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SamurottX t1_jd7qvf0 wrote

Never plug random USB sticks into your computer. This is also a common attack vector for malware. I've never seen this used for actual bombs but there are also usb killers that send high voltage to your device and damage it.

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AudibleNod OP t1_jd7sawe wrote

Working in IT, I've seen the malware trick a few times.

Fortunately it's never something cool or espionage-y. It's just a script kiddie doing it for kicks. Nevertheless, never plug an unknown USB device (not just storage) into your system. And please don't do it on your work computer. All the IT guys are going to laugh at you.

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dittybopper_05H t1_jd7z36c wrote

The USB killer thing was done at a college in my region a few years ago. Former student went through the computer labs and killed 66 computers, then bugged out to North Carolina. He was seen and identified using the surveillance cameras, though, and arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Saint-Rose-grad-gets-prison-for-using-USB-14304163.php

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salton t1_jd860jg wrote

66 killed pcs seems like a lot of effort.

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TazBaz t1_jd8gkek wrote

With a USB killer it’s pretty simple. 10 seconds per machine (I’m counting time moving between machines; it’s pretty much plug in, pop, unplug), you’re done in a couple minutes.

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cacophonic7 t1_jd8jqnk wrote

Yeah, but you have to factor in time spent flipping the stick over 3 or 4 times before you find the right direction.

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dittybopper_05H t1_jd8rnwt wrote

Must have been worth it to that guy.

They don't talk about a motive in the article, but he must have held some kind of a grudge against the college. That's not the kind of thing you randomly do just for a lark.

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DistortoiseLP t1_jd9xhra wrote

I have absolutely gone to school with the kind of kids that would spend that much time vandalizing that much property just because they felt like destroying something.

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MississippiJoel t1_jd8klai wrote

Yeah, it was the programming from the cloning technology that was primarily motivating him without him even realizing it.

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dfpw t1_jda84nn wrote

I'm annoyed at the description of the device "sends a command to destroy the motherboard". No it charges a capacitor in the USB drive that discharges into the machine

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BananaLumps t1_jdamis0 wrote

I was just about to say the same thing. Yeah that "command" is a ~240v charge that just fries the thing.

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dittybopper_05H t1_jdc9npk wrote

Remember this the next time you read an article about something with which you are not familiar.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you

​

>Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
>
>In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

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apcolleen t1_jd9pj0o wrote

He took video of himself LOL https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/17/18412427/college-saint-rose-student-guilty-usb-killer-destroyed-computers

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dittybopper_05H t1_jdcakep wrote

It mentions that in the article I linked to. Saint Rose is in Albany, NY, so the Albany Times Union is a more local source than The Verge.

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apcolleen t1_jddimy2 wrote

There was a pay wall. I couldn't read the article you posted.

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Mummelpuffin t1_jd9phvv wrote

In high school, in my IT shop, we made flash drives with auto-run batch files that would open and close CD drives over and over again. It would keep making new instances of itself so you couldn't stop it by just closing the console window or anything. It was a fun way to prove how easy it is.

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fuzzusmaximus t1_jd8y85k wrote

Wait, you're nice enough to laugh at them? I have to struggle to resist the temptation to call them a fucking moron.

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technog2 t1_jd879h7 wrote

There's no virus that my McAfee Free Edition can't handle

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ERhyne t1_jd8i69p wrote

John McAfee's harem has entered the chat

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Boxthor t1_jd87rc9 wrote

I assume people like journalists and newspapers who take anonymous submissions have an airgapped machine for USB sticks

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ChasmDude t1_jd8tw7b wrote

It's in the interest of journalists and newspapers to have some kind of sandboxed machine, but I'd doubt any smart whistleblower would want to physically deliver a USB either in-person or via the mail. If said whistleblower is technically competent and thorough, then a multi-layed digital drop makes much more sense these days. Fewer points of failure and all of them are in your control as long as you can configure it yourself rather than using off-the-shelf means like Signal*

(* Not to say Signal isn't good for everyday use, but I wouldn't even want whistleblower-level info on my phone in the first place.)

/rant

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Divio42 t1_jd8w73q wrote

That would make entirely too much sense which is why I would never assume they are actually doing that.

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bigbangbilly t1_jd8ehwk wrote

Seems like the consequence for playing USB roulette escalated to Russian Roulette.

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Thor4269 t1_jd7ueib wrote

It's awful they were wounded but that picture of the two police with shields in front of a laptop is really funny to me

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EmbarrassedHelp t1_jd7y4vt wrote

I wish the article described what sort of wounds the reporter got, because for all we know it could have been a just a scratch. I can't imagine that a non government entity can find explosives powerful enough to do serious damage when hidden in a USB stick.

