This USB Kill Stick Fries Your Motherboard with Electricity

A Russian man has built a USB "kill stick," that he says fries your computer with 220 volts of electricity when it's plugged in.

The security researcher who calls himself "Dark Purple" posted his invention in a Russian-language blog post. He says the USB stick can take out anything with a USB port.

In the video, he uses his malicious invention to fry his own Lenovo Thinkpad, which never did anything to anyone and doesn't deserve such treatment. However, Dark Purple says he's getting a new motherboard and that he's pretty sure his hard drive is okay.

But if the kill stick can't fry data, what would someone use it for aside from being a jerk?

Hat tip Graham Cluley.