer fake’. The first hit is a facebook hit where KSRplayer is promoting iPhone6 replicas. So maybe they do send you products, but these products are fake… No warranty, no refund…

By the way, did you notice, we are on number 5…

Use this tool for the lowest prices

You can use the same reverse search technique to find images like clothing or other products. When you found a product you like, copy the image and search for the image in Google.

Google will tell you which stores sell this product. The only thing you have to do is to select the best (and real) store for you. I use this technique a lot in my reviews!

I hope you find this guide useful. It could have stopped at step 5 or 6 and come to the same conclusion. But I liked to dig in a little deeper.

Have you ever dealed with KSRplayer? What are your experiences?

Please let us know in the comment box below!

Till next time!

Bastiaan