Any year in high school or college means no shortage of contact between your gadgets and those belonging to others. But say you're at a friend's dorm room or apartment and need to charge your phone for a few minutes. How can you know whether they've been careful about protecting their computer from malware and viruses? You can't — and some malicious software is capable of infecting connected phones or scraping them for data.
Enter the USB condom: a product that started as a joke but actually serves a purpose. This tiny device makes sure that when you plug in your phone to an untrusted USB port, no data goes back and forth — only power. It does this by stopping any voltage from traveling over the wires in the cable that carry data. You can never be too careful! (For the iPhone, you'll want the regular full-size USB version.)
IN-DEPTH
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-- Devin Coldewey
