Slashdot Mirror
Polarized Screens to Hide Sensitive Data
NiugMan writes "NewScientist.com reports that Iizuka Denki Kogyo, a Tokio-based tech company has developed a monitor which appears to be blank if you stare at it with your eyes. Only by wearing a pair of polarised glasses you see stuff on it. The idea is to protect sensitive data from unauthorised personnel. Please take your special glasses with you when you take a coffee-break."
slashdot's getting slooooowww...
:)
(Yes, I do listen to the news on the radio)
Then what? Nice idea, too bad it's been done for the past 10 years.
...porn at work.
Yeah, um... I'd like to go to Tokio.
I hope thay surv eyes-creem. Maybee evin sooshee.
Someone warn these guys before they are locked away for selling hacking tools.
I've always suspected that magicians use that trick from long ago; the back of the cards shows polarized patterns, then ose one of some clever tricks to catch it; the reflection, contact lenses, I don't know...
It can be defeated with 3-d glasses?
How about normal, polarized sunglasses and someone who can rotate their head?
Me thinks someone spent too much on research for this one.
I suppose the type lenses you need to view the screen is kept secret? Once somebody figures out what type of lens to use, this little security through obscurity exercise is over. Did they ever consider what would happen if someone used a camera with the right kind of lens? I'm sure this will sell big though.
These are way to expensive. The cost of polarized system is too high and is certainly not justified. If this thing is not patented and many companies jump into it we hay see monitors and glassed for about 500$ hitting the market.
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OBEY!
CONSUME!
MARRY AND REPRODUCE!
(also, remember to stock up on bubblegum)
I saw this on a site in 1998. Or some similar technology. I thought it would be a neat idea but it is kind of odd to see it brought up like it is news today, 4 years later.
"Why in the hell is my computer always turned off when I get back from taking a leak?"
"I don't know, Bob. I had to look at it for something, it was off, and I tried to turn it on, but all that happened was that "power" light turned off."
Yeah. Brilliant idea.
Can't you get a pair of those glasses at your local Toys 'R' Us? I think they come with Spy Tech, or some sort of kids spy kit ....
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Security by Polarized Glasses
I'm still waiting for my X-Ray glasses I ordered in the 70's.
that this will only be used by people in the finance dept of companies. (I know there was is a case in security e.g. CIA but face it: if a spy comes into the building to get info it's all the easire to shoot him..
If you get modded down for a first post... What do you get for a last post?
In 21st century eyes are no longer the windows of the soul. They are a cheap authorization method.
So when this whole polarized screen idea goes mainstream, complimenting a female on her eyes will no longer mean anything. It's like complimenting someone on their plastic security card. ooooh sexy!
"To others, you would look like someone with sunglasses working in front of a totally white screen,"
They needn't know that I'm actually wearing sunglasses, *sleeping* in front of a totally white screen, then.
Would it be possible for the glasses to be polarized with a private key, and have the monitor polarize with the corresponding public key?
I remember IBM selling Thinkpads (amongst other manufacturers) with such screens back around 1995 or so. One of the suggested purposes was for using the computer on a plane, so that people behind you wouldn't be able to see what you're looking at. However, anyone who really needs to spy on someone using one of these computers would only have to go to a camera shoppe and buy a telephoto lens with a polarising filter.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Or even cooler, if they couldoverlay a non polorized image, you could have subtitles or annotations on a image, if you put on the proper glasses.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
Many many (from my 18 year old standpoint) years ago, I recall having read about this same technology being used in laptops for paranoid business users. I don't remember the company or the product, but I recall it being touted as a great thing for people traveling coach. I don't see how this is so great, seeing as they just removed the polarization layer from the LCD and put it in some glasses. Won't any set of polarized glasses work? Hell, I've got some Oakleys that'll penetrate that security.
That's why I only talk to my computer with the numlock light and the spacebar. Morse code all the way, man!
--Bennett Prescott
Former Lord Of Packets
Of course, anybody with a proper camera may be able to take photographs from your screen.
Most people with expensive camera equipment add a polarizing filter to their glassware in order to protect the lens. The filter will kill some nasty reflections and improve colors, and is much cheaper to replace than the actual unprotected lens should it become scratched.
A monitor protects against enemy attacks with a polarized hull, whatever next!
Now you have to find a way so that your data can't show up on a normal monitor and you've got an effective defence, Aganst at least the low end script kiddie type hacker that has trouble affording pricy hardware upgrades.
Never Underestimate A Human Being
Funny how we had these at General Dynamics back in 1989 on our Wyse 55 terminals. you wore these funky old-people (tm) style lightly tinted sunglasses to see the screen.. it was for really basic security to stop the casual passer-by.. I remember figuring out the polarization angle needed to get a decent looking pair of glasses made for myself so I didnt look as geeky as the rest of the people there using those 5 terminals.
