20F, my friend is 21F. I always carry a USB killer in my backpack. It looks like any other thumb drive except I stuck a tiny devil face sticker on it so I know it’s the dangerous one. I keep it on me because I still live at home and my parents are super nosy; if I ever left it on my desk they’d definitely pick it up and plug it into their laptop to “see what it is.”
Yesterday I had to leave campus in a rush and asked my friend to watch my bag for a bit. I ended up not having time to come back so I just texted her to take it home and I’d grab it today. She said cool.
She gets home, admits she got curious and started looking through my stuff, finds the devil sticker USB, thinks it’s my normal drive, plugs it into her gaming PC to see what files I have.
Computer instantly dies, mobo and PSU completely gone.
Now she’s mad at me, saying I’m reckless for carrying something like that and I need to buy her a whole new setup, even though she knows she shouldn’t have been digging around in my bag in the first place.
I feel bad her PC is dead but come on, don’t snoop and don’t plug random drives into your computer.
AITA?
I say NTA. There is a rule in PC security that says never plug in an unknown USB drive.
Your last line covers it. She was a bad friend to look through your bag, and a bad friend to use something of yours without asking. She’s learned an expensive and lifelong lesson: don’t be a dick to your friends AND don’t plug unknown USBs into your computer without first checking with a trusted source about what’s on it.
NTA.
Especially ones that are mark with a sticker that indicates something bad
Let me taste this thing with a skull and crossbones on it, OP didn’t say it was bad…
Who knows if OP had nudes or confidential/personal stuff on their flash drive? It was crazy rude to just “have a peak” at someone else’s files.
Also, why is OP carrying a Computer killer everywhere??
Edit: My last question was worded poorly- what I meant was *why* someone would have one and carry it around. Why do you need one?
NTA but, and I think a lot of us will have the same question. Why in gods name do you wander around with a USB that destroys computers? Are you a spy? Please spill!
My boyfriend is an investigative journalist and he carries them, I took one from him, for no specific reason. They are also used to test device safety, or to kill your own device quickly in emergency situations.
Thats actually a really good reason to carry a kill drive, especially given the current state of the world. Journalists are being targeted all over the place.
This is known as FAFO. She snooped, she stole, she paid the price. Too bad, so sad for her.
Never ever install media of unknown content is your system. Don’t snoop in other peoples stuff. Simple rules. Violate them and bad things tend to occur.
This is literally how the Pentagon got hacked in the early 2010s. Hackers left malware thumb drives in the parking lot.
In the world where this actually happened, it’s a super cool story.
Who in their right mind sticks an unknown USB into their PC? Do people really do this?
NTA
All the fucking time!
Source: Works in IT (we block unknown USB sticks on our devices)