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I have a mysterious USB stick I received as a thank you from a delegation of the Chinese department of Customs (中华人民共和国海关总署) after presenting to them in Palo Al
by verst 8y ago
I have a mysterious USB stick I received as a thank you from a delegation of the Chinese department of Customs (中华人民共和国海关总署) after presenting to them in Palo Alto. The USB is branded with the Chinese Customs logo and their slogan.
I haven't dared plugging this in. First and foremost I'm afraid it isn't standards compliant and will somehow fry my motherboard, secondly I don't have a burner device and the necessary knowledge to determine if anything suspicious is happening.
So for now my USB stick and its decorative case in Chinese art style are purely for display.
- depressed 8y agoOn the "determine if anything suspicious is happening" front, you can configure Wireshark to capture USB packets and show you what is going over the wire.
- verst 8y agoOh nice! I've used Wireshark for TCP / UDP captures before but that's about it. Maybe I can use a raspberry pi as burner device and check it out.
- justwalt 8y agoThat sounds really interesting. You should post later if you go through with your plan!
- NikkiA 8y agoA pi zero would do the job and only risk about $5 to find out what's on the stick.
- ovi256 8y agoNice idea. Start a service where people mail unknown USB devices to you and you email back a disk image.
- pryce 8y agoGiven what happens to USB sticks in my household (needed fairly often), you may still be at risk of a family member opening it and using it should they need one in a pinch.
- verst 8y agoFortunately I live alone and I can't remember the last time I used a USB drive. I have Gigabit Fiber so I transfer everything online.