Really old tech... and as secure as a wet paper bag.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I've seen those polarized screens for laptops that reduce the LCDs viewable angle so that people on planes etc. can't shoulder-surf....but this concept is a just a bit extreme!
I mean, who works in highly sensitive areas *AND* needs to hide the data on the screen that badly?
And if you truly do need "for your eyes only", what about some sort of HMD (Head Mounted Display)?
(Anyone remember those PC Private Eye devices? They used an oscillating mirror and an LED array to "paint" a text screen in the users field of vision.)
-psyco
Of course, to others it'll look like you're enjoying Planning_Budget_2002.xls a little too much ...
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probably not!
Tournament Management Online &
Kuhn adds that an opaque shielding device might be simpler way to obstruct prying eyes.
I wonder if he has a patent on this idea. Wouldn't it just be better to have people in, I dunno, offices? You could control entry via special security signatures know as "keys," which would be small metal devices small enough to fit into your hand. Access to data would be protected by an "opaque shielding device" called a wall.
I'll take my consulting check now, please.
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Second, how many different polarizations are there ? Last time I studied optics, one pair of glasses will work on any of these monitors (maybe needing some rotation/tilting). Unless you can assure polarizing glasses will always be bright red so you recognize "people with bright red glasses coming near my computer", and you can't assure that - it's quite easy to make polarizing lenses - the protection is senseless.
I can hardly wait until some company buys monitors and glasses to all their employees and then put several monitors in the same room, all people with polarizing glasses, making the whole buy futile. (Hmm, ok, will prevent the floor sweeper from reading your screen. Great.)
I bet someone just forgot to put the top polarizing filter on the display, cause in principle that is all there is to making these "special" screens. You see the backlight, modified only in direction of polarization. Add the final filter right in front of the eyes and the screen is complete again. Note that the story says that without the special glasses the screen is "blank", not black.
As others have pointed out, polarizing filters are so common that there's no security here.
It's like locking your house with a skeleton key.
Why not insert noisy frames between real ones and just synchronize the glasses so that they filter out the garbage frames? Why not just have the screen in the glasses?
I read about this a long, long time ago (I can't remember when, but it is on the order of years). It was a mod that a company was selling for business people's laptops. They'd strip off the polarizing film from the laptop's LCD panel, and then you could only see what was on the screen through polarizing glasses.
;)
I'm not sure whether the glasses required were vertically polarized of horizontally polarized. If they were vertically polarized, anyone with a pair of sunglasses could quite easily read the screen (but wouldn't you look odd wearing sunglasses on a plane while staring at a business person's apparently blank laptop screen).
On the other hand, if the required glasses were horizontally polarized, you'd have to rotate the sunglass lenses 90 degrees (which, since most sunglass lenses do not posess rotational symmetry, would mean you either would have a serious mod coming, or else you'd just have to tip your head 90 degrees... Actually, this might just work, but only if you were pretending to sleep and laying your head on the business person's shoulder, and that's likely to just make them upset.
...but I will have to train myself to stop ducking, weaving, and saying "gotcha" before this will truly bring counter-strike to my cube.
I remember doing something similar about 15 years ago at home. Take an old calculator apart, and remove the polarization layer (it looks like a thin sheet of clear plastic over the top of the display). Just hold the filter in front of your eyes to see the digits on the calculator. Voila, you now have a super-secret calculator that you check how badly your 401k is tanking.
This is such a useless security measure. It can be defeated by anyone wearing polarized lenses, and such lenses are worn innocuously all the time so you couldn't accuse someone of spying just for wearing them. And what scenario is this supposed to be useful for? An environment where the display is visible to untrusted viewers -- public places, mostly. In an office you get better security by locking the doors. But in a public place you have no control over who wears sunglasses, so anyone who wants to see the screen can easily do so. It's just stupid.
My deviantArt site
With one of those babies on my desk and a set of headphones my boss will never know when I'm playing Icewind Dale II ;o)
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
... a reflection in e.g. a window is already polarised (that's the reason why in photography your can remove reflections using a differently oriented filter).
So in a plane, don't stare at the display of the guy next to you, stare at the reflections in the window and he won't even notice, that you are reading his display.
what about that white van that's always outside? can they still see it, too? (hi guys! there's a pizza special down the street today!)
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I wonder whether this obscurity through polarisation will assist in defending onself against Van Eck Phreaking?
I just love the cost of these monitors ...
...
...
Um, put a polarizing filter on the monitor, add a simple 90 degress polarized light source to the front of the monitor (translucent sheet) put on your polarized glasses and you are set.
Sounds like bad security practices to me
Btw. The gentle fisher folks have been using polarized sunglasses for spotting trout for years
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
with your EYES. Geeze, and all this time I thought I was supposed to be staring at it with my left foot.
This made Popular Mechanics in 1995 it's not really news.
You're right!
Wearing just a pair of polarised glasses turns the question to: find the right angle for your head to look at the data!
