Email trace?

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Not quite a Newb Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 62

Hi all,
A friend of mine is getting harassed via email. Is there any way / thing / website that can try to trace who or where it is coming from?

I suppose it will depend on how sophisticated the perpetrator is, just from what I read here.

Thanks!

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:56 am

https://mxtoolbox.com/Public/Content/EmailHeaders/

Then use track IP address in the toolbar above

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:42 am

Which email provider is the sender using?

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:48 pm

Fredd wrote:

A friend of mine is getting harassed via email. Is there any way / thing / website that can try to trace who or where it is coming from?

Reliably? Very difficult with the tools available in public. From the headers you can get the IP address and use various tools, such as the one Irish posted, to trace the email back to the originating source if the guy on the other side hasn't done anything to hide it (such as using certain email providers who strip the sender's IP from the headers.)

However, this information is extremely vague. It will reliably give you the originating country, but even the originating city can be very difficult to find out. Many IP addresses point to cities far away from their real owner. Some even point into the middle of the nowhere.

And even if you manage to reliably trace the city, then that's where your luck ends. Except for some very specific circumstances, you can't really find out who the person sending the emails is. An IP address is simply not enough to show you specific addresses or individuals.

I'm sorry, but I think we would be just wasting time by going this route. I suggest contacting the authorities if you haven't already, showing them the emails and asking for help. They may not be able to provide it either, at least not as far as technology goes, but I think this would be the reasonable first step.

Also, many email providers nowadays have "filters" -option. Meaning you can simply filter out messages from, let's say, a certain email address or person and never see them in your inbox. Depending on the level of harassment and how serious you believe it is, this might be the easiest solution. If not, then it's all the more reason to contact the authorities, as it's obviously more serious than a disgruntled boyfriend or something similar behaving like an ass.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 62

Oh, thank you for all the details. I kind of figured that it would be difficult to really get to the bottom of it, but I figured if anyone knew, it would be someone on here...

It turned out to be coming through Craigslist, so I advised her to contact their abuse department.

The other thing I've heard of doing is to save all of the harassing emails, etc., and if anything gets anywhere,you have the evidence.

Thank you again.