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Summary: Finding out who owns a Hotmail account is nearly impossible.
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I keep getting "strange" emails from someone using a Hotmail account. How do I find out who they really are? |
Hotmail is one of the most used, and abused, mail systems on the planet. One of the reasons that's so is that it's nearly impossible to tell who really owns a Hotmail account.
There are situations where I believe it's possible to find the owner of a Hotmail account, but it's difficult, and you won't like what it takes.
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First, let's look at why it's so hard to determine the owner of a Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail ... or any free email account for that matter.
Sign up for one, and as you're doing so, lie. Lie about everything. I mean make up every last bit of information that Hotmail asks you for when you create an account. Make sure it's all completely bogus. When you're done, you'll have a working Hotmail account that has no information that would relate to you in any way. None.
So if someone creates a Hotmail account this way, there's no way to tell who they really are from the account information, because like you just did, they could have just made it all up.
There's one, small, thin thread of information that might give a clue, however: The IP address from which the account was created. And it may not help at all. Why? An IP address does not specify a name or a location, only a computer. The IP address could change, it could be a router or proxy server for thousands of users, or the computer could be a public computer, such as those at a library. And, of course, you'd need the folks out at Hotmail to tell you what IP address had been used.
The upshot is that an IP address is not a way for normal folk like you and me to identify anyone. And as such an IP address is useless to you and me to identify a Hotmail account owner.
If, and it's a big if, an IP address could be traced to a specific user or location, it requires the cooperation of the ISPs and perhaps others involved. Due to privacy laws, ISPs will not divulge this information to anyone without a good reason. And "a good reason" usually means that a) the account was used for something illegal, b) you involve law enforcement, and c) they then turn around and get a court order to have the ISP, or other entities, release the information - if the information is even available.
Remember also that many spammers and viruses masquerade as email coming from Hotmail accounts. Even if you could track down the owner of the account, they might not even have been involved.
The practical answer is: no, you cannot tell who owns a Hotmail account.
So what do you do?
If you're receiving harassing, threatening or otherwise potentially illegal email, then by all means, involve the appropriate authorities.
Otherwise, the delete key is your friend. My approach would be to delete the mail immediately and ignore it completely. If your email program supports it, I'd even create a rule to automatically delete the mail from that account as it arrives, or blacklist it on my spam filter.
Related:
Are free email services worth it? Free email services and accounts are convenient and ubiquitous. But free email services aren't the right place to keep your important information.
What can people tell from my IP address? People can tell very little from your IP address. They cannot, for example, tell who or where you are. How much they can tell varies a great deal.
Someone's sending from my email address! How do I stop them?! Email spoofing is rampant. Spammers often send email that looks like it came from you. And there's little you can do about it.
Article C2404 - August 17, 2005
hi, i am the member of a family site, to which we all have our own individual pages. recently i got a pendin friends request and a name i recognised i therefore accepted only to find that the profile was completely made up but contained a few pics of a real friend of mine. the parson who created the fake profile had incorrect and nasty information on there about my friend and had altered the pics of her, they had also joined her to a group of transvestites that dont exist. this is an arguement that has spilled over from another site in which i have contact with my friend. hope this is makin sense so far, anyway, as this is a family site and the pics and information were inappropriate i blocked and deleted the profile. reported it to the site in question and also informed my friend what had happened. i have the email address that was used to create the fake profile but cant seem to get anywhere when tryin to find out who this person or persons really are.
Posted by: avril at September 7, 2007 3:27 AMcan u help.
would appreiciate an email back.
x
Im not sure this works, But it might Help
Posted by: Vincent at December 13, 2007 11:11 PMhttp://aruljohn.com/info/howtofindipaddress/
if we knw the email addree(hotmail) can we find out the ip addressof the account and the actual computer tht has been used to create the account??? i really need to find out abt this as one of my friend has been threatened by someone!!! plz.. thank you!!!!!
Posted by: malaka at May 23, 2008 3:35 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Nope. If you're being harassed, contact the authorities.
Leo
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Posted by: Leo at May 25, 2008 9:38 AMs+JjXW+tXmdqCbk8OO7axP8=
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Hi, i belive that this info is wrong, you can find out the ip, the ip can tell you the location of the computer. and if it is from a library you could check the time you got the mail and hope that the library can tell you who sat at the computer at that time. in some librarys (in swe) you have to tell those who work there your name before you sit down at a computer.
-Leo
As I've said over and over and over again, unless you are the police with a court order an IP address will NOT tell you the physical location of a computer.
-Leo
There's actually a way to find the location of a computer based on Ip address, for free, without being an authority or acquiring a court order, getting at least where the computer is connecting to (which ISP and where in the world it is) by going to http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp and putting the IP address that you got from the email header (which should be viewed in full details).
Specifically, ip2location above is 15 miles wrong for my IP address. In a populated area that narrows my location down to one of a few hundred thousand households.
-Leo
I tried this. Said I was in Germantown, Maryland, -I'm in Illinois. But, it did get my provider right.
Posted by: JL at September 4, 2008 12:27 PMI just found out that my husband was cheating. How can I find out if he has e-mail addresses that I don't know about (example, Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc.)? For some reason I think this person and him are still in contact, but I need to prove it first. I really hope that you can help me. I just need to find somehow that I can search by whatever means to see if there's any e-mail addresses out these established with the same info.
IMO, your only real hope is if your husband is using a computer you have access to, in which case you could take it to someone who's good at computer forensics to see if he's left traces on it. Naturally this'd probably cost money.
-Leo
I know what the IP address for my personal computer is. There seems to have been a hotmail account created in my name. Can I find out what computer it was created on? I want to know if it is connected to my personal computer.
09-Dec-2008
FYI... IP addresses change all of the time. ISPs no longer honor static IP addresses to the general pop. The only thing that is truly static is your MAC address. Today your IP address could be one number, and tomorrow, it could be something totally different. Just FYI
Posted by: jawanzal at January 9, 2009 11:39 AM