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Making a Privacy Monitor From an Old LCD
ryzvonusef writes "Instructables Member 'Dimovi' utilized a spare LCD monitor and converted it into a 'privacy' monitor. He took apart the monitor's plastic frame, cutting out the polarized film with a utility knife and removed the film adhesive from the glass panel before reassembling the monitor, which now shines a bright white regardless of what is actually being displayed on the screen. He then removed the lenses from a pair of theater 3D glasses, and replaced it with the polarized film he had just removed from the monitor. Now, he is the only one who can see what he is doing on his computer."
Very interesting hack. It would be perfect for laptops that are used while travelling (watching pr0n during your flight?).
I wonder how easy or difficult it would be to hack a notebook screen.
lol, captcha: decency
Cool and clever hack. But it assumes that what you're displaying on the screen is more embarrassing than being seen wearing 3D glasses. An easier solution would be to just never let anyone into your lair.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Sure, unless anyone else is wearing polarized sunglasses in the vicinity.
He's the only person who can view it, apart from any clown with a pair of polarising sunglasses. What a gimp. Better off putting the effort into something worthwhile. It's easier to just use your computer in a room with a closed door.
surely a graphics programmer could coax an Nvidia/Ati card to give the same effect ?
until someone hacks one of these newfangled 3D TVs to display 2 polarized pictures at once? Different polarities could carry different channels, people with the correctly-polarized glasses would see only one or the other...
Hello playing PS3 while the missus watches TV!
"Now, he is the only one who can see what he is doing on his computer." As long as he wears his tin foil hat obviously.
Immediately thought of This.
This is a new product waiting for either a patent or a patent troll.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
When you don't want anyone seeing what is on the screen aren't you usually naked? Glasses aren't going to hide much, IMHO.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
"Ok, time to get some work done on my computer. Where'd I put those glasses?!!!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I suggested something similar to improve the contrast in the sonar room on submarines, without tripping up the people who were doing other things. Polarize the displays up and down, and the room lights side to side. People wearing polarized glasses could see the displays well, but the glare from the room lights would be diminished.
I think the first description of such a system was in a golden age science fiction story. Car head lights were polarized diagonally. You'd wear glasses that allowed your light to be bright, but oncoming ca's headlights would be reduced. Of course unsuspecting pedestrians would be blinded.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I used to do the same thing with my calculator.
Recycling is cool and all, but it's not like this is a new / unique / unanticipated capability:
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/SDP/Privacy_Filters/
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
But hardly a security feature... merely a privacy screen with a small aperture. Wouldn't any pair of polarized glasses reveal the screen? Also, superspies picking up the monitor's leaky signals would be unaffected by it. Also... seems like he has destroyed a perfectly good monitor (but I guess we have enough).
The Admin and the Engineer
....Or else he might look like an idiot.
Inefficient. Rather than making it harder to look at the screen, make viewers not want to look at the screen to begin with. Make the background image goatse. Also provides an interesting location to place the stereotypical "GUI trash can".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This guy could have used it: (allegedly) http://tinyurl.com/cd5s57a
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The folks at Mitsubishi Research actually came up with glasses that work like the ones in "They Live"... without the special glasses, you see one image, with the special glasses, you see another (secret) image.
Their paper is at
http://www.merl.com/publications/TR2002-011/
and the video is pretty darn amazing.
Pffftrrrt. Wake me up when they come up with a polarized PROJECTED image with seperate frequencies for each viewer. That would be kindof impressive.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Why do I have to see his screen to know what he's doing in his computer? in fact, why do I have to be on the same continent?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's a bit too obvious to patent but it's the sort of idea a roomfull of Apple fanboys would drool over if the device were an iPad (watch for iSecurePad sometime in 2015). But like most security by obscurity, it really isn't. The images on the screen might not be directly visible but reflections of the screen in any non conducting surface (glass, dry erase board, wood veneer tabletop...) would be clear enough for bystanders to enjoy that goats.cx site.
As the internet makes keeping private things private more difficult, the need to implement solutions to protect that right has become more acute. I would like to see this sort of solution as standard for laptops. When I travel or am working on my laptop at the local coffee shop, I don't want others getting into my business. This technology would help tremendously to accomplish that! So, I say that it is a great proof of concept, and that laptop suppliers should provide it as a standard feature, or option on all laptops, netbooks, and tablets. Of course, once it becomes a common feature, others can just don their polarized specs and see what you are up to... Oh well, it was a great idea while it lasted! :-)
Didn't we just spend the last 20 years designing laptop/lcd flatscreens so that they didn't have the damn single-point-of-viewing issue? I seem to recall the original, dim LCD screens being an enormous pain in the butt because if you moved your head about 3" to either side, you couldn't see anything.
-Styopa
I remember seeing something like this on TV. 3M was advertising it for laptops (so you could do secure work at the airport without someone peeking over your shoulder to see what you are doing). If I were a longtime slashdot reader, I could point you to a link that lest you see what I mean. Oh well.
Hate it when someone is looking my screen when I display my Facebook profile.
where a pair of these
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasstron
and turn off the main display.
Yeah, the minute somebody next to me starts using a device that blasts white light into my face, I'm going to put on my polarized sunglasses, which are always in my right inside jacket pocket.
I wouldn't even be trying to defeat his privacy hack, I'm just very light sensitive so I always carry shades.
Oh, look - pr0n!
Now all we need is polarized contact lenses so you don't look silly.
I had done this *exact* thing a few years ago when I was working at a big government research lab. At the time we were playing around with layering multiple LCD screens (with and without polarizing filters peeled off) to create a new kind of 3D display. After realizing the front polarizer could be removed to make a privacy monitor, we toyed with commercializing this idea or putting it to use for sensitive information at the lab (hence we didn't post the idea publicly). However, in the end we determined it is too simple to defeat for any serious purpose. Even if you make sure no one is wearing sunglasses nearby, a hidden camera with a polarizing filter could still record everything on your screen. By the way, regular polarized sunglasses (such as for driving) work just fine — there is no need to make special glasses as in the Instructable.
I did this a long time ago, and I found that it was quite annoying to have to constantly hold my head exactly upright to view the screen properly. Also, I don't know if this is common, but my monitor's polarization was diagonal. This is probably a disadvantage; it would be nice to be able to use ordinary polarized glasses. (A weird angle doesn't give any extra security because the eavesdropper just has to tilt his head.)
Explain to me how this is even remotely possible? Let's take something simple. Monitor displaying the number 5 and monitor displaying the number 4. How do the glasses know whether it's a 5 or 4? The computer is relaying the information to the monitor and not to the glasses. The liquid crystal film (LCD) is normally connected to the computer through the monitor. How is it connected now? This is such obvious bullshit that I don't understand how anyone could even consider it.
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
I hope this becomes a big hit. I'll be sneaking around in airport lounges with a bit of polarizing film on my cellphone camera, then make a fortune in insider trading.