I am looking at https://usbkill.com/ . What is the purpose of the device? The manufacturer calls it an "ESD tester" yet there is an "anonymous" version available: https://usbkill.com/products/usb-killer-v3?variant=447760856...
>The manufacturer calls it an "ESD tester" yet there is an "anonymous" version available plausible deniability. selling devices specifically for committing crimes is illegal. that's why all the bong shops say it's "for tobacco use only".
If you use that word again, we'll have to ask you to leave. They're water pipes.
I am looking at https://usbkill.com/ . What is the purpose of the device? The manufacturer calls it an "ESD tester" yet there is an "anonymous" version available: https://usbkill.com/products/usb-killer-v3?variant=447760856...
From that page: > Does not require batteries, can be be used an unlimited number of times. So how does it work? How can it recharge all those capacitors?
I believe they charge from the port first then discharge back into the port they just charged from.
I'm guessing he's a rich kid from India, with rich parents who are bankrolling his education. I hope he gets the full 10 years. Nothing like the US Penitentiary System to teach you a lesson.
It's just a piece of plastic. Very intricate, relatively expensive silly plastic. You are demanding blood and to trade off a huge chunk of human life for the silly piece of machinery (which he gonna pay fore anyway), are you feeling well, my friend?
The reason I think this is going to result in jail time, is this is not just one or two isolated incidents.
But instead the 59 incidents make this a willful act of vandalism.
"-200VDC is discharged over the data lines of the host device. This charge/discharge cycle is repeated many times per second, until the USB Killer is removed" Is there any device that is supposed to survive this? In other news, throwing your computer in a fire also reveals a serious vulnerability.
Ethernet will probably do fine. The differential pair ends in a transformer, so unless you pump so much current in that it physically melts the transformer or wire, you'll be fine. USB should be similar, but apparently is not. (In the case of the USB killer, the amount of time where 200V is applied to the circuit is probably very tiny. I imagine it's just a charge pump that charges a tiny capacitor and discharges it.…
The transformer mainly protects you from a voltage difference between a twisted pair and ground. Much less so from voltage across a twisted pair. But saturation could help limit the current spike, at least.
>The manufacturer calls it an "ESD tester" yet there is an "anonymous" version available plausible deniability. selling devices specifically for committing crimes is illegal. that's why all the bong shops say it's "for tobacco use only".
If you use that word again, we'll have to ask you to leave. They're water pipes .
I like to consume my tobacco via a steamroller or gravity water pipe. So refreshing.
College of St Rose lists their tuition as $29,826/yr. So he did about 2 tuition years of damage. I wonder if he was worked up about student loan debt.
I'm guessing he's a rich kid from India, with rich parents who are bankrolling his education. I hope he gets the full 10 years. Nothing like the US Penitentiary System to teach you a lesson.
> I'm guessing he's a rich kid from India, with rich parents who are bankrolling his education.
Ethernet will probably do fine. The differential pair ends in a transformer, so unless you pump so much current in that it physically melts the transformer or wire, you'll be fine. USB should be similar, but apparently is not. (In the case of the USB killer, the amount of time where 200V is applied to the circuit is probably very tiny. I imagine it's just a charge pump that charges a tiny capacitor and discharges it.…
The transformer mainly protects you from a voltage difference between a twisted pair and ground. Much less so from voltage across a twisted pair. But saturation could help limit the current spike, at least.
That makes sense. The pair shouldn't have a voltage on it, that's why it's a twisted pair.
College of St Rose lists their tuition as $29,826/yr. So he did about 2 tuition years of damage. I wonder if he was worked up about student loan debt.
I'm curious how the damage breaks down, because it sounds like a lot of that damage might have been him destroying just a motherboard and then the entire computer being written off.
"-200VDC is discharged over the data lines of the host device. This charge/discharge cycle is repeated many times per second, until the USB Killer is removed" Is there any device that is supposed to survive this? In other news, throwing your computer in a fire also reveals a serious vulnerability.
I vaguely recall the argument (maybe buried in the USBKill site) that manufacturers could ~easily limit maximum voltage across the data lines. Maybe using a resettable fuse? I know that Raspberry Pi limit USB input voltage to ~5V, for example.
Raspberry Pi limits the input voltage with a Zener diode across the input. In a Zener used this way, the current flow through the diode varies with the voltage difference between the input and the output - so with enough voltage input you can still make it fail, as you can exceed the max power dissipation of the diode and then it will burn - and after that, your circuit is not protected anymore.
Long ago, I worked for my uni's departmental IT group. We made our own etherkiller, hung it on the wall with a sign "USE IN CASE OF SUN". Never used it in anger, but it was fun to dream about...
In one class we we're building a custom circuit to talk to a custom 8-bit computer over the ISA bus. I accidentally put one chip upside down (it was some off brand and I mistook a scuff on one end for the marker for which way is up) and killed the DOS PC :P The custom 8-bit computer was fine though.
Classic was inserting an old 16k DRAM backwards.
Hmm... something smells hot... touch touch touch sound of screaming