How could I detect if pyinput is being used on a Windows machine via remote desktop protocol?

Question

I'm the owner of the remote machine (host), but I've no control on the client machine.

Perhaps, there are subtle differences, like pyinput using discrete "jumps" on the mouse coordinates, and on the other hand, a real mouse is using an "continuous" movement.

I'm not looking for a comprehensive analysis of keyboard or mouse usage. I prefer to look for something very simple like these jumps, or a system flag.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 19 '23 at 10:11

I guess there is no way to distinguish real mouse move/click vs automatic one (except behavior analysis). But it seems possible to detect RDP remote session using ctypes.windll.user.GetSystemMetrics(...) C function: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/termserv/detecting-the-terminal-services-environment Of course, there are some limitations. And you need to learn ctypes Python built-in module docs or install pywin32 (pip install pywin32) and use Python function win32api.GetSystemMetrics(...):

import win32api
SM_REMOTESESSION = 0x1000
if win32api.GetSystemMetrics(SM_REMOTESESSION):
    print("It's a remote RDP session")
else:
    print("It's a local session")

EDIT1:

Also there are command line tools to monitor all RDP sessions:

How could I detect if pyinput is being used on a Windows machine via remote desktop protocol?

1 Answers1