Hide in plain sight is an old axiom, and one that [Kipkay] took to heart. His sneaky keyboard hack takes the little-used numeric keyboard and converts it to a handy (and secret) hiding hole for small objects you want to keep away from prying eyes.
You might have to adapt the hack to your specific model, but [Kipkay] cuts out the membrane keyboard, secures the numeric keypad keys with hot glue, and then cuts it out with a Dremel. Some cardboard makes the compartment and once the fake keypad is in place, no one is the wiser.
As you can see in the clip after the break, the compartment isn’t very big. You aren’t going to hide your phone inside, but it is just the right size for some emergency cash, a credit card, or maybe an SD card or two.
Hiding in plain sight isn’t a new idea for a hack. We’ve covered secret LCD messages, secret attic doors , and a (not entirely successful) hiding hole in a book. Not to mention a host of ways to hide data in plain sight via steganography.
Easy to find out however. Since the keypad doesn’t work, it will be immediately evident that its something sneaky, and the person might try to pull up on a key because he thinks its a obstruction like spilled coca cola and whatever, and thus pull to clear a obstruction, thus the “hiding stash” will unhide itself.
A hidden bottom in a drawer is much better.
I don’t have much to hide anyway. But it did have me thinking about mounting an old cell phone running some touch pad software in that space. Then the keypad would just go in the dust bin.
How about hiding it in the bottom of the keyboard itself? Nobody said you have to get at it in 12 seconds or less, so a screwdriver would be fine.
I’m a bigger fan of the cigar tube hidden in the top of an interior door. Much less likely to be carried away by any TLA. http://makezine.com/projects/make-34/doortop-stash/
Only good if your computing practices don’t involve the use of numbers. I’d go mad if my numeric keypad didn’t work.
That row of totally useless function buttons in the silver part above the actual keyboard, on the other hand…no one ever expect those to actually function.
I use the numeric keypad all the time, various editors and things for games I mod have specific functionality actuated by pressing numeric keypad keys.
Yes indeed, the keypad is a must. But apple and many laptop-only users might not get that though.
Now if only the numpad worked, I use mine every day.
“little used”
Dear balls!
That rather subjective choice of words literally affects my rather subjective opinion of the hack, in a most unfavorable way.
Perhaps it was a sarcastic jest, the author fully aware that a community of technologically proficient “hackers” is bound to use the numeric keypad more often than the human population at large.
My numpad is way too useful to be replaced with a “hidey-hole”.
It is true that most people barely touch their tenkey, and this hack is bound to appeal to some of them.
For the safekeeping of truly valuable information, well, Mr. Krabs uses a safe.
Worst! Hack! Evuh!
After reading that sentence I decided it either had to be sarcastic, or the author doesn’t use computers for much other than games and casual internet browsing.
Seriously though, I can’t imagine there’s many people who actually need to type more than a couple digits a day that would ever consider sacrificing their number pad.
Even as a gamer I used the ten-key pretty often, as many games that I was using would use them as auxiliary control input.
The initial comment about “little used” bothered me right off the bat as well, since it’s one of my pet peeves when looking for a good keyboard, since so many seem to be dropping the ten-key, or mashing it into other keys and making it less touch typing friendly.
Let me get this straight: He takes off the back cover which has about a quarter of a square meter of unused space underneath and then he disables the “little used” numeric keypoard to make space for two bills and a business card? Indeed, a spectacularly successful hack that is.
This guy tries too hard to be Afroman.
Empty bays in the desktop case. HP’s have a swinging door to pop in one of their porta-drives. Also that “drink holder” CD ROM stash on top of older cases.
That one is obvious and overused though.
That’s like’ hiding’ money in the freezer.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to unscrew the case and put it in there? Then everything works, and nobody but you will ever know it’s there unless someone unscrews everything in the computer?
i forget the name of the mouse i had, i think it was i-rocks or something, it was a laser ‘gaming’ mouse from newegg and the only part that failed me was the cable. once i replaced that, it was a dependable several button mouse. it had a pretty ample stash spot inside it, without affecting functionality. so if your mouse is too light, check out the internals & maybe weigh it down inside. (put whatever you’re stashing in a plastic bag or something in case it is conductive, or as padding so it doesn’t rattle.)
I haven’t watched the video yet but why is he hiding a $1,000,000 note? Is he from Zimbabwe?
I never liked KipKay.
That’s because you realize his instructions will leave you with nothing but broken junk in the end.
All issues of this making sense from a mechanical standpoint aside, let’s look at the economics. You’ve got a million-dollar bill (or ten 100,000 bills, which may actually exist). At a measly 3% simple annual payout from a stock dividend fund, that stashed money is not paying you the $30,000 a year you’d otherwise earn.
If I recall correctly there was an actually insanely large bill made in the US but it was only for the federal reserve internal use.
Is this hiding in plain sight? Seems more like hiding in a keyboard if you ask me.
Ah, Kipkay, the idiot’s James Bond. I think I’m banned from his Youtube for pointing out how several of his magnums opus don’t coincide with the known laws of science. He expects people to pay for plans for some of the nonsense he does. When’s the HaD on the perpetual motion machine?
HaD did at least 5 or 6 articles on perpetual motion devices I think.
I have never rated this guy, he is a straight up clown with no real clue. Ever since his early outing, connecting a battery straight to a laser diode without any form of voltage regulation, I have rolled my eyes whenever I saw his name.
you can see the white paper peeking out even in the youtube still. next up, stash stuff in your car by removing gas tank and attaching a Rubbermaid container with hot glue
“Little used”?? A floppy drive is “little used”. Why would anyone sacrifice a perfectly good keyboard like this? This is nothing but a lazy, ghetto-tier boredom ‘hack’ that couldn’t possibly interest anyone but bored high school stoners trying to hide weed and report cards from their parents.
It would be entirely different story, though, if this was done in a way that preserved the keypad. I’ve never called out a story before, but for this to have it’s own story is just sad.
wow amazing ;)
Anyone else notice he actually disabled that higher row of keys ( the ‘=’, (, ), and Bkspc) but didn’t ‘disable’ them like the 10 keys?
No, because I didn’t watch the video, mainly because at the end of it I’d know how to break something useful in order to hide money at home, thus making the money useless