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USB "Condom" Allows You To Practice Safe Charging
MojoKid writes "Yep, a USB condom. That term is mostly a dose of marketing brilliance, which is to say that grabs your attention while also serving as an apt description of the product. A little company called int3.cc has developed a product—a USB condom—that blocks the data pins in your USB device while leaving the power pins free. Thus, any time you need to plug a device such as a smartphones into a USB port to charge it—let's say at a public charging kiosk or a coworker's computer--you don't have to worry about compromising any data or contracting some nasty malware. It's one of those simple solutions that seems so obvious once someone came up with it."
If someone has physical access to your phone unsupervised, ALL BETS ARE OFF.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
A little company called int3.cc has developed a product—a USB condom—that blocks the data pins in your USB device while leaving the power pins free.
If you consider something that blocks the middle of the male end but leaves the sides open to be a "condom," you might want to see a doctor. Soon.
If you consider that it allows for insertion without allowing the flow of information, the comparison might be more correct than you think.
"Negotiate" is a loose term - really it's just some fixed resistances across the data pins that set USB charging mode. This can be built into the plug without any extra copper in the cable.
That said for the portable device on the other end to recognise charging mode it also needs to see some fixed resistance, which would need to be build into the far end plug too.
and if you don't connect the data pins, the port, if it obeys the USB standards strictly, may shut down if more than 100ma is drawn without negotiation.