As I mention all too often, I’m on planes a lot. I also compute a ton when I’m on the plane. My weekly transcontinental commutes are 4 hour uninterrupted compute sessions.
So, I’m keenly aware that as a good travel citizen I should keep my own eyes on my own screen (or if I’m not computing, my own book/magazine/seat in front of me). However, I cannot help myself, I often find myself sneaking peaks at my fellow traveler’s screens. When walking the aisle to the bathroom I find myself noting how many folks are watching movies vs. working on Powerpoint vs. practicing poker.
My nosiness may be rude and poor frequent flyer etiquette, but it isn’t nefarious. However, I have heard of firms that make a living by flying folks about the country and having them spy on computer users looking for corporate secrets. This is a problem.
The unintentional sharing of sensitive corporate information on flights is something that many a corporate leader has fretted about. I have one family friend who, when an exec, strongly discouraged his team members from using their laptops on the plane at all. He’d rather loose that productivity time than risk the lose of sensitive deal negotiation data. I’d even venture that this issue only gets worse and worse as the airlines continue to shrink the distance between their passengers.
All this worry has led to the creation (at least in part) and use of laptop privacy screens. I have tried using one of these myself. However, I eventually abandoned it for the following reasons:
- Has to have a film/plastic shield over the main screen, which allows “gook” to collect between the real screen and the protector.
- Darkens the screen.
- Hassle not needed in the 90% period (e.g. when at work or when at home).
I was dwelling on the dissatisfaction I have with privacy screens (and many others must too, because almost no one uses them on flights that I fly – even the ones that are at least 80% business travelers), when I found myself wondering if a better solution couldn’t be found.
I wondered if it wouldn’t be possible to devise a method that makes use of “3-D glasses” style stuff + software (blur mode on the screen + glasses = clear image). Of course, glasses wearers would be problem (and you may need to have something work so that there were frequencies tuned certain glasses – lest your neighbor have the same glasses).
I suspect there will continue to be little innovation in this space until corporate IT folks (and it really can’t be far away can it – they worry about data loss constantly these days) begin mandating privacy screens left and right. Once they do, and once they realize that no one is using these screens – removing them from their machines as soon as they get them – there will be a demand in the industry to have “policy enforcement”. The same type of thinking that has create situations where you have to use a PIN to access your mobile phone that has corporate email, will demand a new solution to this problem.
1 response so far ↓
Mary Norris-Oliver // May 25, 2008 at 1:41 am |
I have heard the same rumour that you have (“firms that make a living by flying folks about the country and having them spy on computer users”). Heck, I’ve repeated the rumour on several occasions.
I have come to suspect that this is an enticing rumour, but nothing more. When we travel, and see how easy it is to look at another’s screen (without being noticed), the thought that someone is doing this to us immediately comes to mind.
But consider what the odds are that:
1. we are working on something highly business-sensitive,
2. are doing so in an application that makes its screen contents easy-to-read (think 36pt typeface in a Powerpoint bullet),
3. are sitting in a seat that exposes the screen to someone sitting beside/behind us with a wide range of visibility (someone peeking through the gap in the seats typically only has 10-15 degrees of visual range and can only see a part of our document),
4. have a seatmate or cabinmate that can read, interpret, and understand our writing or our notes (including the all-important business meaning of the content [e.g. I work in entertainment law. I don't particularly care if an exec from a waste management firm reads subrogation clauses that I am vetting for my client], and
5. is in a position to capitalize directly or indirectly on the value of the contents of our work.
The combined probability of all of these consistently approaches zero.
Now I’m not saying you don’t find juicy things on other people’s screens when you fly. I’m saying that it’s very rare that you do find a juicy thing that you can understand and make money from.
Taking all this into consideration, try to imagine the business prospects of a company formed to try and harvest this information on a widespread basis. It’s next-to-nil.
Don’t take this to mean that corporate espionage doesn’t go on. I know it does. I’ve been party to cases where espionage was at the heart of trade secret violation. But espionage of this sort is very targeted. Someone is deliberately hired to follow a certain person or persons inconspicuously and glean information from this surreptitious shadowing.
So what do I do when I travel and have to work on my computer?
1. I use the 3M filters (they come with bezel-mount tabs that make it easy to slide in and out–no gook on my screens). They cut down the range of visibility so sharply that someone who is not directly in front of the screen has a very hard time seeing anything.
2. I almost always use the window seat and position my screen at an angle to my rear to deny visibility to nosy cabinmates sitting behind me. My pillows are in the seat gaps.
3. I usually sit at the rear of first- and business-class cabins (where the bulkhead assures me that no one sits behind me). If I’m in coach, I rarely work on sensitive work (far more people in coach walk up and down the cabin, or stand and stretch in the galley areas).
These are common-sense precautions for working in enclosed, yet semi-public spaces. I’m sure you do similar things.
My weekly routes are NYC-LA, NYC-SF, and the DC-NYC-BOS corridor, where I am in a plane at least three times a week.
I’m actually less worried about using my computer on the plane than I used to be when using paper and pen in the 70’s and 80’s. It was a lot harder to keep those contents safe from wandering eyes.