Are you the type of person who would be hesitant to charge electronics from a public charger, such as the one that will be installed in your plane’s seat? Apple’s first beta of the recently released macOS 13 Ventura features a feature that appears to address tampering concerns. It will require USB-C and Thunderbolt accessories to explicitly request permission before communicating with MacBooks powered by Apple’s M1 or M2 CPUs.
Perhaps it will be a more practical solution than the one proposed by the USB Implementers’ Forum in 2019, which required firms to implement a “USB Type-C Authentication Program” that provided each USB device with an encrypted certificate to authenticate its identity and capabilities.
Apple’s approach may not prevent “USB Killer” devices from frying computers by overloading their USB ports with too much electricity. One of the difficulties addressed by the USB-IF concept was “inappropriate power.”
Speaking of USB-C power, it’s about to get a major boost: the first 240W USB-C PD cables were recently released, and we’re looking forward to the chargers, laptops, and external batteries that may accompany them.
