On: Don't Plug Your Phone into a Charger You Don't Own

[sheraz]

Wow -- this hadn't even crossed my mind. Regarding Android devices (mine included):

Could I just hide a tiny linux OS inside a charger? Then when someone plugs in the device just auto-mounts the SD card and copies away? Is it that simple?

[_quasimodo → sheraz]

Does android ask you for permission to be mounted or at least notify you?

Im still using an old n900 which asks you if you want it to just load its battery, be a modem or be a mass storage device.

[hfsktr → _quasimodo]

I'm not sure if this is what you meant but mine always has a prompt of some kind (varied between phones) for connecting to pc. I'm not sure if there is a way to disable that or if it was phone specific.

[npsimons → _quasimodo]

Since you've got an N900, you can do even better than that:

- Different filesystems (unlikely this would work with anything but FAT based).

- Encrypted filesystems.

- Simply disabling the capability (I can't remember the last time I used USB data transfer on mine).

Of course, it's easy to do the above on a phone you actually have control over. Sorry, iPhone users.

[sheraz → _quasimodo]

No. My Sony xperia does not ask. It automatically mounts in osx

[dlhavema → _quasimodo]

icons popped up in the notification bar that show its being mounted through USB for all the android devices i have ever owned: droid, htc thunderbolt, galaxy s3, xoom...