Maybe after the carpal tunnel we'll see another kind of "professional illness"
Apple iProduct. Non importa cosa sia, lo comprerete!
In particular, if you have a 505tx, or similar laptop, download CCS (the c64 emulator) and play M.U.L.E. and try to find the mountains. There's a way to change color settings, but It's not high on my priority list, yet, to figure out.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Can anyone say HIPAA compliance... There is a section of HIPAA that specifies the safegarding of information being displayed on screen in places like clinics and hospitals. The concern is that this information can be overseen by people walking past the user's monitor.
Will people see believable, but wrong data if they tilt their head wrong? Will every workstation have a different 'correct' polarized plane? If they did display bogus data on bad planes, how would the government worker know if he saw the bogus data or the stuff he was supposed to be working on?
to hide 'sensitive' data, works even better. .. ohh well.
begone are the good old days of mass office shredder parties
An Eye trek might work out cheaper.
This would be PERFECT for laptops ... especially with the LCD's viewable-angles getting bigger.
I've seen these advertised in mags close to ten years ago. This is not a new development. The technology is as old as polarized glass.
...and people with those polarized driving glasses, I imagine.
I suspect it would work, but it's just a hunch.
If you had made those glasses today, you would have been in violation of the DMCA, for creating a circumvention device.
This security device would work ONLY in the US, where the law abiding citizens wouldn't dream of circumventing it. (and maybe EU soon). I wonder why it was reinvented in Tokio of all places.
-- Arik
If the screen could alternate between two different polarizations, which the glasses have lenses for (one on each eye), then this could be used for 3-D imaging. All we have to do is call the glasses "goggles" and we might as well be in Snow Crash.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
...against tempest scanning, though.
any pictures? :)
Blow me, this is SOOOOOO OLD. Jeeze, reminds me about the guy who suggested polarizing automobile head lamps to reduce glare. That was Zee Cafigliano, and where is he now?
I quite like the idea of asking users on helplines if they are wearing their 'special glasses' when they complain about a blank screen.
Just another thing to put them down with.
Kuhn adds that an opaque shielding device might be simpler way to obstruct prying eyes.
An opaque shielding device? What a brilliant idea! I shall patent it immediately.
i'll bet they'll never think of polarized contacts for looking at polarized screens...
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
I remember, back in the PC boom when Gateway was running those ads in Computer Shopper soap-opera style, that someone came up with a similar idea.
The laptop computer had just gotten usable (sort of), and business users were taking work on the road. Normally the cube jungle and office walls are fine to protect data from prying eyes, but laptop screens were a real concern.
The solution was...a solution, which you wiped onto your laptop screen, intended to strip off the last polarizing layer. This last layer is what made sense of the supertwist LCD displays. The kit came with a pair of polarized glasses to prevent anyone else from seeing your screen; to them, it looked like a blank white display. Of course they addressed the issue of normal polarized sunglasses allowing circumvention...their glasses needed to be polarized at right angles to normal sunglass polarization. Of course this doesn't keep people with normal sunglasses from simply rotating the glasses, or their head, 90 degrees.
I never saw the point. Once enough people have the glasses, it's just like having an open display again, except less convenient to use.
There's a reason it never took off in the years since it was first invented.
...
Tell my boss I am just about finished with that report he has been waiting for and continue to play quake.
Just run 1600x1200 on a 17" monitor...anyone who looks at it gets an instant migraine!
Price of the monitors: between $1600 and $2500.
Price of polarizing glasses: $15.
Everybody rotfl: priceless !
Otherwise, as soon as you have two or more of these monitors, all the people with glasses that are authorized to see screen A will also be able to see everything on screen B. Which makes it kind of pointless, right?
My monitor appears to be blank when I stare at it with my eyes. Perhaps I've purchased one of these new units by mistake?
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
how is this new? i'm sure i've seen 3rd party products for laptops and pdas that already do this.
telnet [IP of polarized screen machine]
user: [userID]
password: ********
export DISPLAY="[localIP]:0.0"
[super secret ap]
There, I've gone and defeated the polarized monitor. I hope "export" and "setenv" (for all you tcsh fans) don't become DMCA circumvention devices.
Working in the IT Dept. of a bank, I can see how this could possibly appeal to the decision makers in the bank, and the industry at large.
Privacy is big in banking. Bigger than big. There is nothing more important that people's money, and there are enough federal guidelines and regulations on the subject to choke a horse. People can argue about the importance of their kids, cars, and homes, but if a bank employee makes a mistake and suddenly your financial information is stolen or made public, you've got one hell of a lawsuit, and one severely ill person on your hands.
While the technology does seem a bit silly in its inception, and beating this security measure is a moderately difficult at best, what security guard or bank personnel is not going to notice the strange looking individual with 3-D glasses on and a terrible case of tilting-head looking over the shoulder of a CSR or teller.
