Comment by hex4def6

I'm failing to see the smoking gun here.

There are two ways you could interpret "counterfeit".

1. Fake IC (identifies as FTDI 232 IC), fake cable (FTDI logo on it)

2. Real IC, fake cable (eg, I buy the FTDI IC and make the cable, and sell it as an "official" FTDI cable).

(1) is I assume what they mean in this instance., but you could argue (2) is also possible. However, they make no mention of the packaging both calling them "FTDI" cables. Instead, I assume they're going off what they report to the OS as.

FTDI have been around for decades, and the offhand "old cable we had kicking around" could easily mean its 15+ years old. That might easily explain the chip size difference. In this case, FTDI did make TSSOP 28-pin chips for a long time. They're now obsolete, superseded by SSOP package variants (like in the "Real" picture). Put another way, this is like comparing an i5-10400 to a Pentium II that I found in my storage closet and declaring the Pentium II fake.

The actual fake chips visually look identical to the real ones. Obviously, otherwise they wouldn't get mixed into the supply chain.

The only real conclusion they can realistically make from these x-rays are that they're not the same cable (but even then, I don't know if FTDI real cables have silently upgraded the internals while retaining the same SKU).