usb shorting to ground

[Todd Troxell <ttroxell () debian org>]

I discovered rather inadvertently that laptops do not enjoy having their USB
VCC shorted to GND one bit. It is a sure DoS, in fact if the machine has a
stupid power supply, it could result in permanent damage. It is kind of scary
for kiosk machines like the those ubiquitous Kodak photo centers.

I give you, the usb pwner. It could even hide inside a legitimate stick:

USB Pwner schematic

VCC ------------
D+  ---(nc)    |
D   ---(nc)    |
GND ------------

-- 
Todd Troxell
http://rapidpacket.com/~xtat

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