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Kids are short circuiting their school issued Chromebooks for TikTok clout Ars Technica (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago* by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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[–] 41 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I'm no electrical engineer but:

Why the fuck can you short a chromebook at the power port? Shouldn't that have some sort of safety? Can you short a toughbook through the power port? Definitely keeping the little cover closed on mine when it's not plugged in from now on (garage machine)

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    You can short-circuit basically anything with exposed contacts and a paper clip. This isn't specific to Chromebooks.

    Pretty much any device with a USB port can be catastrophically short-circuited, because most USB ports are capable of supplying some amount of power. You can even buy "USB Killers", which look like a thumb drive but will fry the internals of whatever they get plugged into.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    IIRC USB killers work because they're sustained high voltage. USB ports can often deal with a static discharge or over current, but a sustained 200 volts will let the magic smoke out.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I guess I just assumed there was some way to protect against it but I don't know anything about electronics.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They do make special shielding for USB and other ports, but most manufacturers don't use them because generally people aren't going to stick foreign objects into their computer for internet points.

    Often times, those "public chargers" you sometimes see in airports and such have that shielding installed on the ports (though you should never use public USB ports to charge your devices, for a dozen other reasons).

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  • [–] [S] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    That's my thoughts as well

    I once abused a USB port on my laptop to use as a 5v power supply but I later shorted it by connecting the wrong wires. It didn't explode but it did blow the fuse for that port.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Especially something marketed to schools to issue to every student. Seems like a basic safety feature. Sure, they shouldn't be doing that but c'mon... kids do dumb shit sometimes.

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