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Software Safeguards Coming to Protect Against Potentially Dangerous USB-C Cables

oneMadRssn said:
Read the article: With the USB Type-C Authentication specification, computers and other devices with USB-C ports will be able to confirm the authenticity of a USB device or USB charger, verifying elements like certification status and power flow, along with ensuring no malware is present.
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a.k.a. Code Signing, which only works until your malware provider starts to signs his own work. Distribution of malicious software through physical objects is no big concern for me. CIA and KGB will find an easier way to get me.
I worry less about charging smartphones because I can get work done without a smartphone.
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Good for you. Or not, because it means you life over a decade in the past.
Another simple solution to this issue are USB cables with a switch in the middle, that lets you physically toggle from charging only to charging+data.
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Your simple solutions are getting simpler and simpler. Why not put a generator in your laptop and power it with gasoline?
There is almost no situation where I have to plug in a USB device. There are many situations where I have to charge my computer and might not have the OEM charging adapter with me.
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Than take your charger with you! It's not that much weight to carry. Public USB ports in airplanes aren't 29W anyway, so you must bring your own power adapter.
 
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tpr007 said:
I'd love this to happen. I can't stand having different cables for different things :) I'm a tidy freak
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It won't. Apple is apparently invested in Lightning, at least until wireless charging becomes a solution, and that's likely only to get worse if they remove the 3.5mm Jack from their iPhones.

As for being a tidy freak, unless you throw out all your current equipment, and buy all brand new equipment using the same connectors, you'll still have a bunch of dongles and adapters until you do replace them.

Frankly, adopting Lightning as a power connector across all of their products, as they currently seem to be) is not a bad idea. Not only does it prevent these sorts of third party problems, but it frees the USB-C ports up strictly for data, which also avoids these kinds of problems.
 
oneMadRssn said:
A problem that only exists because companies insist on combining charging cables and data cables into one.

Reminds me the story of the space pen. NASA realized that regular ballpoint pens don't work in zero gravity, so they spent some enormous amount of resources on R&D to design a pressurized ink cartridge that can write upside down and in zero gravity, what we call the space pen. The Russians just used a pencil.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one. Dedicated power port. Done.
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The problem with using a pencil is that the graphite rubs off and can get inside components. Sometimes the "simplest" solution isn't necessarily the best.

Portability is a good reason to have integrated ports. These days, with mobile devices, the USB port is used primarily for fast charging. Having it be capable of data transmission is a bonus.
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Mac 128 said:
It won't. Apple is apparently invested in Lightning, at least until wireless charging becomes a solution, and that's likely only to get worse if they remove the 3.5mm Jack from their iPhones.
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Apple publicly committed to using Lightning for a "long time" when they introduced it. Remember the backlash from dropping the 30-pin port? The 12.9" iPad Pro shows the way forward. Apple can introduce USB 3 capabilities to future iOS devices while retaining compatibility with existing Lighting accessories.
 
KPOM said:
The problem with using a pencil is that the graphite rubs off and can get inside components. Sometimes the "simplest" solution isn't necessarily the best.

Portability is a good reason to have integrated ports. These days, with mobile devices, the USB port is used primarily for fast charging. Having it be capable of data transmission is a bonus.
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Yes yes, fine. The space pen example was a bad one.

There is still a major security issue with the fact that the one cable everyone MUST plug in to their computer at a regular basis also allows for firmware level access to the hardware. That is one of the issues this story we are commenting on addresses. It is not an illusory issue - it does happen, and it will become bigger.

I am all for convenience. Having one cable to plug in when docking your laptop is very convenient. I'm saying that trading convenience for insecurity is a bad trade, when all that is required to make security a total non-issue is a dedicated charging port.

Indeed, if convenience is the goal, the dedicated charging doesn't even have to be a port. Wireless charging using induction has been around for a while. You would then still only have one cable to plug in if you want to attach to a docking station and monitor or whatever, and you would have the ability to charge in other situations without sacrificing security.
 
I used use Monoprice for my cables but their quality dipped dramatically, Anker has been great at a good price. There are more OEMs out there too that are reputable to buy from.

The worst offenders tend to be gas station cable/charger stands as they're looking for the crappiest to make the biggest buck.
 
CarlJ said:
This suggests a quote that isn't fake:

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken
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Bzzt, but thanks for playing.

The correct quote is:
Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
  • "The Divine Afflatus" in New York Evening Mail (16 November 1917); later published in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
See: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken (which includes your misquote).
 
This sounds great until your cables and accessories randomly stop working for no ****ing reason because the auth checker glitches out. You know, the notorious problem with Lightning, HDMI, and DVI. It's infuriating that I have to use a sketchy, probably-illegal "converter" box from China that fools the HDMI auth checker because my Apple TV hates my TV for no reason.

I mean, in theory, it should work fine. I'm just worried about what it'll end up being. That 128-bit crypto checking has to rely on certificates signed by an authority. The process had better be glitch-free, and whoever gives out the certificates had better not be greedy.
 
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