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Recently there has been alot of news about how free charging stations could be reading data from devices that are plugged into them. The obvious solution to this issue is to place an adaptor between the charging station and the device that is only wired to transmit power.

I would sugest that the ideal design of would be a USB micro female to Apple dock male connector. This could be small enough to be carried around in a wallet and as USB micro is the current device charging standard compatability would be good.

This would also have an impact for non Apple devices where a USB micro passthrough addaptor could be used.

Does anyone know of any such device on the market?

This article is the inspiration behind my question.

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Actually, the safest (and fastest) way to charge your Apple device is to use the AC adapter. Wall outlets are far more readily available and the adapters come free with your device. – cksum Sep 15 '11 at 11:12
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@cksum - You've missed the point, of course using your AC adaptor is safer. But do you always carry your AC adaptor around with you? – Stevo3000 Sep 15 '11 at 12:02
Nope. But what makes carrying around an Apple to USB mini adapter any better? In either case, you still need to carry something. – cksum Sep 15 '11 at 18:24

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I know of no device that is sold to act as a write block - but Apple's patent covering potential upcoming changes to the dock connector might help you if you wanted a DIY hardware solution.

In the mean time, you have several ways to secure the data without needing a custom piece of hardware.

  1. Lock your iOS device with a passcode before connecting it. This ensures the data is encrypted.
  2. You could go a step further and be ready to power off the device as soon as it's connected - shortening the window for the OS to be available to the charging station. The devices will still charge and shouldn't wake up unless it detects a disconnect/reconnect of the USB cord.

The device won't talk data to the "charging station" until the passcode is entered on the touchscreen. (Or the astronomically unlikely but theoretically possible chance that the charging station provides the one and only unique to you secure certificate generated and stored on your primary iTunes computer.)

The charging station can't try entering passwords one by one - so it's not like you are at more risk by charging an hour versus 2 minutes.

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Are you sure that this is the case about the passcode? – Stevo3000 Sep 15 '11 at 15:06
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Yes. Assuming you have iOS 4 - data protection means all the data on the device is encrypted. So if your phone isn't jailbroken - first it has to be jailbroken to access/change the root filesystem, second it's now all encrypted, and third - you need iTunes or Xcode or some other program running inside the "charging kiosk" to speak intelligently to the iOS device. – bmike♦ Sep 15 '11 at 15:39
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If anyone wants to see how this works - grab a free copy of PhoneView and see what data is shared with a random computer and what is protected by the iOS (and needs a jailbreak to read). If you have a passcode - take your phone to a new mac that hasn't synced to see how the passcode lock protects you from a would-be snooper. Anyone with possession of the device can erase it by putting it in recovery mode - but you have to crack the lock to get at the data without you knowing that it's all gone / erased. – bmike♦ Sep 15 '11 at 16:42
Suppose for arguements sake that the kiosk has Xcode installed on it, what impact would this have? – Stevo3000 Sep 16 '11 at 7:31
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You could take a spare cable and remove the data pin from the plug that connects to the iDevice, so only power is transmitted.

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That would work (I've actualy got a power only USB to Dock connector cable that came with a car charger) but isn't really practical. The point of charging stations is that they are conveniant and are just there. I would be looking for an adaptor that can be carried everywhere on my person. – Stevo3000 Sep 15 '11 at 12:45
@Steveo What could possible be smaller than the little USB cable that comes with iPhone/iPad? – mankoff Sep 15 '11 at 13:36
Alot of things are smaller, especially the described micro USB to dock connector adaptor, which would be aprox the size of the male plug part of the cable (25 mm x 15 mm). I don't know about you but I wouldn't be able to fit a full size dock cable in my wallet. – Stevo3000 Sep 15 '11 at 13:59
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I see an eventual kickstarter campaign to make something like a forensic read block device of similar form factor to the Scoche charging adapter – bmike♦ Sep 15 '11 at 15:41

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