Secret service don’t care about drugs. I regularly saw people burn joints outside DC bars while they idled at a light and they just smirked.
Back in the day…
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Normally it’s the usual autoexec files that work if the OS is set to run them. However, if blackhats get into the firmware of the USB drive stick, they can make the stick imitate other devices that aren’t as guarded against, like a keyboard or network interface. (And anti-virus won’t see it.)
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Microsoft still has Autorun and Autoplay enabled by default. That makes them susceptible to a simple hidden autorun.inf that launches a .exe containing the malware.
Even my WIN10 laptop had autorun enabled as default.
Edit: what he said ^
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Nah, autorun won’t automatically launch anything from a USB flash drive. Been that way since 7.
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The little, not very tech-savvy company I used to work for didn’t allow us to plug in flash drives or unapproved keyboards. If we did, our PC or laptop would shut down immediately and a tech guy would show up to ask us what was going on. Hard to believe that the FBI has worse protections than a small Texas printing company.
If the USB stick had malware firmware, the agent must have pissed himself when it imitated a keyboard, opened a dosbox, and “typed” the commands to launch the malware.
Even if he shut it off quickly, treat it as compromised and give it a good fry-cleaning. Of course, if it re-flashed the laptop bios, can you really be sure? 
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Have been wondering what happened to that big Utah Data Center that the spooks built 5 years ago and which nobody seems to have written about again. Maybe someone dropped a usb stick in the parking lot.
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They’re just hard at work compiling a comprehensive database of every american’s compromising private information. NBD. Same MO as every fucking ad network ever.
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I dunno why they just don’t contract it out the ad networks and save the hassle of building the data center.
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Man, I just hope that the current iteration of the secret service is just as bad at other aspects of their job (read as protecting the president).
Mar-a-lago’s exterior, including the front gate, is a 1920’s American re-interpretation of Spanish Moorish architecture, the irony of which I’m certain is completely lost on Il Douche. You don’t have to like it, but comparing it the dictator chic commissioned by Il Douche or the nonsensical design language noise of McMansions is inaccurate.
It’s probably the only tasteful thing he ever purchased, presumably because he too could not tell the difference, and it’s a tragedy he did buy it because I’m sure he’s violated or circumvented the restrictions that come with it being a National Historic Landmark to vandalize the interior with his own vulgar taste, to say nothing of the obscenely large flag he planted outside.
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Right. I knew my collection of Power Macs was good for something!
Also: Can’t auto-type any commands if no one’s logged in. Copying disks works just fine over SSH …
Thank you for the background. I feel that, unfortunately, the design has been cheapened by association with the tenant. 
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I have seen a specialized linux install once which didn’t autodetect anything on it’s usb ports. It just put power on the thing and let you use libusb to query the device. IRRC it was not too hard to change the udev config to behave this way. This was used at the university here to check if found usb sticks contained a poor student’s lost thesis or nasty crack attempts (which were numerous in the physics/mathematics/software enigneering faculties because there are lots of curious students)
Even then a malicious usb device could still blow up the usb port or wipe it’s content in certain circumstances, but at least you could be reasonably secure against malware.
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Do you mean curious as in enthusiastically investigative, or as in weirdly odd, or both? 
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yes, all three! 
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It is less damaging to have a laptop destroyed then to have a laptop behind a security perimeter infected and place anything else that trusts that laptop at risk as well. A destroyed laptop can be replaced (sometimes under warranty, or via pre-existing service contract). An infested laptop needs experts to go over it very carefully and also examine anything it talked to. Plus whatever sensitive data was on the laptop has to be assumed to have been extracted and sent elsewhere.
Seriously I would rather my work laptop fell into a lake then gets malware on it.
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