USB Condom: charge your devices without allowing sneaky data-transfers

Cory Doctorow 12:00 pm Mon Aug 25, 2014

Those public USB charging points are tempting, but could be used to propagate all kind of grotesque malware (imagine what happens when your phone's camera, mic, storage, keyboard and GPS start leaking your data to voyeurs and identity thieves) — sure, you can always buy a charge-only cable, but these crowdfunded adapters turn any cable into a power-only source.

The crowdfunding campaign has vastly blown through its goals, and the "condoms" are $10 for singles, falling to 100 for $499 in quantity. Xipiter, the security consultancy who created it, has already done one production run and shaken out the bugs, so it seems likely that they'll be able to fulfill orders again — but as with all crowdfunded projects, caveat emptor.

USB Condom

(via O'Reilly Radar)

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