I usually drill out the data pins on a USB I plan on using for public charging stations…
I just carry a portable battery when travelling. Seems like way less work with the added convenience of being able to charge on the move.
FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
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Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Idea: use a power bank that allows in/out at the same time. It should charge both at high speed while also acting as a firewall. This is also assuming that your powerbank can’t be hacked. In which case, god save us all.
It does add a slight extra layer in that they have to both have a compromise for whatever chip is controlling your bank and a compromise for whatever phone is attached which is more difficult to pack into a small controller chip. Although I'm willing to be a lot of power bank controllers are similar across the market which narrows that difficulty.
If your power bank is qi (MagSafe) to your phone, it will probably be fine given the lack of a wired connection.
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#73“Dear citizens, please be wary of attacks on your devices designed to compromise your privacy and personal information. It would be unfortunate if we had competition in the game.”
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#74Isn't that what those charge-only cables that don't do data are for?
Most people don't have those because USB-C Power Delivery requires data pins to negotiate fast charging. I think it's required to get anything beyond the basic 5V .5A power out of a USB socket these days.
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could ship the victim malicious USB cables in the mail with amazon branding on the box. Many people would use them, assuming they were just mis-shipped or ordered by their spouse.
This would totally work on me. My wife is always buying USB cables from amazon, IDK what we do with them all.
Or is she....
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
What other attack vector would you choose?
You could ship the victim malicious USB cables in the mail with amazon branding on the box. Many people would use them, assuming they were just mis-shipped or ordered by their spouse.
...leaving a literal paper trail of package location tracking? Mail fraud is considered serious. Why commit an extra crime?
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I've done DC rapid charging on my Leaf, I noticed that the charger knew the battery percentage reported by the car. That seems likely to be digital signalling to me, so suddenly there's the risk of buffer overflows and suchlike. I've not seen this on AC, but when I looked into this previously I got the impression that there exists a digital signalling protocol established by modulating something ignored by older…
That’s why I only buy cars written in rust.
you must be a fan of oldtimers then. since most new cars are made with stainless steel, aluminum, carbon fiber or and other materials.
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#78This might be a big advantage for wireless charging. Although it can be slower than a USB charger, there is no risk that it will be doing something other than charging.
As most phones now have NFC, this would be more of a new vector than a safer procedure IMO. I am not sure how many places properly accept non authentified (no phone unlock nor biometrics) contactless transaction in the US, but it's a thing at least in Japan. I'd also assume the non secure area is readable without any unlock either way, but might be wrong.
You can do unauthenticated with your watch assuming you’ve authenticated it at least once and haven’t removed your watch from your wrist since. Also, you can unlock your car with with your phone unauthenticated, or even if the battery is out.
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#79I'v been wondering about the implications of free wifis within airports or such - how much that would be of a worry given you connect only to TLS secured services (and hopefully the phone does it too for every service it connects to in background)
in 2023 : none sites are protected not only wity TLS but also HSTS and the list goes on. Wi-Fi doesn't include sturdy security mecanisms anyway, so wifi is never safe. Companies that are serious about network security are recommended to use a second factor, like a VPN, especially on their company network (because they always have ressources that lack protection) For customers and individuals like us, sites are safe e…
> sites are protected not only wity TLS but also HSTS and the list goes on.
HSTS is just what says for the browser not even try HTTP connection, but directly HTTPS.
Re: FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
#80I usually drill out the data pins on a USB I plan on using for public charging stations…
Have fun with most devices only charging at 2.5 watts (ie. 6 hours for a full phone charge)...
plz explain. I have something similar to these https://www.amazon.com/OffGrid-Blocker-Unwanted-Transfer-Pro...
And it seems to charge quick enough (albeit never timed it)...