Ip address tracking from unwanted emails.

Poitiers

I have received unwanted emails from someone who has generated a fake email address. I have iP address. I was able to retrieve this from the email header. I have narrowed the location down to Cork using various Whois applications. Does anybody know if I can identify the user or get a more accurate street address.

Rackstar

Poitiers wrote: »

I have received unwanted emails from someone who has generated a fake email address. I have iP address. I was able to retrieve this from the email header. I have narrowed the location down to Cork using various Whois applications. Does anybody know if I can identify the user or get a more accurate street address.

I'd doubt it. If they have any sense at all the are probably using a dynamically assigned address. Try banging it into ripe.net if it's a static it'll give you the owners details. If dynamic you'll get the ISP's details. Let me us know how you get on!

Poitiers

Thanks for the reply. I just tried Ripe.net and all it will give me is the ISP which is eircom. The ip address remains the same on all emails. Does anybody know if Eircom assign similar ip addresses to certain areas? If I could know the general area would yahoo ping then help me to narrow it down further if I physically went there with a laptop?

barryj

If you run a traceroute to the IP address, you'll may be able to glean some information by the dns names as you get closer to the address. Most ISPs use some kind of naming convention in their router names that might give you a region or town name.

- barry

donal.hunt

reading material:
Dealing with unsolicited or offensive e-mail (citizensinformation.ie)
Making a complaint in relation to offences under SI 535 of 2003, as amended by SI 526 of 2008. (dataprotection.ie)
S.I. No. 535/2003 — European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services) (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 2003 (irishstatutebook.ie)
S.I. No. 526/2008 — European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services) (Data Protection and Privacy) (Amendment) Regulations 2008 (irishstatutebook.ie)

and this does work...
As a result of a complaint I made in 2006 (along with a number of other complaints they received from other parties), a company was prosecuted by the Data Commissioner. The company pleaded guilty in court in Sept 2009. In my case, it was for sending unsolicited sms but the regulations cover email too.

Eircom will know who had the IP at the time it was used.

Only way to find out who used the IP, is to get garda to sepena the eircom records AFAIK...??

Poitiers

Hi. Many thanks for your reply. I followed your advice but to be honest the information I got back means absolutely nothing to me! This business us all very new to. The offending ip address is 86.45.168.57. If you could obtain any info at all I would be very grateful! Thanks again.

donal.hunt

Poitiers wrote: »

Hi. Many thanks for your reply. I followed your advice but to be honest the information I got back means absolutely nothing to me! This business us all very new to. The offending ip address is 86.45.168.57. If you could obtain any info at all I would be very grateful! Thanks again.

You don't need to get this information to start a complaint through the Data Commissioner...

from http://www.digitalrights.ie/2005/11/08/dealing-with-sms-spam/ (should cover email too):

The Data Protection Commissioner enforces the European and Irish laws which ensure that your personal information is only used in the manner which you intended.

If you receive a spam SMS and want to complain to the Data Protection Commissioner, your complaint should include as much of the following as possible.
• Your name and postal address (other contact details optional).
• A copy of any SMS messages you received.
• The date and time of receipt.
• Your number.
• The number from which the message was sent.
• A declaration that you have not consented to receiving such communications.
• A declaration that you have not been a customer of the sender or, if a customer, that you have instructed the sender not to send you SMS messages.
• A copy of any instruction given to the sender not to send SMS messages (or make calls) to you, if there was any.
• A statement that you wish to make a formal complaint.
• A statement that you will be willing to give evidence in court relating to the complaint.
• A statement that you will be willing to give a statement, if requested.
Appearing in court, if it gets that far, will not cost you anything other than your time. It is possible that a statement would be accepted instead of your personal attendance, so that not even your time would be affected.

The spam complaint can be emailed to:
info@dataprotection.ie

Or posted to:
The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner
Block 6, The Irish Life Centre
Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1

The Data Protection Commissioner can prosecute spammers. The maximum fine is €3,000 per spam message sent. (Alas, no compensation is paid to the person who received the spam message). If even a small proportion of the spam messages sent in Ireland resulted in fines, it would quickly become uneconomical to send them, and they would die out.

You would only need to supply the complete email and all headers in your complaint...

d.

Poitiers

Thank you for your input Donal but the emails I'm getting are not from a commercial body but someone i suspect that knows me using a fake email address. I will definitely look into making a complaint. I just thought there should be a way of tracking the ip address down to the size of perhaps a suburb of Cork.

donal.hunt

Understood...

Unfortunately you probably have your work cut out for you if abuse@<network owner> doesn't result in the situation being resolved - Bear in mind that requests sent to abuse@ addresses will often result in action being taken without you being notified of who was involved and what action was taken.

Depending on the nature of the communication you could persue it under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997 but as you mention it's someone within your social circle, you may get quicker resolution by making it known to your social circle that you are considering the above action. Often the threat of being caught is enough to get people to cop on and stop messing...

If the situation escalates then you will need to seek independent legal advice - probably by sending a solicitor letter to the network owner asking for them to take action / pursuing the above legislation.

Good luck!

java

OP, LaughingJoker is correct. Any ISP will not divulge the identity of a third party, i.e. the ip address owner, without a court order or a request from the Gardai. If you want to find the identity of the email sender, then your best bet is to make a complaint to the Gardai.