Of course it's beatable, and of course it's not going to make sense in your average office environment. But I'll tell you right now that there is nothing better than this, that I can think of, that has come along in terms of blocking people from looking over the shoulder of bank employees. Sure there are vertical-blind-like shadded screens, where the information is only viewable when looking directly at the monitor (and we employ those as well), but this again is foilable by a person's mere position. If the employee gets up for coffee, a smoke, whatever, the information the screen is still viewable by anyone with a direct line of sight.
This technology can prevent the average person from seeing what's on an employee's screen. The "average person" is about 95% of all bank customers. The "average person" won't really care how it works, won't want to know why it works, but I'll tell ya, the "average person" will feel a 100 times more confident in his/her financial institutions commitment to security and privacy when using this technology, even if it can be foiled by 3D-glasses or expensive shades.
When you combine this technology with the common sense of "closing all applications when leaving your desk," a financial instutition's employee's desk becomes 10 times safer than it was originally, and that's a big step. I'm certain that the larger financial institutions out there (Citibank, et al) would be glad to show off the new technology and tout about its security, even if it can be foiled by the strange looking man wearing $3 3D glasses.
Spectre had notebooks at Fall COMDEX with these screens in 1998. They offered to "upgrade" any existing notebook to this type of screen for $500.
Anyone wearing polarized sunglasses can read the screen, so it isn't really that secure.
Would I still be able to seem my screen with my peril sensitive sunglasses on?
Without screen shots, critical commentary, or a real review it's hard to tell just how effective this really is. SLIGHTLY polarized light is very common in the everyday environment. For example, light from most parts of the sky is partially polarized. Many of us have probably noticed pale rainbow- or oil-film-like colorations in car windows as a result of the interactions between birefringence in the prestressed safety glass and natural polarized light from the sky. This is even more noticable on airline flights with airliner windows.
I think it is VERY unlikely that the screen looks PERFECTLY blank all the time. I'll bet that, for example, in a laptop on an airplane, it would be easy to see that there was SOMETHING on the screen, and even to read it without glasses by close inspection.
So, I'm not completely sure I understand the practical point of this invention. It isn't going to make spies think that the screen is truly blank or truly turned off--if, indeed, the fact that someone is looking at the screen with special glasses was not a giveaway in itself. As a casual "privacy" device it probably works--a spy probably couldn't read it from three feet away, and staring at it from six inches away while rotating it to get the greatest amount of naturally polarized light would make the spy conspicuous. But various existing privacy devices that limit the usable angle of view would probably be just as effective.
On the other hand, if someone can develop a version of this that simulataneously display TWO DIFFERENT images with 90-degree-opposite polarization--the computer-display equivalent of a Polaroid "Vectograph"--it might be a useful form of 3D-with-glasses display.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Sega released the first 3d glasses some 10-15 years ago, a side effect was that only the player who wears the 3d glasses can see the game.
Will someone post this company to fuckedcompany.com?
girl
The beauty of this design is that they're selling you less hardware for more money. They're effectively removing the filter screen from the LCD, putting it into a pair of glasses, and charging 7x the normal price. The only smart thing about this gimmick is how they're screwing the rich ignorants of the world with their flawed privacy scheme.
Someone should open up the School of Cyber-fraud : Harnessing the power of high-tech misconceptions to extort money from the rich and stupid. Sign up within the next 15 minutes and save 395$ off regular tuition, only 5995$! Don't wait, Call now!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Hmmm... it seems that the MPAA has closed half of the analog hole. Now they can do video-on-demand and charge for each connected headset!
1.) Make cool techno-sounding wiz bang device that clueless managers will buy thinking they will save their company from evil-doers.
2.) Stick head in sand when confronted with silly counter-devices like sunglasses, contact lenses etc.
3.) Charge $1600 and $2500 for each monitor.
4.) ???
5.) Profit.
Why not just have screens in the glasses? would be cheaper than glases and a screen.
Give me the special contact lenses. 007, move over!
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
set the way-back machine...
If they have and X-Ray version of the glasses i'm up for a pair.
You have to get contact lenses so you can wear our polarized sunglasses to see your monitor. Glasses of your own just wont due. And no you can't have polarized glasses of you own, then we couldn't restrict you from seeing screens by taking your glasses away.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
but, how does this affect people who already wear glasses? I mean, do they now have to wear two pairs? I just seems kinda silly.
Who is John Galt?
They do NOTHING!!!
This is a bad idea because it creates a false sense of security. It could easily and stealthily be defeated by an onlooker wearing polarized contact lenses.
They do Nothing!!!
I have a life. I really do. I've just chosen to ignore it.
So, up next, WarStaring...
now I can read slashdot even more often without trying to hide the browser window every time the boss walks by.
--Note to self. Add witty sig here, someday...
If you've never worn polarized sunglasses, you see things quite a bit differently - especially LCD displays.
You see all of the color variations on the screens, and while driving I can tell who has their car windows with polarized tinting on them also...since I can see the color variations there too.
