21 thoughts on “Public Phone Chargers”

  1. I have an APC with a removable lithium battery I take with me when I travel. It has 2.4A and 1A output and holds enough juice for my laptop, tablet, and phone for a few days. On longer trips, I sometimes bring a Ravpower wireless router, which has its own 110 plug, battery, and output sockets for gizmos. The normal home job for these things is keeping my network alive for 10 hours or so in power failures. The Ravpower wireless router thingy is normally connected to a 2T hard drive.

  2. Meh not sure I buy all that paranoia. Maybe it is possible to bypass the iOS security built into the phone that asks me if I trust the device talking to it. I just say no. There are also USB adapters out there that claim to pass only power and block everything else. I tried to buy one via Amazon but the plugs were screwed up, not for Apple lightning. Fortunately it was cheap. I also have one of those portable power packs I can use to charge the phone or publicly charge to charge the phone. I don’t travel enough to make it worthwhile.

  3. Start of PSA: If you are *really* paranoid, this is the year NOT to date using the format: mm/dd/yy esp. on legal documents. Cause 20__ can be hacked with a pen to be anything from 2000 to 2019. Use the format: mm/dd/yyyy i.e. 2020 instead. End of PSA.

    1. Yeah, and that’s *paranoia*.

      Because the addition won’t be Magically Perfect a match, and if you can show you always use two digits, it would never stand up to challenge, and documents tend to have other dates on them, and what’s the attack DO?

      No, no, no, waste of time to care.

      1. Not only that, but what exactly is the vulnerability? Probably for most people it’s writing a check, and since checks basically expire about 90 days after they’re dated, all you could do by adding two digits to the end of a check I gave you is void it.

        I suppose you could come up with some kind of arcane possibility about forming a business or selling something, and then claiming it’d actually happened earlier, but it just seems pretty unlikely.

  4. I’ve been saying for years that it’s incredibly bad design to use a data port as the charging port. Older phones that had a pin charger port were far superior in this regard, as well as being far easier to use (a round port where you don’t have to worry about orientation is a lot less hassle.).

    1. The next gen phones ought to offer inductive charging that offer data less charging. Of course the temptation to also use it as a data port to send you advertising as to whom provided the outlet will probably prove too tempting to overcome.

      1. Phones already have inductive charging, have for several years. All the flagship Android phones and the past few generations of iPhones do that.

        (And there’s no way to “use it as a data port”. It’s pure power.

        I think some of the Android NFC stuff let that happen for a while, but everyone hated it and I suspect you can’t now.)

  5. The same problem with built-in microphones and cameras that are controlled by software on a current PC: How do you know that your PC hasn’t been hacked and is spying on you? Mack Reynolds had a series where all citizens were required to carry communicators in public — they also had Faraday Cages at home to make their private lives private.

    1. I operate from my desktop when I’m home, and it has no camera or mic, unless I deliberately hook them up for some specific purpose. I cover the camera on my laptop, but not sure how to deafen mic.

        1. Doesn’t get past the anti-snark filter on my iPhone…
          Hey Siri…
          I’m listening….
          Ssssh
          I didn’t deserve that.

      2. “DudEz rUn Le3n00Kz n n0 m1cr0f0n3 dRiV3rz!!!”

        More seriously, you can open it up and unplug it. Might be linked to the camera, but since you cover it, unplug both.

        Or, you know, find more realistic attack surfaces to worry about?

        1. An alternative, most PCs and some laptops come with an external line-in jack that if you plug a dummy plug into it might disable the built-in microphone. If you have one you can try it with an audio sampling app and see what happens. My old time audio cassette recorder came with one of those for erasing tapes. Long since lost. So just by a patch cord, cut off the plug and use that.

          My laptop has a microphone mute button, but then again it’s a Lenovo, so who knows what really happens?

      3. Use the Edward Snowden approach. Just throw your laptop PC or Smartphone into a microwave oven and close the door. Just remember not to turn it (the microwave oven) on.

  6. Sooo… take a usb cable, cut it, solder the power wires and leave the data wires disconnected. Doesnt matter how malicious the port is then. Unless it is the wrong voltage and designed to cook the device. Alternatively, carry a 120v plug adapter.

    1. Or just buy one pre-made like that.

      Which is a lot more sensible, unless you personally LOVE doing cable surgery and then somehow trying to get it to not be a mess afterwards.

    2. Just bring your charger with you and plug into an outlet instead of USB. I would imagine public USB chargers are only 5 or 10W anyway, and recentish high-end phones are starting to use 15W, 18W, or even higher-power fast charging.

  7. One thing you learn from hacking together lab equipment: no port is magical, theyre all just bundles of wires. Supply the right voltage to the power rails, and away you go.

  8. I never go on travel without my Generac MMG25 IF4 20 kW diesel generator as backup for my phone and laptop. Sure, it weighs 2,517 pounds, and is a slightly awkward 3x4x8 feet, but it will charge my iPhone, computer, Tesla Roadster, and pretty much anything else in sight for 60 hours on one tank of diesel. If the airplane is stuck on the tarmac, I can plug in to the air conditioning system and keep everyone comfortable…the airlines love it!

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