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Comment by pengaru | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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?

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