Pretty neat stuff, although we'd all look like we are just too damn cool all wearing sunglasses while working.
Hmm, easier to doze off?
"My data's so special...I gotta wear shades"
K.
I must have one of these, so I figure I'll hit up some fellow slashdot readers for the money. So, what about it? Do you have the $2100 that the monitor costs? But really, who would pay $2100 for a monitor, sounds a little costly to me.
I'd better get rid of my polarized sunglasses before they come after me for DMCA violations...
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I must have read about this years ago in an SF book. Anyway, it's kinda stupid. They should have taken the idea to the next step: glasses are linked to the computer which adjusts the glasses filter in real time in sync with the monitor. Defeats the "someone could have the same glasses or contact lenses" or whatever. Bulky and costlier for sure, but probably way more secure.
Display on the glasses could be easier as well.
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
That doesn't mean that security patches, crocodile fences or car keys are useless.
If they prevent anyone who doesn't actively try to see the information, they stop 98% of possible intrusions.
If you're worried about the information on the screen, you lock the door and turn the monitor away from any windows. If you're really worried, you put your head and the monitor under a blanket. If you're really, really worried, you memorize disassembler listings and emulate the programs in your head.
If you're sitting at a counter at a crowded airport or similar, you get one of these polarized monitors.
If they don't want people having a peek at their monitor, rather than building some complex/ineffective system using light polarization, why not simply drop monitors alltogether and use some sort of eye-mounted display like iGlasses ?
Don't you know that only subscribed New Media Conglomorate members and FBI agents are authorized to wear cool shades that let them see the copyrighted media that surrounds them?
Of course, all the glasses will have to be the biggest, ugliest, most obvious looking things on the planet so no one will no to take them.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
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If you'd bothered to read all the way to the second sentence of the summary, you'd have known that the "secret" lens was just a polarizing one.
Which makes this the worst idea for security ever. Security Through obscurity doesn't work in the long run, but Security Through Requiring Ten Dollar Sunglasses is just plain idiotic.
Hey, I've got a pair of these magic lenses in my car! They're great for reducing glare when driving. Maybe the glasses manufacturer will be indicted on charges of making circumvention devices! Yeah, this is stupid.
The enemies of Democracy are
This crops up every once in a while; I'm not sure if it's the same company or not, but it's old news that you can have your laptop's display peeled. (...and indeed, that's the best use for it.. having a modicum of privacy while working on a crowded plane, etc).
;)
Presumably it's news this time because nobody had *desktop* LCDs before.,
Theys should make them of the style worn by Agent Smith of the Matrix. I'd love working with a company with everyone wearing those!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
...Peril Sensitive?
Thank you Mister Adams.
There are contact lenses made from polarized material. Special markings on poker could be seen with these contact lens.
I had no idea the band Tokio was so multi-talented!
In high school, my friend intentionally took the polarizing filter off of the display of his TI calculator. Then, he could only see the display with the polarizing-style 3d glasses on. One eye saw black-on-white, the other eye saw white-on-black. It was weird indeed.
But the best part was that he would be wearing these ridiculous 3D glasses he had taken from a movie theater. It was a combo of Friday the 13th Part III in 3-D, and Jaws III, and perhaps even Space Hunter. So the artwork on the glasses themselves had a fireplace poker dripping with blood, shark fins, and (I think) flying saucers. The theatre chain was very thrifty to combine all the 3D movies into one set of glasses.
Predictably, the instructor would tell him to take those stupid things off, but he would show them that that's the only way he could see his calculator. They'd reluctantly let him leave them on.
I remember seeing this displayed at Fall Comdex, 1999. It's not particurally practical, especially since many people already wear polarized sunglasses.
On a side note, has anyone tried to look at an LCD while wearing polarized glasses? It doesn't work. Try it on your laptop, car stereo or watch.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
If they prevent anyone who doesn't actively try to see the information, they stop 98% of possible intrusions.
I'd love to see the evidence that proves that 98% of all intrusions are accidental.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
You heve to use two of these glasses, in a right angle ot eachother. That way, really nobody can see what you are looking at...
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Take an LCD screen, remove the front-polarizer and there you go. Simple.
-- Roger.
Background info: A LCD screen is made of four layers - the first being a neon tube (or something similar) that emits the actual light. That light then passes through the first polarizing filter, which transmits only light that is polarized, say, in the horizontal direction. The next layer contains the liquid crystals, which turn the polarization of the light by 90 degrees, if a voltage is applied, or leaves the polarization unaltered, if no voltage is applied. In the first case, the light will be blocked by the final polarizing layer (which you just removed), which again transmits only horizontally polarized light. If no voltage is applied, however, the light will pass the second layer unhindered, and will reach your eye. All you did (if you followed the above steps) is to move that layer from the screen to your eyeglasses.
Note: I am typing the above info out of my head, so there's no guarantee that all the details are correct. But the main idea sure is.
