• untorquer@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I have heard of a gov employee keeping a usb cable in a locked cabinet because they thought it had leftover data after use.

    • myotheraccount@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Not do far fetched, tbh. I always burn the pencil after writing down my password - if someone got a hold of it they could easily figure out what was last written. My typewriter was hacked numerous times this way!

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      Not actually an insane practice. There are compromised cables that look normal but have hidden storage to record data for later retrieval.

      • WalterLego@lemmy.zip
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        20 hours ago

        That’s the opposite. Your protecting the cable from being manipulated. OP is talking about protecting the cable from being read.

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
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          16 hours ago

          Assuming that the cable hadn’t already been manipulated, in which case they were protecting it from being read.

      • untorquer@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        The problem isn’t that they were keeping a USB cable in a secured location for security concerns, the problem was that they were doing so because they believed bits were left over in the copper itself and enough such that data would be recoverable. Like marbles through a tube.

        I do hope the practice was due to your point and that the particular person was just naive, misinterpreting a presumably shitty PowerPoint.

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
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          16 hours ago

          I was assuming an imperfect narrator. The only person who knows why the cable was locked up was the one who locked it up.