Sony reveals prototype 13.3-inch e-ink slate with stylus

[ghero]

First of all, thx BoldlyDubious for liking my idea.

Also, I have a new feature I want to suggest for this kind of device: secrecy protection.
Sometimes, documents are meant to be secret and not to be shown to unauthorized people, especially for documents that are carried by officials in government positions or some other private CEO level decision makers. So, I think a form of secrecy protection is needed, so they can carry the documents with them where ever they go, and the institutions hiring them, and the officials themselves, are free of concering other people who will sneak, and get their hands on those secret informations.

A very simple way of doing that, I think, is to provide password protection, to ask for password whenever the user is trying to power up, or wake up the device.

Another simple ways is to ask password, whenever people is trying to open a document.

Or, have security markups. To markup documents that are meant to be secretive. Documents with security markup will require password, while other documents are not.

If some people attempt to access a secretive document and fails, or aborts before successed (or try to do power up/wake up the device, but fails to enter a correct password, or aborts before a correct password is entered), a warning information will be logged. Which can be shown later to the authentic device owner. And when the device is WiFi connected, the warning log will be automatically sent to the insititutions who concerns the secrecy of the documents (maybe as an automatic email feature that emails to a specific mailbox dedicated to recieve such security warnings).

Thats all I can think for now.

Additonal Note: For secrecy objective, security password should be also required when device user is trying to connect the device to a computer, or try to connect the device to a wireless network (i.e. invoking Wifi), or anything which the user is trying to connect the device to the outside. And warnings will be logged whenever user fails to provide a correct password when he has to. (Also, microSD should be refused to handle security files (at least the user/institutions will be adviced not to put their secrecy files on microSD), or even if it handles on microSD, there should be some sort of security lock/encription etc on the secretive files, so secretive contents on microSD should not be able to viewed outside of this device.)

[DaleDe]

PDF already has password protection option so all the reader needs to do is support that option by providing a place to type it in.

Dale

[ghero]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

PDF already has password protection option so all the reader needs to do is support that option by providing a place to type it in.

Dale

ya, this solution is very neat. I think in addition to it, a screen saving picture displayed during sleep mode, and password-protected wake-up can still be useful, so unauthorized people don't sneak in on a protected document that is being opened and unguarded.

[BoldlyDubious]

Maybe I underestimate the problem, but I suppose that people who read documents secret enough to require protection do not read them in public places. If the secrecy threat is the person beside you on a plane looking at your document, you simply can't solve it, as you have to disable all protection in order to read the document yourself. If the problem is that you don't want someone to access the device while you go to the restroom or to another office, a device-lock password is sufficient (but why do you leave your ereader loaded with secret corporate document around in a spy-infested environment in the first place?!).

[ghero]

Originally Posted by BoldlyDubious

Maybe I underestimate the problem, but I suppose that people who read documents secret enough to require protection do not read them in public places. If the secrecy threat is the person beside you on a plane looking at your document, you simply can't solve it, as you have to disable all protection in order to read the document yourself. If the problem is that you don't want someone to access the device while you go to the restroom or to another office, a device-lock password is sufficient (but why do you leave your ereader loaded with secret corporate document around in a spy-infested environment in the first place?!).

First of all, yes I was thinking more about spy situations.
The way I was thinking is that, spies normally don't go some place where you suspect to have a secrecy danger/threat (ie open pubic, on a plane), but they infest in some where you put your guard down, (i.e. your home, hotel room), and they can approch you as your girlfriend, hotel maid, etc...
Sure you probably won't read the documents in front of them, but you might left the reader in sleep mode, sometimes even unintentionally, which they can sneak into the device, which allows them to view a supposely protected documents that is being opened.
If we are assuming the PDF digital lock does it jobs correctly, then sleep wake with no password protection is probaly the only opening, assuming the document carrier do not read those documents infront of other's eyes.
So thats is basically my concern.

[DaleDe]

There can also be a problem when the documents are sent via email or transported in some other way.

Dale

[ghero]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There can also be a problem when the documents are sent via email or transported in some other way.

