That's because it isn't a cable, it is a computer.
In the 1980's I worked with CAD/CAM software that required hardware dongles on parallel ports as an anti-piracy measure. That probably could have been exploitable: e.g., instead of returning the security response, cram a ton of data and cause buffer overrun on their 80286 + DOS5 application and smash the stack. It would be fun to go back in time and see just how vulnerable that software was.
In the 1980's I worked with CAD/CAM software that required hardware dongles on parallel ports as an anti-piracy measure. That probably could have been exploitable: e.g., instead of returning the security response, cram a ton of data and cause buffer overrun on their 80286 + DOS5 application and smash the stack. It would be fun to go back in time and see just how vulnerable that software was.