A software engineer has designed a so-called USB "kill cable" that works as a dead man's switch to shut down or wipe a Linux laptop when the device is stolen off your table or from your lap in public spaces like parks, malls, and internet cafes. Learn more about this interesting and potentially dangerous new USB cable:
The cable, namedBusKill, was designed byMichael Altfield, a software engineer and Linux sysadmin from Orlando, Florida.
The idea is to connect the BusKill cable to your Linux laptop on one end, and to your belt, on the other end. When someone yanks your laptop from your lap or table, the USB cable disconnects from the laptop and triggers a udev script [1,2,3] that executes a series of preset operations.
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