I try to always travel with a “USB data condom”. The one I have is called a “PortaPow”, and it’s red. It was about $10 on Amazon and it’s a great investment for scenarios where I _reasonably_ trust a power-only USB port not to have been tampered with, like the built in ports on aircraft.
Build condoms into the devices themselves via a next USB spec requiring a hardware switch to choose power-only / power+data and these kind of issues could disappear. Apple might hate it though. Then again, capacitive hardware switches could be ok.
> _reasonably_ trust a power-only USB ... like the built in ports on aircraft.
I'm with you, this might fall under "safe". Then again, from threads posted here and elsewhere, and through personal investigation...the infotainment systems on airplanes are an absolute disaster with regards to security and software design. They're often part of the same system as the provided USB ports. While the risk is small, there's nothing stopping 1 person from running a script that exploits some flaw in the outdated Linux distro the airline is using to manage their in-flight entertainment.
There's also a chance I'm paranoid and spend too much time here, but I'm gonna stick with my Altoids.
The one I have is designed to allow you to visually inspect the connector terminals. So at least regarding my (USB-A) ones, I can confirm only the power lanes exist.