Dale

True, but if we assume PDF password does its job, then they got nothing, if they can't open it. But if it is likely for them to open, then... I guess there will be alot more to do, like something I originally suggested (or even beyond).

I think its up to the sony, or any other potential makers of this kind of device, to decide how much futher they want to go, to grab the part of the market that wants file secrecy. I am not a security expert, I can only suggest/point to them, that there are markets that demand for info security/privacy, and I guess I have to left it to them to figure out whether they should go after those consumers.

Additional note:
Let me summerize the privacy and secrecy concerns that's been come across my mind:
1. The customer is a private person, and he does not want people with curiosity around him to check his stuff on his device while he is not guarding the device.
2. The customer might lost his device or left it some where (or the device might be stolen), and his documents on the device should stay in private. (His document contents should not be exposed to some stranger, or thief who happens to pickup his lost device.)
3. The customer is a potential target for spy operation, and the device shall provide him the best possible protection so his docs won't be stolen, or sometimes won't be stolen without leaving behind security warnings or traces, or indications that the secrecy of the document is probaly under threat.
(A good way of keep these kind of traces, is keep a record of logins, whenever someone enters the device password, no matter it is successful or not. Keep like, the record of exact time of all of the most recent logins within a week etc)

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by ghero

First of all, yes I was thinking more about spy situations.
The way I was thinking is that, spies normally don't go some place where you suspect to have a secrecy danger/threat (ie open pubic, on a plane), but they infest in some where you put your guard down, (i.e. your home, hotel room), and they can approch you as your girlfriend, hotel maid, etc...
Sure you probably won't read the documents in front of them, but you might left the reader in sleep mode, sometimes even unintentionally, which they can sneak into the device, which allows them to view a supposely protected documents that is being opened.
If we are assuming the PDF digital lock does it jobs correctly, then sleep wake with no password protection is probaly the only opening, assuming the document carrier do not read those documents infront of other's eyes.
So thats is basically my concern.

Why does it have to have sleep mode?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by ghero

I think its up to the sony, or any other potential makers of this kind of device, to decide how much futher they want to go, to grab the part of the market that wants file secrecy.

Sony would have a hard time going for that market after the PlayStation data breach .

[ghero]

Just thinking, some sort of cloud storage support, like drop box app intergration (for file share purposes), will be nice for this kind of device.
(I guess a related feature would be to be able to convienently backup/restore your files/documents to/from a claud drive.)

[ghero]

OK, I just thought another potential use of this kind of device: to be used as a music book for music performing industry/music bans, as well as music lovers.

Advantage of this device:
1. can potentially store endless tunes, so they don't have to carry many different music books for different tunes with them.
2. This is probaly the most important advantage: This kind of device can do "auto flip page" (which I will disscuss more on this soon), so while they can perform music and have their hand busy, this device can auto filp pages for them, and on the traditional music book, they can't, they either have to flip by themselves (which is distractiong), or have a dedicated helper to filp pages for them (waste of manpower).

First of all, I think music books might be stored on the device as pdf. This kind of pdf can be potentially obtained from ways like:
1. provided by the music book publisher,
2. or the user may have it properly scanned from existing paper music books (by camera or scanner).
3. Some software can convert midi/mid file into pdf to be displayed as music book, one such software I know is "Midi Sheet Music".
4. other existing pdf music book bank.

Now I will talk about auto flip page feature. First of all, I think auto filp page feature is nice for even non music book uses. You let user to set how frequent they want to auto flip page. And for auto flip page, display only one page and flip the entire page is probaly not very nice (but a feature could be still essential to have), so I think beyond that, 2 better options should be avaliable:

1. display 2 pages at a time (which means the device is positioned horizontally, one page at left one page at right), and after each set time period, the most earliest page will be flipped. This is probaly nice for reading, but for music pages, I think this is still not the best option, since view 2 pdf pages at a time can make things look small, and music books usually placed infront of a performer from a distance, so for music performing, we need to display bigger looking pages, while support autoflip and grant continous reading, so I also propose a second option, specifically for music performing:

2. Display only one pages at time, but auto flip only half part of the page at a time. So page 1 is displayed, then later, upper part of page 1 will be replaced with upper part of page 2, then lower part of page 1 will be replaced with lower part of page 2, and so on...

