this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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Dull Men's Club

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Use a search engine, a tradesperson, Reddit, friends, a specialist Facebook group, apps, Wikipedia, an AI chat, a reverse image search etc. to answer simple questions or identify objects. Also see rule 1, “comment baiting”.

There are a number of content specific communities with subject matter experts who can help you.

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I am an IT guy and have a lot of USB cables and chargers.

As the world consolidates on the USB-C connector, regardless of what cable is actually used, it becomes more important to verify the specs of a cable and chargers.

Just because they might say USB3 doesn't mean that they are USB3, they might USB2 with USB-C comnectors, or they might be a hybrid solution with a low data rate and a high charge rate.

How do you know?

A real USB cable analyzer costs a shitload of money.

I have three tools that can help me get and idea about what kind of cable or charger.

  1. The USB data lines tester - this tool shows if a USB cable has all pins connected, a quick and dirty test to verify the design of the cable, if not the quallity.
  2. USB Power meter - This is probably the most useful tester you can get for everyday use, it shows the current power draw when connected in series with a carger/powerbank, cable and device, you can verify that a device is actually charging and how fast it is charging. You can verify that a charger is supplying the correct amount of power and even see a diagram of how the charge rate over time.
  3. USB power load tester - This allows me to force test a charger's output, it also tests if the charger can support fast charging protocols like QC or PD, the model linked does not seem to support PD testing, but mine from joy-it.com does.
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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 11 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

This IT guy is an IT guy, not an infosec guy, he is also making this post on mobile, making it harder to get an overview of links.

This IT guy also made this post when both tried, and finished it later after sleeping.

This IT guy did not login to aliexpress on his phone, this IT guy makes enough money to not need referal links, this IT guy has a big boy job.

Finally, this IT guy does not enjoy the implicit callout for being a troll or incompetence.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

What does logging in or not have to do with it? ~~No one said anything about referral links.~~ (edit: my bad, I'm doing this at ass o'clock many hours past I should be asleep) Your links literally have something referencing GPS in them that may be related to your own location when you made the search, which is potentially a danger to your own privacy.

It took 2 minutes to clean these, and that was only because I had to un-freeze the dedicated URL cleaning app on my phone (I use IronFox on mobile with settings/extensions to auto clean links, and similar on my PC). I spent more time typing up this response.

You could have even cleaned them manually by deleting the ? and everything after it. Alternatively there are a good handful of different open source tools for android that would have made it as easy as copy and paste. Hell, there are online tools too.

As a fellow IT person who has graduated to systems admin/engineering, just quiet down and edit your post please. Sometimes we fuck up too.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008242565776.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32859420509.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007911908746.html

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Ah, a helpful post!

Thank you for your explanation, really helpful, I am very seldom on aliexpress, ans had zero idea that they included my GPS coordinates.

I'll edit my post and work to do better in the future!

[–] FuyuhikoDate@feddit.org 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I was checking your links before I was reading this discussion fully to the end and was like "I dont see any problems here... the links seem legit..." 😅

As a fellow it guy who does a lot on mobile I always reccomend URLcheck (Android)

[–] Janx@piefed.social 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Damn, I have that installed and I've never even used it! That ends now...

[–] FuyuhikoDate@feddit.org 1 points 4 hours ago

It also supports regex! So when people send me those shitty Insta / tiktok links I dont habmve to press 5 times the check redirect button :D

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I have updated my post, thanks again for the help!

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Don't let that bother you. It was very non-dull of that person.

We, and I hope I'm speaking for more than myself, try to adhere to the old time dull methods of giving others the benefit of the doubt. It isn't super well known, outside of privacy/infosec circles all of the dirty tricks used by companies to track people.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Hehe, it fine, the first guy was rude, but right, so he got a stupid reply, the other guy was helpful and showed me the issue, and while they had a slightly annoying tone, I apriciated it.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

We should all take a moment and meditate on the relevant XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/386/