Patent Application
20070247392
This invention relates to data security systems generally, and more specifically, to a system and method for making sensitive data displayed on a display device more secure when it is being viewed.
As data processing systems become more portable, minimally invasive solutions become necessary to enable the secure viewing of sensitive data, e.g., when displayed on a mobile or portable computing device. For instance, a basic text document presented for display on a laptop computer may be observed by people in the vicinity of the laptop device, thus potentially compromising the security of the data displayed. An example of this is an employee viewing confidential electronic documents while on an airplane; it is desired that the employee be able to view the documents while neighboring people are excluded from viewing access.
Techniques such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,266,106 and 5,379,369 provide a solution that enables users to view 3 dimensional or stereoscopic images displayed on a computer device via a pair of liquid crystal shutter glasses. Such glasses are electronically coupled to the computer device and operate in synchrony with electronic signals generated by the computer to orient the crystals in the left eyeglass and right eyeglass in a manner so that the wearer of the glasses will be able to view stereoscopic images.
While use of “shutter glasses” as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,106 provide a way of viewing stereoscopic images, that patent does not describe how to use shutter glasses for viewing secure data. To do this one would blank both eyes of the shutter glasses simultaneously, instead of alternating left and right eyes as is done for viewing of stereoscopic images.
It would be highly desirable to provide a novel display method for a device that is used for displaying and viewing private or secure textual data whereby a user of a device is able to visually observe sensitive data on a system, while other people in the same vicinity will be intentionally unable to read the displayed data.
It would further be highly desirable to provide a novel type of image display method for a small mobile or laptop computer or pervasive digital device that enables users to view private or secure data in a relatively simple and minimally invasive way.
A system and methodology provides the secure viewing of data by a viewer to the exclusion of other viewers in proximity with or in the vicinity of the authorized viewer.
The system and method for displaying secure or private data of the invention is minimally invasive, in that it is usable on currently available hardware and only requires (1) special secure software component to be installed on the viewer's display device; and (2) the first viewer must wear some implementation of “shutter glasses”.
Thus, according to the invention, there is provided a system, method and computer program product for allowing certain users to view secure data while excluding others in the same vicinity. The method includes generating a stream of first data frames including secure data content to be viewed on a display device; inserting second data frames within the stream of first data frames in a manner to thereby render a displayed image of the secure data unreadable on the computer display device. Special shutter glasses are provided that are adapted to receive (wired or wireless) signals from the computer device. The shutter glasses, to be worn by a viewer of the secure data, are adapted to filter out the second data frames in response to received signals. The viewer may view the secure data to the exclusion of nearby observers viewing the display device.
The software component is installed on the viewer's display device and operates in conjunction with the video display system employed to provide special video frames that are viewable by a wearer of a special shutter glasses. The types of devices include any computing device, typically of any current stationary and mobile computing platform, e.g., such as a desktop, laptop or mobile computer, cell phone, pervasive device (personal digital assistant), etc. A novel implementation of a shutter glasses is employed in conjunction with the special displays generated.
In one embodiment, the software running on the host machine intersperses “phantom frames” along with the standard “true frames” so that a viewer without the shutter glasses would simply see a blurred and unreadable image. The software on the machine then synchronizes shutter glasses worn by the user so that they would be opaque when the phantom frames were displayed and transparent when the true frames were displayed. This would allow the wearer of the shutter glasses not to be bothered by the phantom frames and thus be able to view the secure data clearly.
In an alternate embodiment, the software running on the host machine intersperses “powerhouse frames” along with the standard “true frames” so that a viewer without the shutter glasses would simply see unreadable images that exploit sensitivities of the human perceptual system.
Advantageously, the present invention does not require a industry wide paradigm shift, but could rather be simply added on to existing systems. That is, the system is minimally invasive, in that it is usable on currently available hardware and only requires special secure software to be installed on the machine in question and the viewer to wear an implementation of shutter glasses.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof, which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The present invention is a system and methodology providing for the secure viewing of data by a viewer to the exclusion of other viewers in proximity with or in the vicinity of the viewer.
To display plain text in a secure manner, the system is designed that would make this text unreadable to a viewer not wearing shutter glasses 20, while at the same time preserving readability for the intended user.
It is understood that the phantom frame is of the type that is successful in obscuring text based images. One style of phantom frame implemented for obscuring text based images is built by generating random text of the same font as the true image. When the phantom frames of random text are interspersed with true frames at a rate of 2 to 1, the resulting display 25 (FIG. 1) becomes illegible. When the phantom frames are hidden from a user's view, as is the case when a user wears shutter glasses, the true text is not obscured.
Referring back to
Thus, in further view of
In other implementations of the present invention, the secure data is desired to be displayed has a refresh rate above a critical threshold. Defining this threshold to be the point “X” where the user is not bothered by flicker when the display is set to a refresh rate of “X/2”; that is, one could divide the refresh rate in half and still have a system that is adequate for viewing. In this case, when the monitor is set to have a refresh rate at “X” or above, the secure data software may use (on average) half of the displayed frames for phantom frames and the other half for true frames. An observer without the shutter glasses, whose eyes by nature try to integrate the total sequence of frames presented, can easily be made to see and unreadable image when presented with the phantom and true frames. Since the secure viewer does not see the phantom frames, as they are blocked by the precisely timed shutter glasses, the perceived image on the screen is undistinguishable from the original “unsecured” image. To further enhance security, the software could also vary in time the displaying of phantom and non-phantom images so that they are not on a regular pattern. In this way, a dubious user with their own pair of shutter glasses would not be able to view the secure data, unless those glasses were able to follow the special pattern of phantom/true frame displaying. This pattern can be made in a variety of ways, and is simply used to add further security. Thus, in view of
Implementing this invention on a system in which the refresh rate is too low to allow a significant amount of phantom frame insertion (such as current technology LCD) can be accomplished in the following manner: Instead of inserting many phantom frames, the software instead inserts very few “powerhouse frames”: frames that are meant to be powerful enough to overwhelm the viewing of the secure data. These powerhouse frames are meant to exploit the differences (inherent in the human visual system) between persistence of images with different colors and intensities. That is, certain colors/intensities make a larger visual impact on the viewer than others and therefore when time multiplexed with softer colors are able overwhelm them. For example, displayed powerhouse frames having a red color/tint/hue will overwhelm the green color receptors in the human eye thus, rendering displayed data in a “green” color font as unviewable. With this in mind, secure text would be displayed in a softer color and then powerhouse frames would be inserted at a rate so that the time varying image would appear unreadable. For a user to view the data, shutter glasses would be worn so that the powerhouse frames would be subtracted out as described above.
While the invention has been described herein with reference to specific embodiments, features and aspects, it will be recognized that the invention is not thus limited, but rather extends in utility to other modifications, variations, applications, and embodiments, and accordingly all such other modifications, variations, applications, and embodiments are to be regarded as being within the spirit and scope of the invention.
