Can GMail be traced?

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Leo, you forget that Gmail also offers Pop3 access to email. I have it setup to use from OE on my computer. As a test I sent a test message from my Gmail address to my backup ATT address via my Adelphia ISP. The message arrived correctly identifying my Adelphia IP address.

Excellent point, Jim. Thank you!

i keep getting these wierd mails. but i wanna solve my probs myself. but its a gmail account. i wanna trace the mails. cn i do it? if i cn, how?

To anonymous: Probably not, as the article tells you. The most you can do is see if an IP address is present in the headers of the message (how to get to that depends on your e-mail client), but even if there is one, matching it to a person is usually impossible for "mere mortals".

if you add an anonymous comment on a live journal or other online comment page, can the people there trace the comment to you or your computer?

Somebody has broken into my account and changed my password. I THINK I know who the person is, and the problem is that this person actually knew my old password. I have already changed it again, so there's no way he is going to find out again, he's not a hacker, he just knew my password because I was silly enough to leave it written next to my computer. In any case, can I know for sure who did this? Can I trace the IP address from where the change of password was made?

I'm very curious on this last comment posted by Nona because it happened to me - "Somebody has broken into my account and changed my password. I THINK I know who the person is, and the problem is that this person actually knew my old password. I have already changed it again, so there's no way he is going to find out again, he's not a hacker, he just knew my password because I was silly enough to leave it written next to my computer. In any case, can I know for sure who did this? Can I trace the IP address from where the change of password was made?"

Would love to know the answer to this one.
Thanks

One would only think that you would have to have server side access to see the log files at the time of password change. Like stated above you would have to get this information either a: by contacting the server admin and hope for a response......or b:get the law involved like he said if its even worth their time. On the other hand... if you do have there IP addy and you know its theirs... you can try and run a trace here http://www.dnsstuff.com/ and see what you come up with.

OK- just to clarify. If there are some seriously abusive emails coming in from a Gmail account, and without involving the police, and assuming I know the IP address of the person we suspect of sending, is there any way we can verify this?

Also Leo- if the emails were sent from shared work computers is there any record of the emails kept on them? With access to the computer could we determine if the emails originated from them? Sorry not exactly on topic but related to the above question. Thanks...

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