Use Glitter Nail Polish to Tamper Proof Your PC

According to a recent news story published by PC World, security researchers have pointed out how anyone can use a simple glitter nail polish to find out if their computer has been tampered with. This concept is nothing new and people have been using invisible or unimportant looking objects for years to find out if someone has been messing with their stuff behind their back. I remember in one of the Agatha Christie’s novels a woman tied one of her fine blonde hair strands to her suitcase; on her return the hair strand was missing – meaning someone opened her suitcase while she was away from her hotel room.

The same low-tech technique can be used today to find out if someone has been using your computer while you were out and about. Actually this could prove to be very useful especially when you are traveling abroad. If you can find out that someone tried to connect to your notebook computer and possibly steal some of the financial information or login credentials, then you can immediately change your passwords to put yourself on the safer side.

Glitter Nail Polish to Protect PC Tampering

Instead of the fine hair strand of Agatha Christie’s novel, today you can use some of the glitter nail polish to protect your computer. Just cover any of the screws that can be used to open your laptop and take out the hard disk with a coat of glitter nail polish. Similarly, put stickers over all the ports that can be used to transfer data (like USB ports) and then use glitter nail polish across the sticker in such a way that a portion of the glitter covers both the sticker a little bit of your computer. After this take a picture of all these glitter nail polish spots using your smartphone that you keep with you all the time.

Glitter Nail Polish to Protect PC Tampering

Glitter nail polish patterns are very difficult to replicate. So even if someone removes the sticker, or unscrews one of the screws to take out the hard disk drive, and then re-applies the glitter polish, they won’t be able to duplicate the original glitter pattern. You can take a picture of your computer anytime and compare it with the original glitter pattern to see if they are identical or different and find out if someone has tampered with your computer behind your back.

Conclusion: You can use any type of glitter nail polish to protect your computer from being tampered by strangers. Although it is very simple technique to use the glitter nail polish to find out about possible tampering with your computer, it is very straightforward, easy and quick to use method.

One comment

  1. Hello,

    Thanks for posting this article.

    There are a few typos in it—let me know if you want me to point them out to you.

    Is there any chance that I might be able to use any of these images in my own notes that I’m planning on publishing at least in part? Can’t see any licensing terms… perhaps you could licence them under a Creative Commons licence?

    By the way, I’ve developed another similar way of securing computer equipment. In one of the configurations, a piece of equipment is placed in a transparent plastic pouch, filled with some material fulfilling certain properties (which could include rice, shredded DVDs, fake diamonds). Then before and after photographs are taken of the pouch. Let me know if you want me to forward the complete details.

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