Slashdot Mirror
Free Software Will Help Detect Faulty and Malicious USB-C Cables
Reader Mickeycaskill writes: The USB 3.0 Promoter Group, of which HP, Intel and Microsoft are members, has developed authentication protocols for USB-C and will offer free software to detect faulty or malicious cables.This tool will alert users if they are using a non-authenticated cable. It has been suggested that hardware manufacturers could ship devices with an authentication system already installed. It is hoped that the specification will help end a number of recent incidents where sub-standard cables have either ripped off buyers or damaged devices. Most recently, Amazon said it would be adding USB-C cables and adapters that do not comply with standard regulations to its list of prohibited electronics items.
when you cables need to be "authenticated"....
Honestly, Everyone bitches about Apple, but the rest of the world is doing the same fucking thing, my cable should not have to authenticate to anything. and should just contain plastic, metal connector pins and copper wires to take it to the other end.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
USB has become succesful because it was cheap and simple to use and cheap and simple to manufacture. It seems to me that USB-C is getting further and further away from that by the day. Maybe different use cases require different solutions, maybe there is no such thing as a 'one universal cable' that can combine the advantages of all the others without the disadvantages. It seems like USB just wanted to replace lightning on Apple stuff, and does not care about PC users who don't have a fortune to waste on a piece of wire. Which is not even just wire anymore, it contains its own electronics, losing all the elegance and simplicity tha made USB great.
No. No, no, no!
The *LAST* thing we need is a USB cable with active components in it. It's almost bad enough that some charging cables have a small resistor in them, because now there are a million different standards of them.
Also, if the ground and power wires are swapped at one end like the cable that killed the chromebook of that google employee, then no software is going to help at all. As soon as you plug it in, it will already have damaged your hardware.
Here is what we *DO* need: USB cables that are transparent so you can SEE the colors of wire going to the pins of each connector. *THIS* is what will prevent damage due to bad cables. Your "software" is not needed, and wouldn't help anyway.
There have been bad cables out there that put in the wrong spec resistor or are otherwise mis-wired. However, I don't agree that "authenticating" the cables is the answer. The word "authentication" implies that there will be key exchanges involved, which puts all the pieces into place for vendor lock-in (i.e. LG devices only charge with LG certified cables, etc... ), not to mention additional cost and complexity. I for one already have a selection of USB-C compliant chargers and cables (yes, using Benson's spreadsheet). Will those be accepted by new USB-C devices supporting this specification? Will there be a supply of cheap USB-C cables that support this "authentication" AND work with every device vendor? I doubt it on both accounts. I prefer Benson's approach of shaming the vendors that don't follow the spec.
It's not really DRM. The "authentication" information is more an informational block - like EDID in monitors, SPD in memory modules and such.
The reason is it allows for smarter management. A USB-C charger can provide up to 100W of power, but you need some way of telling the device that it's available, and the current methods are generally quite... crappy. But you also don't want to have the charger implement a full USB stack. So you implement this mechanism and it tells you how much power you can draw. And if you use a crappy USB cable that doesn't put in the resistors correctly, you could detect that as well and charge at the agonizingly slow rate, while displaying a dialog to change the cable to a certified one because it's wired incorrectly.
Basically this whole thing stemmed from that Google guy reviewing all the USB-C cables out there, and finding a huge number of them were pretty awful and resulting in crippled charger performance, if the devices could charge at all.
It's less about tying products and accessories together and more about being able to tell the user that the $1 USB-C cable they bought is incorrectly manufactured and to expect problems like slow charging or slow data transfers.
You're factually wrong on so many counts that it's not even funny.
A) The cables you're comparing are different lengths. 1m for the "Apple" cable vs. 2m for the Amazon cable. No wonder it's cheaper.
B) That "Apple" cable is being sold by a third-party via Amazon. Apple doesn't sell a single one of their products directly via Amazon. Buyer beware.
C) To compare apples to Apples, an actual 2m Apple cables costs $29 ($19 for 1m), not the $7.50 you suggested it was.
D) If you want to whip out your Apple e-peen to see if it's bigger than mine, I'd wager good money I have you beat. Macs have continuously been my primary computers since the late '80s. A Mac Classic, Performa 400, PowerMac G3 300, Titanium PowerBook DVI, HiRes Aluminum PowerBook, 2008 Mac mini, 2011 Mac mini. My wife uses them, my parents use them, my siblings use them, and my wife's siblings and parents do too. Likewise for phones and tablets: iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 5s, iPad 2, and iPad Air 2. I could list off Time Capsules, Airport base stations, and other accessories too, if you'd like.
I use Apple products on a daily basis and absolutely love them (we're planning to buy an iPhone SE this weekend, in fact, assuming they're in stock), but there's no (sane) way to deny that actual Apple dongles and cables are far more expensive than their generic counterparts. It's no different than the advice we'd give people about BTO RAM upgrades: do it yourself after buying from a third-party.
So, as someone whose love for Apple likely runs far deeper than yours: stop with the lies and misinformation, since it makes us all look like we have no clue what we're talking about.
I think a part of the problem with USB-C is that it can handle up to 100 watts of power delivery! If your cable is of questionable quality or has issues, messing up 100 watts of power can definitely break things or cause a fire. I think amazon decided to go the safer route instead of destroying equipment or causing fires.
until it's authenticated
Until what's authenticated? That it's a cable? I've read the USB press release and a few other articles and there's no indication anywhere as to what this "authentication" is authenticating. If I take an authentic USB 3.0 cable with authentication and authentically send 10,000 authentic volts down it, does it authentically help the authentic owner of the authentically fried device to know that it's been authentically authenticated?