Getting all worked up over IP tracing

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

Leo,

In some cases, ISP's tend to be a bit sloppy when assigning dynamic customer IP's. I have, on occasion, pinpointed someone's location within 4 or 5 city blocks... simply because the second last octet of their IP was "53" (for example)... and I've known that 53.x IP's serviced no other neighbourhood but.

You can also gain much greater accuracy, by going back through the hops, and looking up the location of whatever that particular user is connected to.

Now let's just say for example, that you've already determined that the user of that IP is a DSL-subscriber (easy thing to determine)... and you've pinpointed the exact location of their C/O... it's often a very safe bet, that the machine you are tracing, is located within 3.7 line-miles of that position.

It still may not put you on that person's doorstep, but it is indeed, a bit too close for comfort. With information as such, you may also be able to determine where that person is most likely to shop, go to school, buy their gas... etc.

Now, I'm not saying that it's always going to be so 'cut and dry' easy... but there are cases when IP tracing can get EXTREMELY close to home.

What else might the tracer know about you, that can help snap together the remainder of the puzzle? What information might your neighbours give up innocently, if the tracer casually walked down your street posing as an old friend?

It's indeed something to think about.

Those serviced by long-range wireless or satellite connections are probably about the safest surfers on the net (as far as IP tracing is concerned).

so tell me how can i stop a website from getting my ip when i log onto the site there must be some kinda scrambler or something ?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

You'd use an anonymization service.
http://ask-leo.com/is_anonymous_web_surfing_possible_if_so_cant_the_bad_guys_use_it_too.html

Leo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGADzNCMEe9B/8oqERAhsoAJsG96JjwsM6Jbp564f75OzLoGTuIACff2Rf
J/uxtEeaPi0WrqraDGpwrhQ=
=Hz3H
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

It's fun or usefull when you track IP addresses, because you can make an idea about the person, country, maybe state, or if it is from an organization or big company. http://www.ipgp.net gives accurate information and map.

how anyone can know the ip address of the other person he is chatting with over the yahoo messenger or on mail id? pls tell me this is highly required information.

Recently my company emails were hacked into and a false and nasty message was sent to most of our clients. I have the IP from the email and want to trace it . I'm virtually certain we know who the offender is . How do i it ?

how long does the IP provider keep information?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

No way to know. It depends on the ISP.

Leo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGiIdpCMEe9B/8oqERAsIzAJ9YdVyLlR3W5B8KernP4HXCYXtw6QCfbEZ6
BXFXjGo7iIpwaq8fFXbjxVA=
=9wXz
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

WHile it is possible to find an approximate location from an IP address in an email header, email originating from AOL accounts only seems to trace back as far as the AOL server.

Is there a way to find an approximate location of the specific computer used to send the mail?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

As stated in this and several articles on this site:

- - if you're an average user: no
- - if you're the ISP that owns the IP address: probably

So normal people typically need to get law enforcement involved and court
orders to trace an IP to a computer.

Leo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGl+mACMEe9B/8oqERAlThAJ9mo2/eya7TsKpJ7GLRhJOEkbnivACeJwm/
VnGQZbLMG43hJBqWbhERvZg=
=AIPo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

To post a comment on "Getting all worked up over IP tracing", please return to that article's main page.