By the way, if you don't feel like taking apart your laptop, this works perfectly well with pocket calculators (I loved to take them apart as a kid!), Game Boys, PDAs etc.
I've been meaning to get this on Slashdot for some time now, but I worked on a much more powerful version of such glasses over a year ago at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) in Cambridge, MA, with Researcher William Y. Yerazunis. Here's the technical report if you'd like to see it. We also filed a few patents way back then as well, so I wonder if this work infringes on our own.
We can actually hide secret images within any image or animation you'd like, not just an obvious blank screen. We also designed a cryptographically secure version which isn't cracked by simply having another pair of special glasses (you also need the private key). Check out the paper, it has some image examples (there might be a few technical errors in it that we later fixed but wasn't updated in the paper. I'm not at MERL anymore, so I haven't bothered checking really).
Also, we made a video demo for the conference which our technical report was accepted in paper form (at OzCHI2001). I have that video, and can digitize it if there's enough demand. By the way, while I was testing the glasses, I actually used They Live screenshots so that one could simulate Rowdy Roddy Piper's shock upon seeing the billboards and aliens. Also, we referenced John Carpenter in our paper.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
Second, how many different polarizations are there?
There are more kinds, circular for example. It means the electric field is rotating, either clockwise or counterclockwise.
But that won't work for screens. The liquid crystal will ROTATE a LINEAR polarization but won't reverse a circular polarization. The screen starts with a light source, linear-polarizes it, selectively rotates the polarization, then linear-polarizes again. Depending on the amount of rotation you get more or less light.
This ancient hack consists of taking the final linear polarizer off the front of the screen and wearing it as a pair of glasses. The screen now emits a constant-brightness, varying-LINEAR-polarization light, which isn't translated into variable intensity until it hits the polarized glasses.
But that means that if you get the polarization right you get the image, if you're off by 90 degrees you get a negative image, and at other angles you get an image that has an intended-versus-perceived intensity graph something like a check-mark. Unless you happen to be at the angle where the letters and the background match exactly it's still readable, and if you're at exactly that wrong angle just tilt your head a LITTLE bit and they reappear.
So stock polarizing sunglasses read all these screens, no problem.
If you could come up with a final filter for the screen that converted, say, the vertical component of linearly-polarized light into right-circular and the horizontal into left-circular, you could then use circularly polarized glasses and defeat linearly-polarized. But I don't know of any physical mechanism (let alone one that could be turned into a cheap thin film) that would do this, even for monochrome, let alone the near-octave of light used by color displays or the full-octave for black-and-white.
Even if you DID come up with a circularly-polarized hack you'd only have TWO possibilities for the glasses - and viewing the display with the wrong one would just give you a negative, but readable, image.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Gee, this would be just the thing for Digital Rights Management. Imagine, if your CPRM or Palladium personal ID were coded into the glasses! You would only see things they wanted you to see, and only things you've paid for, of course.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I'll never get caught reading /. at work again!
nuke the moon
Here you can get DMCA violating hacking tools for your idea. Thppt.
When i have my glasses on, i AM dictating. When I have my glasses off, I'm NOT dictating.....
I thought this technology was great when I saw it 2 years ago at the NAB2000 trade show on a KDS laptop... How is this new? New Scientist is usually pretty good at fact checking :)
Great. Now if Mum comes in to my room, she won't freak out at my bukkake.
Quick, someone report these folks to the feds. They are in violation of the DMCA for distributing eye-wear -- or would that be eye-ware :^) -- that will decrypt my polarized monitor.
I'm not sure whether the glasses required were vertically polarized of horizontally polarized. If they were vertically polarized, anyone with a pair of sunglasses could quite easily read the screen (but wouldn't you look odd wearing sunglasses on a plane while staring at a business person's apparently blank laptop screen).
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Apparently you are under the mistaken impression that polarized lenses MUST be SUNGLASSES. Another brainless Slashdotter! B L O W M E N O W.
I saw a ZDnet artical years ago for this - Old news
More like 50-60 years.
Experimented with on railroad cars.
Even made an appearance in James Bond films (View to a Kill).
Ten thousand accidental intrusions without protection. One with.
If you absolutly need 98% (rather than "close to a hundred, but not quite"), make up your own numbers.
Companies would never go for this. They would be exposing themselves to massive costs to provide people who wear prescription glasses with polarized glasses in their prescription. They will also be risking lawsuits from people who find that the weight of glasses causes sinus problems.
If I was on a plane and the guy next to me whipped out his glasses and 'secure' laptop I'd maybe be a little alarmed. OTOH, if I walk to the loo and see that another person is doing the same thing, I'd probably point it out. Could they be looking at layouts of the plane and coordinating plans secretly? I'm fairly technical, but just imagine the 60 year old grandmother who has never flown before and is scared to death already.
In the office, you can reposition your screen. Generally if you have information so sensitive that you'd need one of these you work in a little office with a locking door. Why does everybody, including the intern, up in HR have their own closing office, while IT has 'the bullpen'? Hmm..
