Re:Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
by evancox10 on Saturday November 11, 2017 @01:58PM
(#15677566)
The idea is that you would apply a high voltage to just the cable, with nothing else attached. If it's just a cable, no harm no foul. On the other hand, if you start seeing smoke from the embedded electronics, you may want to use a different cable.
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Re:Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
by comex on Saturday November 11, 2017 @05:34PM
(#15678558)
Unfortunately, that approach will become less useful in the future, as all USB-C cables that support USB 3 and/or high power contain a chip to advertise that fact[1]. (And then there are Thunderbolt cables, which look the same but require even more sophisticated electronics.)
[1] https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/archive/2016/03/07/wh...
Re:Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
by Null-Set on Sunday November 12, 2017 @12:04AM
(#15679743)
If anything this is just more reason to avoid USB-C.
Re:Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
by revelation on Saturday November 11, 2017 @02:08PM
(#15677602)
You could also just use one of those cheap USB power/voltage monitors as the author does. Obviously a cable alone should not be drawing power.
Maybe an innovative company could add warnings for USB ports that draw power but have no recognized device. For the advanced ports with charging support and so on they should have power monitoring already.