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illy-chan t1_jd7yy2t wrote

>non government entity can find explosives powerful enough to do serious damage when hidden in a USB stick.

The cartels have some access to some pretty nasty stuff. And, if it went off as soon as the victim plugged it in, I bet you could really screw up their hand. Maybe their face depending on how close they were.

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ChasmDude t1_jd8uqib wrote

yeah people shouldn't underestimate the power of military-grade plastic explosives. Israel assassinated someone using a relatively small amount hidden in a cell phone in the not-too-distant past.

Thankfully, it's hard for non-military people/groups to get, but cartels manage to obtain a lot of weapons they're not supposed to have.

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zzyul t1_jdb730v wrote

Yep, the CIA created cigars filled with C4 in a plan assassinate Castro. They had to keep the weight low enough to avoid suspicion and leave enough tobacco in it so it would smoke and still smell like a cigar so there wasn’t a lot of C4 in it. The tests still showed it would blow a person’s face off if the cigar was near their mouth when it triggered.

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ContraianD t1_jd80ntj wrote

There has been an influx of military grade equipment coming in from Mexico the last few years, Uber driver rumors of armored personnel carriers and more. Just last October Guayaquil had a slew of car bombs and coordinated attacks in the middle of the city. Strange times as historically Ecuador's role in the drug trade was almost entirely money laundering as they use the U$D in place of their own currency, but that's no longer the case.

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SamurottX t1_jd85s19 wrote

I'd assume it was mainly to their hand (mostly burns and a little shrapnel) because they were holding it when they plugged it in. The element of surprise probably did the most damage here because they probably had their hand around the entire thing and not treating it as if it was a bomb.

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MississippiJoel t1_jd8larg wrote

Well, just think about how explosive even just a tiny bit of gunpowder is. Then think about all that space inside one of those plastic USB casings, and you've got a lot of room for a lot of gunpowder, and all you'd need for a trigger is just some way to run a current to it; two wires, basically.

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Amauri14 t1_jdad5nv wrote

When I read the headline, my first thought was that the reporter might have lost a finger or two with that.

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MitsyEyedMourning t1_jd7uj8s wrote

That's... wow. That's a whole different level of fear and intimidation. Won't lie, it's pretty impressive of an idea despite the horrible nature of it all.

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bananafobe t1_jd802kc wrote

In the early 90's, an attorney in South Africa investigating death squads was assassinated with a bomb hidden in a pair of headphones that he received in the mail.

It was referenced in a play I was watching, and something about it just stuck with me.

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JimmyJackJericho t1_jd8cf01 wrote

I'm pretty sure the CIA also tried to get Castro with a ton of explosive objects. The only two I can recall were an explosive cigar and I think an chocolate bar.

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SciFiXhi t1_jd8tfwv wrote

They also tried to make his beard fall out so that his constituents would lose faith in his macho image.

The CIA vacillates between unfathomable war crimes and Looney Tunes shit.

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bananafobe t1_jd92vjo wrote

Meanwhile, the Air Force was busy attempting to build a bomb that would turn enemy soldiers gay.

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Gaskii t1_jdae7nt wrote

And a very pretty conche shell too by memory

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QuarantineViewer t1_jd8n7m3 wrote

I guess USB sticks are getting banned on airlines next.

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L_Cranston_Shadow t1_jd9lle2 wrote

Not likely, unless you try it in a poor or less populated area. It would be incredibly risky to try to stick it in your pocket and go through a metal detector or a millimeter wave scanner, also known as an Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machine, and plastic explosives stick out like a sore thumb on even the older x-ray machines, and especially the newer CT machines that modern airports in wealthier and more developed countries use for baggage, and at least in the US, increasingly (smaller versions of) at checkpoints.

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DeMalgamnated t1_jd7wm9p wrote

how much explosive can you put in a usb stick?

asking for a friend.

j/k

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please don't put me on a list. wait what was that? i think som

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17times2 t1_jd848jk wrote

> i think som

EBODY ONCE TOLD ME

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Alert-Garlic1998 t1_jd869mm wrote

My USB’s explody Plug it in and I might be dead

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pureeviljester t1_jd8bola wrote

I was looking kind of dumb, with the remains of a thumb.. drive in the center of my forehead.

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DazedinDenver t1_jd8fxay wrote

Too bad they didn't include a picture of the other USB bombs. I'd love to see how big a stick it took to include even a tiny explosive. Pretty scary, all in all. I guess reporters are not only going to have to use air-gapped computers to check received flash drives but blast rooms with waldos to insert the USB sticks.

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zerton t1_jd9b5zf wrote

This is like something from James Bond

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