Forget about sensitive data, I can use this to keep my boss from looking at my porn surfing habits while at work!
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
1) obtain, and take apart a $5 calculator.
2) look at the LCD - there's a little piece of polarizing plastic in front of it - hey!
3) when i take this out, i can't see the screen.
4) stick the little piece of polarizing plastic that was taped in front of the LCD, and tape it to my glasses instead.
5) apply for New Scientist Story, and claim we invented something unique, and get slashdotted.
duh!
j
alot of ATM machines use a non glasses version of this and have done so for years and years.
/. logon id...geeeez!
BTW its easier to get a AIM screen name than it is to get a
You can get privacy filters for any monitor. 3M makes one which is available from any office supply store, like Staples.
This "invention" is silly. I can pick up a pair of polarized sunglasses for $8 at the local drug store.
Oh I get it ... all /. spelling errors are due to improper polarisation of the readers eyes :-)
... the article says "Tokyo".
At least now I can be sure that the post was not copy/pasted
This is a good idea which has to be used with caution in real life: it makes people complacent about security. People using this technology will naturally expect to be secure, which is not the case because defeating it is trivial for those in the know.
I'm sure this technology works 99,9% of the time. But the 0,1% of the time when there is someone using a similar device or just circumventing it (for example by using the 3d-classes mentioned in the article) is exactly the worst time for security to fail. Just because your wearing an asbestos suit doesn't mean you should run into a fiery building!
In the end, without proper paranoia and training this technology might make security _worse_ because it gives people a false sense of security, therefore putting sensitive information in the reach of the enemy who might not have access to it if this tech was not used because people would be more careful.
"We have an A-Bomb...what more do you want, mermaids?" --I.I. Rabi, speaking in defense of Robert Oppenheimer
Is it near Kioto? North of Iokohama maybe? Ies, I think that must be it.
With this technology and a decent pair of headphones, your boss doesn't know you're playing Quake at the office again...
-JDF
Can you even use a laptop in coach? 31" pitch is barely enough to sit in, unless you happen to be a 3' tall midget... Besides, wouldn't you be more likely to travel in first, as a business traveler, and wouldn't your corporate spys be sitting next to you?
No Domestic Coach Travel since 70,000 miles ago...
Over 10 years ago, while still in Engineering school, 3M sent me a sample of a plastic that they wanted to sell for covering ATMs and computer screens. The screen was only visible if your axis of vision was perpendicular to the horizontal axis of the plastic. If you veered by more than 10-15 degrees it would turn completely black. The effect was only left-right, it had no influence if for example somebody stood behind you and peeked over your shoulder.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
no, fuckwits eating monkeys is how aids spred to humans.
/.er, but homophobic peices of shit like this should be deleted. theres a difference between free speach and being ignorantly obcene (or obcenely ignorant, as with this case...) an just plain obnoxious, stupid and disgusting...
probably fuckwits with the same level of intelegence as the average anonymous coward =P
and for all you know, if it was someone fuckign a monkey, it coulda been a straight guy woth a female monkey...
on another related note, i dislike cencorship as much as the next
PS. for the record, i'm bi
PPS. no, i dont fuck monkeys...
PPPS. if i find out who you anonymous cowards are. i will hunt you down and kill you, have a nice day =D
...I got nothing.
Why do you pull your anus out? That must hurt!
saw stuff like this at PCExpo 99.. and it wasn't new then
Put your lens to read it
Polarized Screens to Cloak Sensitive Data Hey why not.... We are on a roll here ;)
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
"The displayed data is rendered invisible by doing away with a light-polarising screen from the front of the monitor. .... In the IDK system, the polarising filter is effectively moved from the screen to the pair of glasses worn by authorised computer users."
This is possibly the most insecure security measure ever. How hard would it be to, never mind buy your own pair of glasses, but to just make them from an old laptop screen? Sheesh . . .
Actually, god created monkey for Adam first. If you'll read your Bible, you'll find that god created the animals out of dust first in an attempt to give Adam a mate. When he didn't like those, he pulled out his rib and made Eve.
On the other hand, if someone can develop a version of this that simulataneously display TWO DIFFERENT images with 90-degree-opposite polarization--the computer-display equivalent of a Polaroid "Vectograph"--it might be a useful form of 3D-with-glasses display.
Already been done.
You don't need 3-d glasses or polarised glasses!
:-)
A simlpe mirror (like the ones girls have in their hand-bags) is enough to filter out polarised light. Simply hold the mirror against the screen at an angle of about 45 degrees and view the screen through the mirror (use two mirrors, if you're unable to read backwards!): only light polarised vertically to the mirror will be reflcted and thus visible...
Simple optics one-o-one.
ms
Too easy to steal, too easy to get them from a 3d movie. Or from disney land.
Now, polorized contact lenses that are made for each person...would be the way to go. Not wearing them when you go into work would ensure that you can't work.
