NSA put's charging station at shmoocon

https://gizmodo.com/nsa-puts-phone-charging-station-at-hacker-conference-in-1831875574 >We’ve all had that moment. Your smartphone battery is running low, and you’re desperate for some juice. But just how desperate have you gotten? Desperate enough to plug your phone into an NSA charging station? Because some people are seriously facing that choice right now. What a cheeky cunt...

>not plugging in a battery backup charger with a picture of a smug anime girl saying "not today NSA" taped to it

this is why you bring a portable battery charger with you so you dont have to plug your phone into the wall.

to be honest, I cannot understand plebs who charge phones in public... certainly would not want to be the poor fuarrrk sitting at an NSA charging station. I wonder how easy putting a honeypotted "charging booth" in public would be? could you make one with a raspberry pi that just copies all the data? This is partially the reason I carry spare phone batteries and never plug in at any public space

In Japan in the convenience stores, you can rent a little transparent locker with a charging port, for your gadgets. It could catch on here.

>>6983 They have those here in Canada, in the food courts of the mall and university in this town.

When I owned a phone I would switch it off when not in use. It saved a lot of power.

Meanwhile I still have an old smartphone with a replaceable battery. Throw a couple in my bag or pocket and it goes for weeks. But don't mind me, more water resistance and saving 1 micrometer of form factor is more important apparently

Gave me a little chuckle. But I wouldn't mind plugging my phone into that thing anyway when all modern phones have a seperate cellular processor that has transparent control over the main processor and the operating system.

>>6989 iphones had a vuln where a single message to the number backdoored the entire OS

>>6991 If my memory serves me right I remember reading about a Mac rootkit in Vault 7 documents. It could detect kernel panics during boot and remove itself from the system after subsequent crashes to avoid detection upon suspicion of the user. Part reason why intelligence agencies and other talented hacker groups specifically target Apple products is because high profile targets such as dissidents, journalists, dissident journalists and politicians usually rely on Apple products rather than their Android/Windows counterparts over privacy concerns. We can see how that backfires. The solution? There is no solution. Even offline devices can get hacked. Iranian nuclear plants weren't connected to the internet.

>>6992 they got hacked specifically because they had an inside man who put infected hardware into the airgapped system. Computer security is only ever an aspect of generalized security.

>>6983 They have one of those at my school, but it's broken

>>6992 > The solution? There is no solution. Even offline devices can get hacked. Iranian nuclear plants weren't connected to the internet. That's probably because some dumbfuck plugged a USB he found into something important. Or what >>6993 said

>>6986 >>6983 I can confirm, I've seen these in Australia too

How can a phone be hacked over 5-volt power cable? Are you guys braindamaged?

>>7001 It's USB, do we know it's not just providing power? Although I will say this, if the NSA was wanting to get info on you they'd probably make use of a wireless backdoor instead of a USB one. Make it less obvious. But I really think the charger was more of a "haha funny self-aware joke, how do you do fellow hackers" type deal. Similar to how they've been open-sourcing some of their software recently, just a PR move.

>>7002 they're just trying to recruit

>>7005 yeah, except nobody wants to join since the pay is better private sector, and anti-dude-weed-lmao does not apply to many private sector jobs

>>7006 yea most def, that's why they need to recruit. Not a desirable job.

>>6983 Why they don't just put open power plugs for customers? Can't hack a gadget from the power plug.

>>7049 >Bit streams generated by the keyboards that indicate what keys have been struck create voltage fluctuations in the grounds, thus if plugged in, hackers retrieve the information through the power outlet.

>>7002 >>7005 While just a "haha we're suspicious" gag on the surface I imagine that it probably does place a little something something on the plugged phone. Then for the phone-owner it's a little easter egg hunt to find the malware (probably nothing legitimately malicious) and when they find it there is probably some string or something that is like >Hey! You found us! Contact xxx-xxx-xxxx or email us at xxx.nsa.gov, we'd like to talk to you about a job.

