I suspect that the network of major resellers would tend to keep out the riff-raff. (They don't need the aggro of dealing with the consequences.) Which is why it's good that the DS8641's are going for little more than a buck; at that price point, there's only minimal benefit from faking them. Anyway, for any I get, random samples go straight into my tester board! "Trust, but verify!" :-) Noel