So I found a USB device in the Home Depot Parking lot in West Berlin NJ.  Sounds like the beginning of a Jack Reacher book.

Understand, I have seen A LOT of different usb items.  My company sells them, I've been in tech for 30 years.  This one is a first.

It is HEAVY.  The case is steel.  It is probably 3 ounces. 

It has a Micro USB connector on one side.

It has what appear to be two contacts and two probes on the other end.

It looks like it is designed to slide into something.

It has some sort of battery in it, I'll explain in a sec.

It appears to have been run over numerous times with only the connector getting bent a little.

It has a light next to the Micro USB connector.  It lights up when plugged in, it flashes 3 times when unplugged.

It took me two large pliers to pry the end apart.  It is STIFF.

My testing is as follows:

I have an old computer here, I yanked out the hard drive cables and booted to a CDrom Ubuntu distro.

I plugged it in.  The OS does not see any device, nor do I see it trying to do anything.  It may be dead.  It may just be a power bank.

I don't know.

What is it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

do you get any voltages from the terminals?

 

2 minutes ago, USRifle30Cal said:

do you get any voltages from the terminals?

 

Good test. 

No voltage from any point to any other positive or negative.   

Slight continuity between the center post, only with one polarity.  Clearly a diode and resistor between them.

It looks like a proprietary rechargeable battery to me. The 2 silver dots are for the magnetic charger plug to attach to the device and charge via the 2 gold pins. There are rails on each side to slide into a device with 2 tracks.

On 12/26/2019 at 3:40 PM, JohnnyB said:

It looks like a proprietary rechargeable battery to me. The 2 silver dots are for the magnetic charger plug to attach to the device and charge via the 2 gold pins. There are rails on each side to slide into a device with 2 tracks.

I agree.  Strong possibility.   I will cut it apart when I get back to the shop on Monday.  

Those silver dots are magnetic 

 

Are the gold pins spring loaded..they might need to be depressed to show voltage...

2 hours ago, USRifle30Cal said:

Are the gold pins spring loaded..they might need to be depressed to show voltage...

They are not spring loaded.

When you say Ubuntu doesn’t see the device do you mean as a drive, or anything on the USB bus?  What does ‘dmsg’ say?  What about when you run ‘lsusb’?

Im pretty sure its a Vape machine. Some vape pods are magnetic. Looks like this will fit into your mysterious device

 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, voyager9 said:

When you say Ubuntu doesn’t see the device do you mean as a drive, or anything on the USB bus?  What does ‘dmsg’ say?  What about when you run ‘lsusb’?

It didn't pop up on the gui, the I ran isusb , saw nothing change whether plugged in or not.  I have a better test box at work, I will try it on that one.

7 hours ago, Vzguy said:

Im pretty sure its a Vape machine. Some vape pods are magnetic. Looks like this will fit into your mysterious device

 

 

 

 

Sure looks like a fit!  Now to find the other part.

Glock 19.

39 minutes ago, CMJeepster said:

Glock 19.

It’s obviously an assault clipazine

While I cannot seem to find this particular device, it is almost certainly a vape machine as suggested above.

It is simply a battery and a charging circuit.  There is no memory, so it is not storage of any kind.

The Datamatrix code on the battery is simply the same as the 290471740051 number above it.

I attempted to charge it and it doesn't hold a charge, probably why I found it in a Home Depot parking lot.

The posts to either side of the contact points are isolated so do not provide any electric conductivity. 

The PCB appears to be a simple charging circuit but there is a tiny speaker on the other side.

It probably attaches to that shoulder things that goes up.

 

 

 

 

Now that you know what it is....... wash your hands.......  

42 minutes ago, Kevin125 said:

Now that you know what it is....... wash your hands.......  

Eh, it sat in a parking lot in the rain.  All the hep is washed off.

 

 

I found a small USB stick the size of a chicklet lost in a couch in a hotel room in China. Of course I thought it was an intelligence service plant to access my computer. hahaha. Turned out to be a trade show giveaway and very handy. 

Never put that trade show give away USB crap in your laptop or desktop.  Especially one from China.

Ever.

Malware is not the worst thing you can get from bad-actor USB device:

https://kukuruku.co/post/usb-killer/

Quote

...The basic idea of the USB drive is quite simple. When we connect it up to the USB port, an inverting DC/DC converter runs and charges capacitors to -110V. When the voltage is reached, the DC/DC is switched off. At the same time, the filed transistor opens. It is used to apply the -110V to signal lines of the USB interface. When the voltage on capacitors increases to -7V, the transistor closes and the DC/DC starts. The loop runs till everything possible is broken down. ...

What does that all do?:
 

Quote

A former student of The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, has pled guilty to charges that he destroyed tens of thousands of dollars worth of campus computers using a USB device designed to instantly overwhelm and fry their circuitry. The plea was announced today by the Department of Justice, FBI, and Albany Police Department. The Verge reports: Vishwanath Akuthota, the former student, now faces up to 10 years in prison (with up to three years of supervision after release) and a fine totaling up to $250,000. He was arrested and taken into custody in North Carolina on February 22nd, just over a week after he went on a spree of inserting the "USB Killer" device into 66 of Saint Rose's computers around various locations on campus. Such devices can be easily and freely purchased online and can overload the surge protection in many PCs.

Akuthota, 27, apparently made video recordings of himself inserting the malicious USB device into the computers and said "I'm going to kill this guy" as the PCs were overloaded and permanently ruined. So it's fair to say the FBI and APD had all the evidence they needed. In total, Akuthota caused $58,471 worth of damage. As part of his guilty plea, he has agreed to pay back that amount to the college, a small private school in New York's capital city. The Verge reached out to The College of Saint Rose for a statement on today's news, but a spokesperson said the college had been asked by law enforcement to refrain from commenting.

 

The new generation of stupid, ill record myself vandalizing property.