Kerala - Kochi   

Hard problems and software solutions

K.G. Omanakuttan

Kochi: He doesn’t have the airs of a tech-wizard and can easily pass off as a guy next door. What perhaps gives K.G. Omanakuttan away is his meticulous eye for the mundane, and a rare ability to solve a few ordinary, yet nagging issues. At 30, Mr. Omanakuttan has been able to carve a niche for himself as an inventor and a software developer, the latest of his finds being the Cyber Caffeine — a software that could help law enforcement agencies track down cyber goons.

Coming as he does from small town Kumili in Idukki district where everyone in the family is into farming, it’s been quite a journey for this Master of Computer Applications (MCA) degree holder from Amrita Institute of Computer Technology, Kollam. Mr. Omanakuttan’s first brush with fame came about four years ago when he designed a cell phone-controlled home security system. “Once you have linked every instrument at home to your cell phone by way of sensors, you would be alerted in case of unauthorised intervention. The phone would even let you know if you have forgotten to properly lock your house door,” says Mr. Omanakuttan.

When the Mullaperiyar dam was reported to have developed cracks, Mr. Omanakuttan embarked on his Mission II. The system he designed would sound an alarm five minutes in advance if the dam were to collapse. Sadly, the discoveries got relegated to the margins of memory soon after they made it to the media. Mr. Omanakuttan, however, holds no grudge against the authorities who have turned a blind eye towards his disaster warning system.

The Akbar Raj incident — news of a hardware instructor sending e-mail threats to the then President and the Prime Minister — was what inspired him to come up with a mechanism to trace down the elusive cyber criminals. “Most Internet frauds occur at cyber cafes. Although we have a manual record-keeping mechanism, that isn’t fool proof as fraudsters always have the last laugh. That is when I hit upon the idea of developing a software to keep records,” says Mr. Omanakuttan.

The software, christened Cyber Caffeine, is meant to be installed in all computers at cyber cafes. There would also be a web cam taking photographs of the user. The software would act like a log book, recording the user’s IP (Internet protocol) address, the log-in and log-out times, the IP addresses of websites visited and the like.

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