Also, another auto flip option useful for musicians, could be let them specify the exact seconds for each page turn: page 1 to 2 (or 1 to 1.5), 30 seconds, page 2 to 3 (or 1.5 to 2 or 2.5 to 3), 40 seconds, etc... and if a possible page turn is not given a set time, then it will go with a default time set.
OR(/and) a given sequence of numbers of seconds, to be used to perform each specific full/half page turns.

So basically thats my thougt so far, and of course, since this idea is kinda new, so I do think marketing effort is required for musicians to be attracted to this kind of feature. (Note helping them to get pdf version of their performing music should be a top priority, and then next will be making them learn how to actually use this device, and it should be user friendly and does not require much learning curve.)

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ghero

So basically thats my thougt so far, and of course, since this idea is kinda new, so I do think marketing effort is required for musicians to be attracted to this kind of feature. (Note helping them to get pdf version of their performing music should be a top priority, and then next will be making them learn how to actually use this device, and it should be user friendly and does not require much learning curve.)

There is already an iPad market for sheet music display, with the advantage that it doesn't need an external light, and can change pages instantly.
There are also page turn foot pedals available.
I would imagine that in most orchestral settings, automatic page turning wouldn't be much use, as each page is not the same duration, given rests.

[ghero]

hmm, did not know that ipad sheet music thing before, but e ink device also have an advantage of helping practice music under sunshine in nature (and you dont even have to worry about wind swiping the pages)

for automatic page turns, I already added another proposal option via edit: set a sequence of number for each specific turn. (plus in here, we are not turing whole page at at a time, only half, so there is kinda of buffering time) And hopefully that helps.

Also, for this kind of device, I also want to see a calander app/functionality. where you can click on a specific date, and it pops up a handwriting area (probaly a note page), and u can hand writing important notices/events or even write your mini diaries there. simiar to iOS, a date with notes on it, should have a dot marked(or sth similar), so it is easy to distinguish. And user can choose to clear note, which will remove the dot like mark.

Also another possible feature would be "(yellow) sticker". For commenting on a page where there is not much place to write. which you can create a sticker of a custom size and write on it. You can move the sticker around on that page, so it does not block you, and you can choose to show/hide stickers at each page.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by ghero

First of all, yes I was thinking more about spy situations.

Fluribus (authoritarian gov't. stooge): I can't access this. My suspicions are aroused!
ghero (intrepid spy): <whistles>
Fluribus: Give me your password!
ghero: Never! Authoritarian fiend! Never!
Fluribus: <tortures intrepid spy until he gets password>

If you must have your secret documents on a device. Your best bet would probably be to hide them using something like steganography or a TrueCrypt hidden volume.

[ghero]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

Fluribus (authoritarian gov't. stooge): I can't access this. My suspicions are aroused!
ghero (intrepid spy): <whistles>
Fluribus: Give me your password!
ghero: Never! Authoritarian fiend! Never!
Fluribus: <tortures intrepid spy until he gets password>

If you must have your secret documents on a device. Your best bet would probably be to hide them using something like steganography or a TrueCrypt hidden volume.

yep, one can go very far with security options, even more things like:
option to take dynamic password (to be generated by an ios/android app on phone) Which to be carried in pockets always, when not holding the device. This phone can be fingerprint sensitive, and can act on fake user accordingly. (A simple model of doing this is to provide a same pre-entered master static password for both slate and phone, which will derive the common checksum for dynamic passoword) And this app can be easily reseted so other people can no longer to use it to generate valid passwords. This app may also be resetted wirelessly, or remotely, in case the device holder is being tortured (or possilbly being tortured). The master password maybe kept secret from the device holders, and only avaliable for higher security officials, so, if he gets beat up, he cant tell the master password also.

Another security option will be like to be able to cleanly wipeout files (which normal simple deletes will left over recoverable files)