Om, nomnomnom...
I saw this type of monitor exhibited at the SID conference back in 1995 (Orlando, FL). They had an LCD display on a laptop with the front polarizer removed. If you wore special polarized glasses with the polarization direction at 45 degrees clockwise, you could see the image. I'm pretty sure it was a different company. These new guys either got the same idea, or bought out the people who thought of it originally.
to wank in front of blank screens in their office.
...he warns that this security measure could be defeated by anyone who can get hold of a pair of correctly configured, light polarising glasses.
The other option is to scramble a monochrome screen with a red or green or blue filter.
If the filter is red then all red, white, yellow, tan, etc... pixels will be white and all other shades will be pushed to black. The classic trick is to scramble the colorspace of the pixels randomly so other viewers see multicolored static unless they have one of the color filters.
Now another option is to sync the static with special glasses, but if you have that then why muck with the monitor signal? Now one other option is to create a multi-polarized (simplest tech is to take two polarized sheets, go scissor-happy and glue to a clear plastic sheet in the many random orientations that would occur) pair of glasses. Then sync the polarization to the unique glasses, but the viewer has to maintain an exact close distance & have very little head movement.
Another variation of the concept is to do the same thing with the pure color filters and cut & glue the pieces into a stained-glass unique viewer which matches the color-space scrambling of the monitor. Again the same limitations of viewing distance & head motion come into play. However, the glasses will look a damn spot more stylish.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
How about this alternative?
1. Turn the monitor so it faces AWAY from the door / traffic / etc.
2. When you leave, lock the computer.
No glasses required, but you can still wear them if they look cool."Not all those who wander are lost." -- Tolkien
I remember reading about this years ago in PC Magazine. A company, whose name I can't remember, at the time offered the following service/product: You sent them your laptop. They removed the polarizing layer of the LCD. They ship the laptop back with some polarizing glasses. I think the price was a few hundred dollars.
Exactly. I thought up this brilliant idea about 20 years ago, when I was about 10 and into electronics.
Get any LCD screen, remove the polarizing film and use some "special" glasses.
I have a nice pair of "special" glasses, they're called Bolle.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
We have some monitors like this. Unless you have the special glasses on, you can't even see the monitor - can't even tell if it's there or not. We sold 100 of them to an Emperor.
Please read the article before making stupid comments. Lower average intelligence than community radio broadcasters!
ABSTRACT: This paper describes a method for enhancing the privacy of computer displays in public and semipublic areas. By operating the display at a higher-than-usual frame rate and alternately displaying frames of an arbitrary private image and a computed mask image, unauthorized viewers perceive one image, while authorized viewers with appropriately keyed shutterglasses see an entirely different (and private) image. Although the technique can be defeated, it provides a measure of privacy against casual and opportunistic privacy penetrations.
That's easy do to. It's commonly known as quarter wave plate. Put it in front of your h and v polarized screen and rotate it to 45 degrees from h/v. It will turn h polarized in to right (or left) and v polarized into left (or right, depending on the rotation of the qw plate). See here [gsu.edu] how it works.
Nope - because you only get right-circular and left-circular when the polarization is 45-degrees to the quarter-wave plate's axis. Other angles produce eliptical polarization. So variable intensity (other than on vs. off) is out if you want security against cheap polaroid sunglasses (or viewing the screen in a glare surface).
Also you'll be stuck with a monochrome screen unless you can come up with three narrow-band incoherent colors and a plate that's a quarter-wave for all three.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This was in Popular Science and/or PC Magazine. (Tough to remember which since both seem to have a number of articles written by the PR Crew, but I think it was PS.) The company was selling modifications to laptop screens and matching glasses. Obvious application was for on-plane editing by incredibly important people, of which there were many at that e-time. I liked the idea but couldn't rationalize the cost just to prevent people from discovering my Civilization strategies, finely honed though they may have been.
--
There is nothing more important that people's money
If there was nothing more important than money, why would we trade it for anything? I agree that there isn't anything much more likely to generate irrational behaviour than money, apart from threats to health.
Anyway since when does hiding what is on the monitor help when the data is accessible from thousands of terminals? Can't see it on that monitor, I'll just suck up the data on my own monitor. Hell, can I sue for being able to view my bank accounts from the not-so-private internet cafe monitors?
I'd be quite happy for a (smelly) sock for the gob of the next teller who announces to the whole queue - "so how would you like your $3000 withdrawal", when I had already written that down on a bit of paper for them. Can I sue for the fear and trauma caused by this? Perhaps I could get the money debited from their salary instead of my bank account?
So let's get cones of silence and monitors built directly into the goggles. Put each person's encrypted data on sneaker net (floppy disk etc) and make each workstation stand alone
How about making the screen resolution really small ie tiny text and making staff wear magnifying glasses?
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Employees who are unworthy of their posts will be unable to see what is on the screen, even with the glasses.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.