METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MODIFYING A COLOR OF AN ELECTRONIC HOUSING
A method and apparatus for modifying a color of an electronics housing ( 104 ) based on the device security, authentication, and/or authorization is provided herein. During operation a device ( 100 ) will repeatedly gather a current security status and then modify a color or pattern of the housing based on the security status. Because the color of an electronics device indicates the current security, authentication, and/or authorization level, a user of the device can easily determine their security, authentication, and/or authorization level.
1 . A method for modifying an electronics housing, the method comprising the steps of:
determining a current security status;
modifying a color or pattern of the housing based on the security status.
2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the security status comprises an authentication level of a user.
3 . The method of claim 2 wherein the authentication level comprises a degree to which a computer system and/or application trusts a user's authentication.
4 . The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of:
authenticating the user.
5 . The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:
updating the security status;
modifying the color or pattern of the housing based on the updated security status.
6 . A method comprising the steps of:
determining a security confidence level of a user;
modifying a color or pattern of the housing based on the security confidence level of the user.
7 . The method of claim 6 wherein the step of determining the confidence level comprises the step of monitoring a user's biometrics to determine the confidence level.
8 . The method of claim 6 wherein the step of determining the confidence level comprises the step of monitoring the user's behavior and inferring a confidence level of the user based on the user's behavior.
9 . The method of claim 6 further comprising the steps of:
iteratively updating the confidence level of the user;
modifying the color or pattern of the housing based on the updated confidence level of the user.
10 . The method of claim 6 wherein the color or pattern of the housing is additionally based on the user's preferred color scheme.
11 . The method of claim 6 wherein the color of the housing is a first color when there is a high confidence level and the color of the housing is a second color when there is a low confidence level.
12 . The method of claim 11 wherein the first color is a color of the user's preferred choice.
13 . The method of claim 11 wherein the first color and the second color is a color of the user's preferred choice.
14 . The method of claim 11 wherein a range of confidence levels between high and low are mapped to a color set between the first color and the second color.
15 . The method of claim 6 wherein the confidence level comprises a degree to which an authenticator trusts authentication results.
16 . The method of claim 6 wherein the pattern of the housing is a first pattern when there is a high confidence level and the pattern of the housing is a second pattern when there is a low confidence level.
17 . The method of claim 11 wherein the first pattern is a pattern of the user's preferred choice.
18 . The method of claim 11 wherein the first pattern and the second pattern is a pattern of the user's preferred choice.
19 . The method of claim 11 wherein a range of confidence levels between high and low are mapped to a pattern set between the first pattern and the second pattern.
20 . An apparatus comprising:
an electronics housing; and
logic circuitry determining a current security status and modifying a color or pattern of the housing based on the security status.