How To: Use Physical Lock To Enable / Disable USB Ports

Matt LeBoff July 2, 2010 Flash Storage & Memory, Tutorials & How-To Guides

I came across this very interesting USB hack from TechOat the other day.Â The concept of this modification is taking the key of a power box in your computer and turning that into the physical on/off switch for USB communication. The premise is disassembling the wires of the USB cable and port and weaving that into the circuit of a locking switch on your PC.Â I think this illustration shows it best:

USB lock on off

What I particularly like about this USB hack, is the physical requirement to have the key in order to work the USB port.Â This type of security [more fun then practical] for USB devices in general is much better than a Truecrypt type solution as that only protects the device, not the system. So what you need includes: Small USB thumb drive USB extension cable or USB socket and plug with cable Locking switch DPST Plastic box The rest is just elbow grease to get it working, for the specific details and tutorial, jump here.

USB lock enable disable

Tags: usb hack, usb tutorial

Matt LeBoff

Kicking around in technology since 2002. I like to write about technology products and ideas, but at the consumer level understanding. Some tech, but not too techie.

How To: Use Physical Lock To Enable / Disable USB Ports

Matt LeBoff

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