Cloud Computing

Get an Email Alert (with Picture) When Someone Tries to Log into your Computer

April 16, 2013

You have a feeling that someone else used your computer (or at least made an attempt to login) while you were out for a quick coffee break. Maybe that colleague with whom you share the cubicle knows your password or he made a few guesses before finally giving up.

How do you get notified when such an attempt is made to intrude into your computer?

Computer Webcam Alert

Email alert with a webcam picture of the intruder.

A new website (made in Turkey) called MouseLock.co may have a simple solution here. They will send you an email alert as well as a picture of the intruder as soon as someone tries to use your computer.

 

Here’s how Mouse Lock works.

You sign-in with your Google Account (they’ll send the alert to your Gmail address) and then select a secret pin on the screen. Next, put your mouse cursor in a designated area on the Mouse Lock website and leave the machine.

Now when someone moves the mouse, they will also have to enter the original pin. If they fail to do that in the first few seconds, Mouse Lock will send you an email and, if the computer has a webcam, it will use that to also snap a picture of the intruder.

Mouse Lock won’t prevent the intrusion but will at least notify you the minute it happens. And best of all, this a web app and thus requires no installation.

Internally, the site uses jQuery (mouseLeaveEvent) to detect mouse movements while the webcam photographs are captured using the getUserMedia() API currently supported in Chrome and Firefox. The alerts, possibly due to a bug, are triggered even when any of the keys are pressed and that makes it a little less useful since there’s no way to lock the computer after setting up the monitor.