Simple hack keeps prying eyes off your LCD monitor

Have a nosey roommate? Stuck doing work on cramped public transportation? Instructables member and fellow geek Dimovi offers an easy seven-step project that's sure to keep prying eyes off your computer display. The instructions are fully accessible to non-paying members and all you need is an ordinary LCD monitor -- CRTs won't work. The author suggests using an older display so you aren't hacking up your new 30-inch UltraSharp, but virtually any LCD should work.

Dimovi notes that most LCD monitors have two films: one that's polarized to filter out unwanted light and another for anti-glare purposes. To get rolling, you'll have to dissect your monitor and carefully salvage the polarized layer. You can scrap the anti-glare film but you still need the monitor in working order and you need a clean chunk of polarized film. After you reassemble the display, it will only show a blanket of glaring white light -- at least to the naked eye, anyway.

Herein lies the beauty of Dimovi's creation: you use the polarized layer to create glasses that let you see the screen. You just have to find a pair of spectacles (he used a set of 3D glasses from a movie theater) and outfit them with custom lenses cut out of the polarized film. He offers a few tips on performing this process and if you ask us, it sounds like the trickiest part. It's noted that regular polarized sunglasses could blow your cover, but few people wear them indoors and they'd have to be looking at the screen on a 45-degree angle to see anything anyway, according to Dimovi.