Problem:
You need to keep an eye on your home or office, but you can't
be everywhere at once.
Solution: Turn your desktop system into a wired
surveillance station. |
You leave your office
unattended. When you return, everything looks the same. Your chair is
still up against your keyboard tray. Your coffee mug is still on the
desk by the phone. Even your computer looks the same. That confidential
letter you were writing is still up on the screen, just as you left it.
But none of this means your
office was empty during your absence. It takes only a minute or two for
someone—anyone—to enter your office and read that confidential
letter, and you'd be none the wiser.
It doesn't have to be this
way. With a little cash, patience, and creativity you can turn your
computer workstation into a top-notch surveillance operation. When you
do, you'll never again wonder what you're missing.
A word of caution:
Unauthorized recordings of any kind can cause a world of legal trouble.
Before you experiment with these procedures for anything but personal
amusement in the privacy of your own home, thoroughly research the law
and your company HR policies.
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1.
Monitor While You're Away
by Jason Compton
June 2000
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Keep tabs on your PC when you're away from your
desk.
Your PC can record
everything it does while you are away from your desk. From basic
keystroke monitors to full-fledged system logs, you can make sure
nothing escapes your attention. Dozens of such products exist. Here are
two top picks.
StealthLogger Pro Bot ($45;
slogger.hypermart.net) logs keyboard activity. It then saves the log to
a file on a local or networked drive that you choose. You can even have
StealthLogger e-mail you the file.
Desktop Detective ($15;
www.bitlogic.co.uk) does StealthLogger one better. It keeps a log of
every key pressed—and in which application. It can even be set to take
screen shots every one to 20 minutes to provide a visual record of what
an unauthorized user was doing on your PC.
The Detective runs in the
background, with no hint of its presence in the system tray or in the
Close Program manager. To deactivate or change its settings, type in a
security password in any open application, or even freely on the
desktop.
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2.
Counterspy Remotely
by Jason Compton
June 2000
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Just because you're out of the office doesn't mean
you can't keep an eye on your PC.
Do you worry about your home
computer while you're at work, or vice versa? Normally, a virtual
desktop program such as VNC manages collaborative tasks, like jointly
editing an important document. But virtual desktop programs are also
ideal for keeping a close eye on anyone else who might be using your
computer.
VNC (free; www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/),
from AT&T's Cambridge labs, is an open source, virtual desktop
server you can install on any computer running Windows 95/98/NT/2000,
Mac OS, Unix, or Linux. The complementary viewer lets you watch the
server's desktop from any networked computer.
VNC is invisible to the
unsuspecting spy. If you happen to catch an intruder and want to let him
know you've detected the breach, you can remotely assume control of the
mouse and keyboard.
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3.
Watch Your Back
by Jason Compton
June 2000
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Inexpensive hidden cameras make it easy to protect
your office.
The X10 XRay Vision wireless
camera ($130; www.x10.com) fits inside a coffee mug and has enough power
to transmit images to a receiver base 100 feet away. The receiver can
send the image to a television, VCR, or video monitor. But to be truly
connected to your surveillance, use the included USB PC/video link to
transmit the images to your PC. From there, the XRay Vision software
stores the images locally, e-mails them to you, or compiles the images
into a Web page.
If you don't trust e-mail
and can't risk having your secret Web site exposed, use the XRay Vision
Remote software to browse your security camera logs from any computer
connected to the Internet.
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4.
The Walls Have Ears
by Jason Compton
June 2000
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Turn your computer into a wiretap and never miss a
beat.
With a good microphone and
software, you can turn a workstation into a "wire."
For basic surveillance,
almost any microphone will do, although you may want to invest in
something fancier than a speech recognition headset. Omnidirectional
microphones are best for recording all the action in a room.
Windows comes with Sound
Recorder, a basic audio recording tool. Sound Recorder can record 60
seconds of audio, but this is hardly enough for surveillance. Luckily,
almost every sound card comes with software that allows for hours of
recorded sound; these applications are typically simple to install and
use.
You must save the recordings
to a hard drive, though, so you can't monitor the proceedings while
you're out of the room. Instead of having to come back to your PC to
retrieve the evidence, use Nullsoft's Shoutcast (free, or $299
commercial; www.shoutcast .com) to send the recording across the
Internet as an MP3 audio stream. You can listen in from any networked
computer with the company's free Winamp audio player. The best part?
Shoutcast will save your broadcast as a compressed MP3 file. Speech
compresses better than music, so with a large, empty hard drive you
could record a day or more of conversation.
5.
Integrate the Pieces
by Jason Compton
June 2000
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Build a complete security system for your home or
office.
Once you've mastered these
surveillance tools, apply what you've learned to make them work
together.
For example, you can use VNC
to start and stop your camera remotely, or aim a video camera at a
monitor that's watching another computer through VNC. You can record it
all onto a VCR when you aren't around. With multiple security schemes in
place, you can compare your keystroke log with the camera snapshots of
the people who sat down at your desk or compare audio recordings with
images you record to match voices to faces.
Of course, if security is a
big concern, basic systems like the one we've described may not be
enough. Physical security companies like ADT can keep an eye on the
doors, and electronic surveillance companies like Counterpane
can keep tabs on the PCs.
Jason Comptonis a
freelance business writer.
Admiring from Afar
by Jason Compton
June 2000
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Need deck
If your home is your castle, what do you do
when you have to leave the drawbridge in the hands of your children?
Wayne Flowers, a networking specialist near
Baltimore, likes to keep his home safe, but he has to leave for work before
his children go to school. To keep an eye on the alarm system—and remind his
kids to turn it on when they leave for school—he has an X10 XRay Vision
camera linked to his home security setup and pointed at the alarm control
panel.
Using X10's ActiveHome integration software,
his PC logs the time that the alarm system is armed, and the camera takes a
snapshot of the person at the control panel.
"That way, when my kids go to school, I
can make certain that they've armed the system," Flowers says. "I
get an e-mail message at work with the time that they armed the system and a
snapshot."
It beats hiring a security guard.
