ENCRYPTING TOUCH-SENSITIVE DISPLAY

• US 20110025610A1
• Filed: 07/30/2009
• Published: 02/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NCR Corporation
• Original Assignee: NCR Corporation
• Inventors: Sinclair, Colin A., Whytock, Alexander W., Sleeman, David J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,456,429 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/83 input devices, e.g. keyboards, mice or controllers thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus

Abstract

A hardware encryption device comprises: a touch panel controller; and a cryptographic engine in communication with the touch panel controller. The touch panel controller receives co-ordinates from the cryptographic engine corresponding to an area on a touch panel selected by a user. The cryptographic engine is operable to discriminate between a selection in a secure area on a screen and a selection in a non-secure area on a screen, and to action the selection differently depending on whether the selection is in a secure area or a non-secure area.

Claims

1. A method of controlling an encrypting touch-sensitive display, the method comprising:

creating a pad zone on a screen to be rendered on the touch-sensitive display;

creating touch areas within the pad zone, each touch area having a value;

assigning an operating mode to the touch areas within the pad zone, where the operating mode is either;

(i) secure, for which the value associated with each touch area is not returned to an application on selection of that touch area;

or (ii) open, for which the value associated with each touch area is returned to an application on selection of that touch area;

providing an option to create a mouse area outside a pad zone on a screen to be rendered on the touch-sensitive display, but only where the operating mode of the touch areas within the pad zone is the open mode; and

enabling a touch selection within the mouse area to be transferred to an operating system input queue.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of creating a pad zone on a screen to be rendered on the touch-sensitive display is implemented by conveying co-ordinates of the pad zone from an application to an engine located within a hardware encryption device.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of creating a pad zone on a screen may be implemented on each occasion that a customer input via a keypad or keyboard is required.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of creating a pad zone on a screen and creating touch areas within the pad zone may be implemented simultaneously using a CEN XFS format command.

5. An encrypting touch-sensitive display system comprising:

a display for rendering a screen created by an application;

a transparent, touch-sensitive panel in registration with the display and mounted thereto;

a touch-sensitive panel controller in communication with the touch-sensitive panel and operable to receive co-ordinates therefrom, the received co-ordinates corresponding to an area of the touch-sensitive panel touched by a customer;

a cryptographic engine in communication with the touch-sensitive panel controller and operable to discriminate between selection of a touch area within a pad zone in open mode and in secure mode; and

a tamper-responsive mechanism sealingly enclosing the display, touch-sensitive panel, touch-sensitive panel controller, and cryptographic engine, to (i) detect disassembly or tampering of the coupled components, and (ii) reset the cryptographic engine in response thereto.

6. An encrypting touch-sensitive display system according to claim 5, further comprising a driver suite for requesting the hardware encryption device to perform functions and route responses to a requesting application.

7. An encrypting touch-sensitive display system according to claim 6, further comprising a keypad service provider for receiving standard commands and translating these commands for the driver suite to implement.

8. An encrypting touch-sensitive display control system according to claim 7, wherein the system further comprises a touch panel proxy for routing mouse click events from either the hardware encryption device or the driver suite to an operating system input queue.

9. A system according to claim 5, wherein the tamper-responsive mechanism includes a micro-switch to detect disassembly of the system and a membrane to detect penetration of a component within the system.

10. A hardware encryption device comprising:

a touch panel controller; and

a cryptographic engine in communication with the touch panel controller to receive co-ordinates therefrom corresponding to an area on a touch panel selected by a user;

wherein the cryptographic engine is operable to discriminate between a selection in a secure area and a selection in a non-secure area, and to action the selection differently depending on whether the selection is in a secure area or a non-secure area.

11. A hardware encryption device according to claim 10, wherein the cryptographic engine includes a secure memory.

12. A hardware encryption device according to claim 11, wherein the secure memory stores configuration information relating to locations of any secure areas and any non-secure areas, and any selectable locations within those areas.

13. A hardware encryption device according to claim 10, wherein the cryptographic engine allows a new encryption key to be entered by a user selecting hexadecimal values presented on a screen in a secure area.

14. A hardware encryption device according to claim 10, wherein the cryptographic engine allows a customer PIN to be entered by a customer selecting numerals presented on a screen in a secure area.