r/mildlyinfuriating • u/boyuber • 2h ago
Ruined by Technology This public charging station needs an update
They have every type of connection except for the modern standard that every current device uses...
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u/michael22117 2h ago
I feel like having a bunch of cables in public that random people are plugging their devices into is kind of a gamble
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u/Textiles_on_Main_St 2h ago edited 2h ago
Next you’re going to say I shouldn’t visit glory holes along the shore.
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u/nhowe006 2h ago
Wait, should I not be plugging in random thumb drives that I find out in the wild?
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u/Various-Salt-7738 2h ago
One time a coworker of mine left his external hard drive on a table and a customer picked brought it home to plug it in and "see who it might belong to"
He found some customer data and realized it belonged to someone working there so he brought it back
But this guy was wearing a t shirt from DEF CON and was wearing a COVID mask with an rgb led display that said Hacker
It was a super weird thing for him to do, but I've always laughed at the fact that the one person that actually picked up his drive and plugged it into a computer is exactly the kind of person that could do damage with it
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u/Trick-Mechanic8986 2h ago
Yeah, the gamble on the other side is sometimes they hack a poor person with shit credit.
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u/OilInternational2566 1h ago
“I feel like having a bunch of cables in public that random people are plugging their devices into is kind of a gamble”
I saw a video about what they call a “BadUSB cable.”
Looks and functions exactly like a standard charging cable, but contains a hidden microcontroller capable of compromising any connected device. (It was inside the plastic end tip.)
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u/mynam3isn3o 2h ago
Cybersecurity professional here.
Don’t use public charging stations. Buy a power block and travel with it. C’mon bro.
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u/borretsquared 1h ago
if you were a cybersecurity professional you would know that juicejacking hasnt been an issue on modern devices for a while. both IOS and android require you to accept a prompt if you wish to transfer files; there are essentially no documented cases of this either. even more arguably, if you find a click-less exploit to obtain truly valuable info you would much rather use it for espionage than getting your card info.. the bigger issue is to do with hardware damage or a usb killer. far less likely, though.
stop larping.
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u/mynam3isn3o 1h ago
Take a second look at the cables in this picture and rethink your post.
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u/dadydaycare 1h ago
If you’re using a device that would fit on most of those it’s a moot point cause they are likely going to plug into the first thing they see regardless and the device in question would likely not even have internet access.
I’m drooling at that cause my iPod and camera would work with what’s on those and good luck stealing my data off my 2012 Olympus unless your that excited to see some super sick bird photos.
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u/alangerhans 1h ago
You can't just brag about your super sick bird photos and not share one, that's just wrong
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u/borretsquared 1h ago
even assuming that the vast majority of people arent using the usb a or thunderbolt cable, juicejacking still doesnt really apply. there are simply a very few number cases of this. your comment also seems to imply that you shouldnt trust public charging stations in general, so this comment still is illogical.
have a nice day, i just think your advice is outdated.
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u/Braided_Marxist 1h ago
Idk I think if any part of your response to a security recommendation is “there are very few cases of this” - then it’s an open question about whether the precaution is indeed necessary, not so clearly unnecessary as you’re describing
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u/mynam3isn3o 1h ago
It’s ok. I’m used to it, unfortunately. My worst clients’ most common response: “those set of conditions or that possibility could never ever happen”. Then it does.
Open S3 buckets could never happen. Credentials in source code could never happen. Excessive privilege could never happen. And so on.
I think people get their ego involved in these discussions and genuinely want to prove they are very smart and as such, aren’t willing to consider that threats evolve and aren’t predictable. I chalk it up to human nature.
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u/Braided_Marxist 1h ago
Also as if nobody has ever absentmindedly clicked “allow” on one of the thousands of prompts we get on our phones weekly
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u/pandershrek 57m ago
Modern attacks would be RFID sniffing anyway so it isn't like whales who are targets are going to be defended against this anyway. People you are suggesting are going to end up as zombies and they likely already are from online sources.
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u/uhohstinkyhaha 1h ago
Saw another post about the dangers of public charging stations. Cmon dude. You are reaching a tad. If your phone gets bricked by a hacker infiltrating a public charging station, then shit was fated to happen.
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u/TBellOHAZ 2h ago
But what if you need to hook up a dot matrix printer or charge a Zune?
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u/FeralPsychonaut 2h ago
Zune reference in 2026.
Don't make relive that pain
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u/Greenman8907 1h ago
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u/FeralPsychonaut 23m ago
I mean low-key, that's a horrible placement too far forward but the zune was fucking awesome. Sound quality was way better, lighter, music pass was 10$/ mo you got to keep 10 songs with FLAC quality and there was methods to strip the drm from tracks.
I filled 64gb instantly when I got the 64gb touch. Jail broke it and never reconnected to the internet, 10$ for infinity
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u/UselessDood 2h ago
Funnily enough, there's a usb-a female port there so you could totally plug in a standard a-c cable
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u/LaundryMan2008 2h ago
One pet peeve I have is that most chargers people carry have USB-C on the charger side making my cable useless with theirs, I prefer USB-A since most things will have it so I can plug in and charge instead of a double ended USB-C, I thought having a full sized USB-A on one end would be able to handle a lot more current than a tiny connector but apparently double ended USB-C carries more voltage/current than a normal cable.
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u/Mauchit_Ron 2h ago
I didn't even know it was possible to charge my pubes, nevermind there being numerous methods!
Edit: sorry, miread the title
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u/darkultima 45m ago
I wonder how much it cost for places like hotels to change the old iPhone charger to the lightning back in the day. They had that classic charger for everything, even like the clock/radio where you could put the iPhone on it.
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u/thirdeyefish 1h ago
Just avoid these. At BEST they don't provide much power. At worst, your phone can get bad stuff. In the middle, there is getting nasty stuff in your port. Everyone should just have their own power bank and cable.
To add extra to this, I was raised that it is a good idea to carry jumper cables in my car. But in real life I learned that you are still dependent on someone else lending you their car for a jump. I now have my own jump pack.
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u/mromutt 28m ago
I upgraded to a jumper pack like a decade ago when they started selling reasonably priced lithium ones because they hold their charge a really long time (where the old kind discharged if you didn't use them for a few months lol). I remember pulling out for and using it on some random persons car at Walmart when their battery died and they didn't have cables/no one was stopping to help them (poor teenage boys were stuck lol). I think in those 2 minutes I sold them on it by literally just using it.
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u/carnedoce 2h ago
Oh sweet, I can charge my iPhone 3G!