Pretty much. Also, if you have more than one plug, you can either connect the JST on the CA-42 or since I have a mix of pogoplugs and dockstars, etc. I used small test probes (did not want to buy eight CA-42s). I think they used to sell them at radio shack. Hooking up was pretty easy and if you only have one pogoplug, leaving it connected is actually a neat way of getting into your system and pretty secure. It's neat to watch the boot up sequence. By the way, the best way to disable pogoplug update is:
/usr/bin/killall hbwd
/usr/bin/killall udhcpc
/usr/bin/killall hbplug
/usr/bin/killall dropbear (Make sure you install openssh if you do this.)
This allows modules to be loaded for accessing filesystem although you may have to manually mount your usb drive. I tried what you did but I could still see communication activity.

Ok, I've had a collection of electronic equipment and parts since 1974 and I think I bought these probes 10 years ago. Here is a link from radio shack that looks similar but mine had leads and different colors: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062221 Instead of using a connector, I soldered these clips to the CA-42 cables. They are pretty small so they don't touch each other and short out. Like I said I use it for different things so I need to be able to use something that is not a fixed configuration, pinouts change. As for using a dedicated cable, I have probably over 17 soldering irons around the house and I use old tips, to melt holes into plastic. Don't breath in the fumes. And I also directly connect the wires with low wattage iron and silver solder. I think they still sell it at radio shack or Fry's. I used to do a lot of SMD soldering, so this isn't a problem for me. I actually used to change out smd memory on different devices like palm and nslu2 in the old days. As for logging in and the future of pogoplug. I thought the problem was you couldn't get in so how were you able to remove hosts? If that is the case, you don't even need to use the cable but it is kind of handy and like I said neat to watch the boot process and you don't need telnet nor SSH (So it is the most secure situation unless somebody breaks into your house and connects directly to it). As for pogoplug, I think the fact that they are pushing out new products like Biz, and Pro, they are probably doing pretty well. Even if they weren't, their system is generic enough that even without installing a new u-boot and staying with their busybox linux 1.70, you can still do a lot of stuff with them. I posted some stuff on nslu2-linux.org under optware (just put in a new article to configure one as a pbx). On one of my pogoplugs, I have a script to turn off and turn on (when I am traveling) my.pogoplug.com functionality. When I disable pogoplug functionality, if you read my previous post, I activate openssh. I don't use dropbear unless I want to turn on my.pogoplug.com. So from the above post:
/usr/bin/killall hbwd
/usr/bin/killall udhcpc
/usr/bin/killall hbplug
/usr/bin/killall dropbear
/sbin/rmmod xce
And I don't see any communications to the mother ship (pogoplug) unless it's from me. Otherwise I treat my plugs as if they were any other development single board computers. I also had one guruplug but it turned into a crispy critter. I may try to salvage it sometime after putting it in a new case, fixing the crappy soldering and adding real heatsinks. I do let cloudengines update the system once in a while because sometime they come up with neat stuff. Hopefully, someday, it would be nice if they come out with a hackers' edition like cisco-linksys did with wrt54gl (in terms of pogo, something with more memory and esata connectivity).