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Got a used business laptop and found a recessed dongle in it. The original owner says they have no clue, that it’s been in there since they got it. There’s no way a dongle is keeping this thing running, is there? I’ve already swapped the OS, if that matters at all
Update: yubikey! Thank you all for the information, I’m definitely still learning
Looks like a yubikey. You should be able to list usb devices and it would show up.
If it does it will show up as a keyboard
That's only true if the password option is enabled.
it might enumerate as a HID type device, but it will identify as a yubikey.
It looks a lot like a Yubikey, which is used to securely authenticate to company resources like a VPN. Fortunately, unlike losing a hard drive, a Yubikey can be deauthorized by the company and thus the device becomes useless for malicious use.
So if you want to use that USB port for something else, it shouldn't be a problem to remove a Yubikey for the prior user's employer.
Can confirm, I have one just like this. The giveaway is the conductive metal bit, to have it be able to detect finger taps.
You should be safe to remove it. It probably has some info stamped on the metal somewhere.
I've never had a need to use a Yubikey, but is that the button which spews gibberish into DMs? I've seen that a lot at work on Teams lol
Sound about right. A YubiKey will print a one-time password when touched, by default.
Do you know if this functionality can be turned off? I've been stung by the 'gibberish' once or twice but never enough to dive into the docs for it :)
Yes, you can configure what happens when you touch the button.
Yes, that's exactly what it is. I had to get one for work because they wanted everyone to use the MS authenticator app on their (personal) phones. I got the Yubikey instead.
But yeah, gotta watch that you don't accidentally touch it. I had a colleague carry my laptop once and was surprised to find some interesting additions to my code.
I think this is a solved question based on other comments, but can we take a moment to admire that OP has the self control to ask BEFORE removing the device?
I am much more of a push-the-big-red-button-to-see-what-happens kinda person. That dongle wouldn't have lasted a second on my bench.
Possibly a hardware security key like a yubikey
What operating system did you put on it? Should be able to find it in your devices list. Or at least a device id to work backwards from.
Just swapped to mint (mate) so it’ll take me a minute to find out how to do that. Will update when I find out. Posted this as I headed out the door, not expecting answers to pop up anywhere near this quickly on a community with a post per month. I am endlessly surprised and delighted by lemmy
The command you're looking for is lsusb. There's going to be a lot in there, but for a security token like that, you're probably looking for something that says "yibikey", "Fido", or "u2f".
Thank you! I do have a question though. What does the “ls” in lsusb stand for? I’ve found several query commands that begin with ls and it might help me remember them a bit better if I understand what they mean
I don't know it's proper name but "list" is an easy way to remember it. Want to see a list of what's in a folder? ls. Want to see a list of USB devices? lsusb.
Alright, that’s not hard to remember. Thank you!
ls or l is also often used as an option/switch that is passed to another program to list something. Want to list all active Screen sessions? screen -ls. Want to list all mounted filesystems? mount -l
List of PCI devices? lspci.
Oh yeah, you should find lots of tutorials on identifying unknown devices in mint. It probably is a yubikey like others have said; but it would be a good way to teach yourself a useful linux skill if you want to learn it.
Found it! It was listed incredibly verbosely, fully spelling out yubikey and then their website. Thank you!
I can't believe they use SS and a lightning bolt 😂