>>7227 Nah, it's just that they need you to touch something to get the nanobots onto your skin.

>>7058 wouldn't the PSU and KB be drawing more or less constant power? Seems like this would probably get lost in background noise.

>>7058 >Researchers from Inverse Path showed a couple interesting techniques for sniffing keystrokes at CanSecWest... >...they sniffed characters from a PS/2 keyboard by monitoring the ground line in an outlet 50 feet away https://hackaday.com/2009/03/20/sniffing-keystrokes-via-laser-power-lines/

>>7230 This. I do now knot of any device that would be precise enough to measure such a small change in voltage. That's just reptilian overlords tier imo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) Oh, TEMPEST is very real. Don't think it went away with CRTs.

>>6958 >Imagine actually calling yourself a l33t hax0r and still owning a non-burner phone that has its battery removed apart from set times

>>7404 >The team said it wasn’t possible with USB or laptop keyboards. they exploited a quirk in PS/2, this is not applicable in general

>>6983 >>6986 would you have a pic by any chance?

although i'd still wouldn't want my phone or any other device to connect via usb to an unknown device, wouldn't this help? https://www.amazon.co.uk/PortaPow-3rd-Data-Blocker-Pack/dp/B00T0DW3F8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1553392382&sr=8-2&keywords=usb+condom never used it (that's why i had to search for usb condom on amazon to find it), but remembered it from a few years back i think

>>7419 >not owning a smarthphone with it's phone & connectivity features removed. I love my modern pda

>>7430 Oh, I happened to be on campus and passed by one tonight. The ones at the mall are different I think.

>>7433 Couldn't you make your own rudimentary version of this by getting a USB-A-to-whatever connector and removing all but the power pins?

>>7443 yes. yes, you could. your point?

>>7444 No point. Just wondering, because of the price, if this thing had something else going for it.

>>6958 My power bank cannot be hacked

I'd plug in a sb stick to see what happens. And i'd just charge my powerbank.

>>7447 If it talks USB then it has at least 1 microcontroller inside.

>>7473 it's probably got a hardcoded ROM. You'd need to replace it.

>>7473 Yes there is probably a micro inside >>7474 It could indeed be a hardcoded rom But in the end it doesn't matter because there is no serial connection from the usb port, to an ftdi chip, to the micro. Because why would there be.

>>7481 >But in the end it doesn't matter because there is no serial connection from the usb port, to an ftdi chip, to the micro. Because why would there be. I wouldn't be surprised if the data pins are used to negotiate charging parameters like "I can take X amps of current" or say "stop charging I'm about to explode" but I don't know. I wouldn't just assume it's all fine with a complex protocol like USB though.

>>7481 many "fast-charge" schemes use serial connections to fine-tune the power connections, i.e. provide more than the default current if the receiving thing can take it.

>>7482 >>7483 Nope, the pins are just shorted together. Also, any form of, "I am going to explode" or "I take this many amps" is usualy managed at the charging circuit of the device. The only things that get communicated is stuff like dash charging or quickcharging. Both are pretty hard to imploment because they require either boost converters that can deliver 6 amps of power (dash charging) or at higher voltages (quick charging) and if those features were supported, pruduction would have been quite a bit more expensive, (also potential license fees) and therefore, there is no way that they wouldn't advertise these features.

>>7498 Also, even with these features, that wouldn't be managed using a micro. It is usually just one purpose specific ic which therefore cannot be programmed. For example, this circuit is using the IP5306. Which has an example circuit (typical application). Which is pretty much identical to the pcb of this power bank, except for the fact that this is a diy power bank where you provide your own 18650's and therefore it has reverse polarity protection on each cell.

>>6987 Problem with most of us, or at least me, is that we constantly use our phones

>>6958 Not plugging in your USB killer,,, top kek

>>7763 Just got mine! Can't wait to find an excuse to try it out.

Just ordered some USB data blockers, although I'm sure a leet enough attacker could still do some sort of Van Eck phreaking to get side-channel leaks.