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by Dylan16807 729 days ago
> It's more like you got your croissants but without a name brand or receipt.

No, because the structural integrity might not be there. A food analogy doesn't really work well, but the effect of mixing up different titanium manufacturing processes could easily be as extreme as having a completely different type of food. But much harder to test for!
1 comments
filleduchaos 729 days ago
Titanium is an elemental metal. You don't "manufacture" it so much as extract it, and like any other metal it has clear, known, rather easily testable qualities. So do its alloys.

The analogy didn't just not "really work well", it made zero sense. Like, in the first place a counterfeit of anything has to actually pass for the thing, and haggis most certainly does not pass as a croissant.

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Dylan16807 728 days ago
> Titanium is an elemental metal. You don't "manufacture" it so much as extract it, and like any other metal it has clear, known, rather easily testable qualities. So do its alloys.

You manufacture pieces, and you do so in very specific ways. This wasn't just a pile of titanium in a box. Scraps don't need the same kind of certificates.

> The analogy didn't just not "really work well", it made zero sense. Like, in the first place a counterfeit of anything has to actually pass for the thing, and haggis most certainly does not pass as a croissant.

You misread me. I said a food analogy. The general idea of any food analogy, including yours, doesn't work well.

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filleduchaos 728 days ago
> This wasn't just a pile of titanium in a box. Scraps don't need the same kind of certificates.

Precisely, and that's why I compared it to receiving croissants but without any brand name or receipt. You don't know who made the croissants using with what ingredients under what quality control. That doesn't change that they are in fact croissants and not a completely different type of food.

And unlike croissants, it's comparatively quite easy to test the relevant properties of elemental metal and alloys, especially when those are intended to be used in manufacturing (as opposed to decorative pieces like jewelry). In fact, TFA states that the counterfeit titanium in question is currently being tested for its grade and quality.

This isn't even a new or unique thing when it comes to metals. Forged or missing bar codes/certificates are often used to smuggle very much real gold bars that were either stolen, sourced from a country that blocks trading gold with the destination, or have some other reason to be passed under the radar. That there's no proper trail to trace their origin doesn't somehow mean that it's not feasible to determine whether they are actually gold (and what grade of gold they are) or counterfeit bars made from other metals.

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Dylan16807 728 days ago
If you get the wrong brand of croissants you can still eat them safely. That's what's different, so different the analogy falls apart.

> This isn't even a new or unique thing when it comes to metals. Forged or missing bar codes/certificates are often used to smuggle very much real gold bars that were either stolen, sourced from a country that blocks trading gold with the destination, or have some other reason to be passed under the radar. That there's no proper trail to trace their origin doesn't somehow mean that it's not feasible to determine whether they are actually gold (and what grade of gold they are) or counterfeit bars made from other metals.

It's not new or unique, but it's especially hard or impossible to test these parts without melting everything down and completely remaking them.

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