BANGALORE, INDIA: 'Frustrated teen sends threat email to Air India', 'E-mail threat to Taj Hotel in Mumbai', 'Police nabs threat mail sender to Orissa CM', '26/11 threat mail trail leads to Rajkot cyber café; owner held', 'E-mail threat to PM: Four, including cyber cafe owner, nabbed'. Of late, we saw many such stories making it to the headlines.

Also Read: Email security threats impacting businesses worldwide

These show as to what extend cybercrime has shot up in recent times. Amongst these, have a second look at the last two headlines, where it says that cyber cafe owners were arrested, just for the reason that the said threat mail was sent from one of the systems in their netcafe..

Out of the two, though one has been acquitted of the crime, the other is still behind the bars.

When a fake threat message is brought to the notice of cyber police, in normal conditions the police tries to track the mail back to the IP address from which it has been sent.

However, what if the same IP is used by more than one person, like in a netcafe? No matter however small it is, for every system there is a chance of multiple usage.

So, what next? Get hold of the netcafe owner and employees, who might be in no way associated with the crime? Or else trace the user with the help of log books in the cafe?

However, what if the ID given  turns out to be fake or what if the time at which the said threat mail was sent was programmed such that it wasn't sent when the actual culprit logged in, but when someone else was using it, who in turn was totally unaware of the activity?

Can we today rely on IP address and mere surface level details to trace a culprit of threat mails, especially when cybercrimes are touching newer heights?

"No," says Omanakuttan K G, a senior programmer in a multi-national software company in Kerala. “Today there are several software with which spam messages can be sent. We can even personalise timing of a mail to be sent. Such factors makes it even more difficult to track an end  user with just an IP address, especially in an environment where one computer is used by several people."

This is what led a team of three, Omanakuttan K G, Gireesh R and Jayakrishnan (adviser) to come up with the idea of 'Netcaffeen', a software-based log book for a computer.

"With Netcaffeen we can collect complete information of a person who use a computer. For example, in a netcafe, when this software is installed in a system, the system gets locked. In order to log in, the system asks for details such as name, addresses and at the same time also captures an image of the concerned person with a web-camera,” notes Omanakuttan.

All these informations are then stored in a decrypted form. “When the user logs out out, the same decrypted data is saved in the form of a tech files in a central server,” he added.

Netcaffeen is capable of storing various kinds of activities, such as keystroke movement, history of websites visited, e-mails sent, content of e-mails, software used and details of external hardware or software that were temporarily installed and removed etc.

Netcaffeen has two components:
1. Hardware: Webcam to capture user image.

2. Software: Multi-level encrypted program, Caffeen server and Caffeen client, to collect details of a user.

Caffeen server is the master brain of Netcaffeen. The server has got 1600kb storage capacity.

Caffeen server controls client computer through Caffeen client. Some activities of client computer is automated and there is also an option of external intervention.

The other software components also include:
Encryption manager: It collects details of client computer, encrypt and save it in the server.

Basic data collection center: This is where data of a user is stored.

Protection manager: This component co-ordinate personal details with encrypted activities.

Decryption manager: This software is used to recover data from server whenever required.

There are two types of Netcaffeen - one for single-users and the other for multi-users.

How it works:
In a situation where the Netcaffeen software is installed, when a user approaches administration, the administration asks for details. Once the details are entered in the user-signing-page by the administration, the administration takes a photo of the user with a web camera connected to the administration system. Administration then activates a particular computer in the network for the user.

Once the user stops the administration will logout the system. Netcaffeen will activate encryption manager and collect details, encrypt them into a file and save it in the server. After all these processes the system gets locked awaiting another user.

Some may see this as an intrusion into a person's privacy.

"This is not an interference into the privacy. I agree that there is a possibility of someone accessing/hacking data from the system. However, this is not possible because we don't use these data in a file format, but in decrypted format in the data base. Even the images that are captured are converted into texts and can be accessed only by a decrypted code," avers Omanakuttan.

Moreover, when national infrastructure and people's security are at stake a few people's 'so called privacy' can be put to stake, under secured manner.

The team behind Netcaffeen has submitted a request for patent in New Delhi. The product has been launched over a year back; however, it hasn't received the its due importance yet. Maybe officials are waiting for another threat email to rise them from their slumber.