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Comment by moring | Hacker News Reader

I might be the exception here, but IMHO it is pretty patronizing how non-technical people are expected to keep up with the digital security landscape. Instead of building devices in a way that, of all things, charging them cannot hack them, we expect everybody to know that this is even a thing.

What are even the chances of this security "strategy" being successful?

I'd like to suggest a mental exercise here: Just imagine that every discipline (mechanical, medical, legal, electrical, ...) comes up with new rules to follow every month that interfere with everyday tasks that you have to perform (such as handling your bank account), but you only know about these rules when you actively research them and if you break a single rule, you are in danger of your possessions being taken away from you.

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>building devices in a way that, of all things, charging them cannot hack them

Affordability, convenience, security. Choose two.

It's not patronizing, it's how the consumer electronics market works and how consumers vote with their wallet.

Consumer device are sold with USB cables that pass data and power lines for cost and convenience, so they can also transfer data while also charging their device with the same cable that came in the box and not have them go out and buy another cable.

Can you imagine being sold a phone who's cable only passed power lines and not data, "for your own security"? The consumer confusion and outrage would be massive.

If your threat model seama it, the solution is buying a USB condom which only passe through the power lines, not the data ones.

Just like the internet and TCP-IP, USB was designed from the start to be as cheap and convenient as possible, before anything else, to get market traction, which it did. Security concerns came much later.

Why can't the device being charged provide an option, such as charge only by default - and the user can turn on data transfer the same way we turn flight mode on and off?

Android allows that in settings. But AFAIK it's just a software setting, the data lines are still physically connected.

The reason why there's no physical hard disconnect available in settings comes back to what I said earlier, cost and convenience from the manufactures' perspective.

They don't want to spend 2 cents on some mosfets for HW disconnects, and they don't want to nag the user every time they plug in the phone to charge as that would hurt the UX. They want the device to sync up automagically to whatever device you're pugging it into. That's what USB was designed for, convenience.

Plus, if you nag the user every single time they plug in the USB with a security prompt, they will just get desensitized and instinctively click 'YES' all the time.

You also need to have the USB connected on boot, for update/flash purpose.

That is what my android phone does, I have to toggle it to allow data every time.

Funny you mention that when literally all flagship phones (both iOS and Android) have a "Do you trust this computer?" popup that does exactly what you described. By default, phones don't do any data transfer over USB.

That only works if other endpoint tries to act as usb host. While if it mimics usb device (classic BadUSB), then AFAIK any phone would accept without any questions.

Classic BadUSB acts as a keyboard and opens a terminal on your PC. What exactly can a bad usb device do to a phone?

This whole thread is bizarre. A whole lot of fretting over an attack that nobody bothered to describe.

It can act like keyboard an mouse that are valid input devices on phones too. With control of user input badusb device can download and install malware on the phone.

Now we're just taking in circles. What exactly can a malicious USB device do to a phone? On Windows it can press Win+R, but there's no equivalent on mobile.

Which keystrokes are you talking about and on which OS does that attack work? I can't think of anything that would work on my iPhone.

Open chrome (swipe up with virtual mouse, type chrome, click first entry), focus on address bar, input url of malicious apk, download it, open, confirm installation from unknown source.

> Can you imagine being sold a phone who's cable only passed power lines and not data, "for your security"? The consumer confusion and outrage would be massive.

I can imagine a phone sold with a readily accessible and highly visible physical toggle switch for power-only mode, giving consumers a discoverable built-in USB condom.

You can imagine it. But can you imagine Apple, the "everything works automagically that we don't even give you basic setting in the SW" company, actually selling something like that to consumers? It would be a heresy to everything they stand for in terms of UX and physical device design.

The toggle on and off switch would be very unApplely, yes. That does not mean you have to stop thinking, it means you need industrial designers on board.

USB-condoms are a thing you know; average (and below) users know exactly what those do and can figure out how to use them in a few seconds. I bet if Apple's genius marketeers would come up with a catchy name (like the i-Safe, but cooler) those would easily sell at 3,000% the production cost. But they never will because they tarnish the brand, and make the users think their devices are not safe by default.

But then, if the device are indeed not safe by default... are we talking about criminal charges here? Would it be fraud, or what is the name of the crime where you knowingly sell hazardous stuff to the public?

I suspect some faster-charging specifications rely on data frames over the non-power lines, and if none currently do new ones might.

It does. Pretty much all charging modes above 5 watts requires some form of signal on a data line, if not outright negotiation.

But that fallback to 5 watts is still valuable in a hostile environment (which is, sadly, everywhere these days).

I'd like to extend my thought experiment with professionals from all disciplines explaining why this is not patronizing at all and why it is exactly what consumers want.

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