[nerraga]

Interesting project but it looks to me like it's solving an entirely different problem. "usbkill is a simple program with one goal: quickly shutdown the computer when a USB is inserted or removed."

The article is referring to a USB cable that has been modified to phone home using either RF or some other covert channel. I'd think that USB Kill would be completely unaware of any such compromise given that it's only looking for a disrupted connection.

[devy]

Good point. I wonder if there is a way to detect USB cable being plugged into the port?

[rincebrain]

You'd need the USB port, hub it's plugged into, all the way to the controller, to be aware of passing this information around, though you could probably use any sort of reporting on total voltage/amperage downstream for detecting it if it reported that information.

(Unfortunately, AFAIK, most USB hubs don't report power draw for devices that are "just" drawing power and don't use the data pins, so you don't get that.)