I can’t decide if I love this or hate this.
Tripwi.re is a new service that bills itself as a burglar alarm for your email. What it actually does is plant tempting information in your inbox (a fake email containing fake passwords for your online accounts), and then monitor it. If somebody opens the planted email, it sends you a text message letting you know.
photo by flickr user < < graham> >
Of course, if you want them to track the hacker you have to be signed up for a “Plus” level account. But if you go with Basic, at least you’ll know that somebody has gotten into your email.
So is this a great idea or not?
I could plant a fake password email in my own inbox and maintain it as unread — I wouldn’t get a text message if/when it was violated, but really… what good does that text message do? Can you lock down your email so the intruder gets booted? (Hm… can you do that? That would be a cool feature to add to an email account…)
But anyway, you can’t unhack your stuff — I mean, if somebody’s read your fake password email, might they not have also already poked around in your other email? You can’t undo that, so by the time you get the text it’s already too late.
On the other hand, it’s clever. It’s creative. And knowing sooner, rather than later, that you’ve been hacked could help you avoid further damage as a result.
Plus, bonus points because I like the name.
