Unwittingly Fingerprinted by Touch Screen Devices

a reply to: SPECULUM

Touch screens on phones don't have nearly enough resolution. If you actually understand how they work, you wouldn't be as paranoid about that part.

eta: And, no, there's no camera inside the phone taking images of the screen. Geez.

a reply to: Bedlam

Ok. phys.org...

a reply to: SPECULUM

And?

Hold up your phone. Look at it. Actually see it. Thin. Wide. Long. And the LCD has a reflective back, behind the light spreader, to increase the amount of brightness on the screen.

Now. What way can you see that a camera on the inside of the phone can:

1) have a truly insane lensing system so that it can see the entire screen area, or even a chunk of it, with the screen being a few mm away, and the screen being as large as it is

2) through the reflector

3) past the light source veiling glare

More, the camera you link to is 3mm high, and 16mm square. Hard to miss, and pretty tall. That's without the insane lensing you'd need, if you could manage it at all. Ever seen the inside of a phone?

a reply to: Bedlam

Actaully Bedlam, I used to dive an alarm monitoring company that also employed state of the art cameras to aid in catching clerks stealing form the till and what not. The entire camera they employed was smaller than a marble, the lens on the front of which was smaller than the period on this sentence.

You had to hold it up close to the eye and turn it slowly to see light reflect off the pin point sized lens.

It was wide angle hidden in the roof or on the wall to look at clerks as they worked the register in any establishment.

I found two of them over time in the dumpster out back the company, nether of them worked. They had 2 wires coming out the back, twelve volt power, and signal. it was hard wired, not wireless. You couldn't identify that thing unless you knew what you were looking for and scanned the wall or ceiling up close with a magnifying glass.

a reply to: intrptr

Yes, I've seen those cameras. You can buy them on ebay and have been able to do for a while. There is no way though that they could take a "picture" of your phone's screen at just a few millimeters away, they simply don't have that wide of view when that close to something.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I see. But could be coupled with "look thru" LCD screen technology in a wide variety of applications. Heres what look through looks like.

YouTube playlist

About tiny cameras, they are more applicable hidden in ordinary products that can be used to monitor, today they are so available (got a link for Ebay?), like you said.

The "clear" (look through) pixels on any screen could be used as a portal to hide a camera that small. The tech in pin hole is sufficiently small.