Comments for How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

Comment from Mark J on 2011-10-24

2011-10-24T07:48:57Z

@Luis
The only thing that message says is that someone with an HTC phone using the Sprint Network sent you the message. That's probably all you ever would be able to find out.

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A comment on: How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

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Comment from Luis on 2011-10-23

2011-10-24T02:51:16Z

Someone wrote me an usual email and I think its my ex sending it from a fake email address. Here is the trick at the end it reads "Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint."

He send it from a hotmail to my aol account. Can there be something in email header info, I don't know.

Is there any way that I can find out the telephone number its being send from?

Thanks

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Comment from Kelly on 2011-05-18

2011-05-18T16:22:31Z

My ex-wife is not allowed to email my work (by court order), so now her current husband sends harrassing emails on a daily basis. Is there a way to deteremine if she was involved in the email prior to it being sent? They both have yahoo accounts.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

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Comment from Ryan on 2011-05-16

2011-05-16T16:58:36Z

Love your stuff Leo!

I understand that I can't track an email and ID the individual nor the address-----But can I least tell what state (ex: Ohio) the email originated from? Even if they are using an anonomous email service...can I at least figure out they state they are in? or no? Thank you

Not reliably, no. Especially if they're using an anonymizer.

17-May-2011

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Comment from Grant on 2010-11-06

2010-11-06T17:59:20Z

I have been getting emails of harrasment for mens enhancement drugs (I'm 14 years old) by what I think are friends (or people I know) at school. I email a bunch of people at school, so it wouldn't be hard to find out my email if you went to my school. I recently broke up kinda harshly so it could be my ex sending them, or one of her friends. Could I go to the authorities with this? I just really want to bust whoever is doing this.

Sounds more like typical spam. If it is as you describe it's possible that the authorities would be an appropriate place to go, I just don't know how much time and effort they'd be able to put into it. In your shoes I'd probably delete it and ignore it.

07-Nov-2010

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Comment from cindy rumlow on 2010-06-16

2010-06-17T00:25:10Z

I was getting harassing texts and was lead to believe nothing could be done. Then, I spoke with my sister who knew of an incident at her daughter's school involving harassing texts. The principal told the parent to involve authorities. This is what I found online:
It's illegal to annoy
A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language.

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both

I'm going to our local authorities in the morning! You bet I'll do what I can to stop the person (I know who is sending them)from harassing me!

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Comment from Ralph S on 2010-06-13

2010-06-13T07:23:06Z

My life is currently being disrupted (over the last 2 or 3 months) by someone sending email and text through an anonymous re-mailer that is coming out of italy I think (mixmaster.it is the domain) Is there any way at all to get the feds or someone else involved? probably not. long story short I have lost 1 friend and another is on the verge because of this, The person is using my name to send these messages. It looks like from what I see above that the answer is no, I am looking for even a glimmer of hope.
The actual emails that I have gotten trace back to a couple of free wi-fi locations according to the tools I could find on the internet, and the computer name seems to change in every one. The Text messages that hit my phone show as coming from a 5 digit number when I look at the history in my bill but I have no idea what to do with that. I see this thread is a couple of years old. Are there any new developments that might help in this situation? Thanks if you can answer if not I won't take it personally :)

The only approach remains contacting the authorities.

13-Jun-2010

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A comment on: How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

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Comment from Justin on 2008-12-05

2008-12-05T18:48:31Z

So if someone lets say calls you dirty names or spreads your business around on facebook or myspace and they are not threatnign you but just causing you to look bad to others or make profiles of you but nothing bad then they can not be tracked?

I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it they can be tracked - maybe - only if they've done something illegal.

- Leo
06-Dec-2008

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Comment from Jake Smith on 2008-03-28

2008-03-29T05:22:55Z

A simple solution is to change email address. Delete the old one, get a new one which does not include your name, and let only those from whom you wish to correspond know the new address. Also, use an address which has more than alphabet characters, such as knot232head45@isp.com

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A comment on: How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

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Comment from Mike Williams on 2008-03-28

2008-03-29T03:36:32Z

All of Leo's comments are true enough, when it comes to a typical email sent by a typical person. But it gets worse if the person has some expertise. There are all sorts of ways to edit the headers of the emails that you send so they appear to come from a totally different IP address, different source email address, etc. So even if the recipient could trace the IP address, he can't be sure that what he reads in the header is true in the first place. Also, even for people without the expertise to do this kind of misdirection on their own, there are plenty of web-based forwarding services that will hide your identity for you, and many of them don't keep any records so police involvement will be useless. So it really is a long shot to hope to trace emails back to the source.

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A comment on: How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

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Comment from Margaret Louk on 2008-03-28

2008-03-29T01:31:34Z

Hi: I would suggest that families that wish to get involved in social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace get a separate email address just for that purpose. That way if the email becomes offensive then close it and set up another. Also complain to the sites managers. We had a problem with MySpace when somebody set up an account in our name with false info. While I do not like the site, a number of relatives are on it so I set up a separate email account and then set up an account with no picture. I still get weird emails but it is manageable. Parents need to let their kids know that what they put out there can come back to them later.

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A comment on: How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

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Comment from Dan Ullman on 2008-03-27

2008-03-27T19:29:56Z

It has been years since I used Facebook but at one time you could not send a message to the user without being signed in yourself. If that is still the case sending a message to the folks who ride herd on the Acceptable Use Policy should result in some action.

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A comment on: How do I find out who's sending harassing email?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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