Is it possible...

G-MAN2004

G-MAN2004

G-MAN2004

Caporegime
Joined
4 Jul 2004
Posts
30,779
...To track someone down from their IP address?

There's someone on my friend's MSN who said he'll track her down by getting her IP address and now she's kinda worried, and won't listen.

It's probably a stupid question but I have no idea about any of it, lol.

Thanks.
 
No, ive tried in the past when trying to trace some extremely dodgy messages. The ISP will probably know who an ip was leased to, but they will not release that data to anyone 'public'. No doubt a court oreder would be needed.
 
Is it possible for a member of the public? Yes id imagine so but the customer would have to meet several key requirements in order for this too happen.

If you think logically about it nearly all consumers ISP's lease there IP addresses to customers using DHCP which makes it hard to pinpoint a specific user.

I would envision it be possible if you could gain access to the ISP's Radius or associated authetication servers, from which you could see which IP mapped to a particular authenticated account which could then be mapped to a customer contract containing there personal details, but this is purely speculation.

It's much easier on the other hand to pinpoint someone's geographical location based on the physical path you can trace to the destination address.


In essence unless they work for GCHQ i wouldn't worry, your best bet is to log the conversation and report them to your ISP, if the other party is being threatening, such acts arnt taken lightly any more and the police can use a court order to request the details of the other party from the ISP for prosecution.
 
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Depending on the ISP, it may be possible to get the generaly area of where the person is using the reverse dns of an IP, like when i reverse DNS lookup my IP i get *-*-*-*.cable.ubr01.gray.blueyonder.co.uk, (my actual IP is stared out). From this you can tell what UBR im on, and thus what area i am in. But thats as far as you could go to trace my location, as has been said already, to get any more precise then that would require the ISP to divulge the information, something they are very unlikely to do without a court order.
 
Dist said:
Depending on the ISP, it may be possible to get the generaly area of where the person is using the reverse dns of an IP, like when i reverse DNS lookup my IP i get *-*-*-*.cable.ubr01.gray.blueyonder.co.uk, (my actual IP is stared out). From this you can tell what UBR im on, and thus what area i am in. But thats as far as you could go to trace my location, as has been said already, to get any more precise then that would require the ISP to divulge the information, something they are very unlikely to do without a court order.
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What he said. But most of the traffic goes through MSN's servers, so the person wouldn't really most of the time get an IP.
He would have to send a file to your friend, since all the traffic goes through MSN's servers not your friend and the person.
 
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