Member Avatar for Fincherian

I have the yahoo id of someone who forged my identity online and sent an email to the police to make a death threat. The police won't investigate it and think it was me, but I found out the yahoo id the person who sent the email claimed.

Is there a way I can get the IP and find out who they are? I've contacted yahoo about a dozen times and they're finally letting me fax them with all the information but are taking way too long.

My life is being devastated by this as there are a lot of other consequences going on because of this, a wrecked relationship, someone close to me lost their job and is very hurt, and the stress on me is terrible.

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Dani AI

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This is an identity‑theft and threatening‑message situation — preserve everything now and get law enforcement and identity‑theft resources involved. Keep untouched copies of the full (raw) email(s) including headers, timestamps, any attachments, screenshots of the police correspondence, and a log of dates/times and any people affected. File reports with IdentityTheft.gov (FTC) and the FBI IC3 so there is an official record to support any legal steps and to trigger preservation by providers. IdentityTheft.gov · IC3.gov. (consumer.ftc.gov)

Several replies suggested trying to “get the IP” from email or messenger. That idea is technically plausible but often misleading. Mail servers add Received: headers as the message passes through them, and those headers are what analysts read — but headers can be altered, omitted, or only show the mail provider’s servers (not the sender’s device) when webmail, proxies, VPNs or Tor were used. The Received‑chain is defined by SMTP standards and is useful, but it is not a guaranteed identifier of a person. See the SMTP/Received header spec and practical header guides. (rfc-editor.org)

Because of those limits, the only reliable way to tie an IP or activity back to a named subscriber is through the service provider’s logs. Providers will generally preserve data for law enforcement and disclose subscriber/connection records only after formal legal process (subpoena, court order or a 2703(d) order) and by law enforcement request — preservation requests hold data for a limited window while legal process is obtained. That is why getting the police, your prosecutor, or a lawyer involved is usually the correct path rather than DIY tracing. (law.cornell.edu)

Practical checklist: (1) Preserve raw headers and messages; make hashed copies and backups. (2) Get a local police report and give them the evidence packet. (3) File at IdentityTheft.gov and IC3. (4) Ask law enforcement to issue a preservation request to the provider (so logs and IP mappings are retained). (5) Do not attempt to hack, retaliate, or publish suspected personal data — that can be illegal and will hurt prosecution. For guidance on reading headers and why a single IP rarely proves identity, see the technical references above. (security.stackexchange.com)

Note: raised headers-as-a-solution and suggested going through ISPs; both point at important ideas — headers can help an investigation, and ISPs do cooperate, but only under formal legal process and with the preservation/chain‑of‑custody safeguards noted above.

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Member Avatar for Jenova

Fincherian,

If you are adamant about this, follow these directions:

Send an email to this user and acquire the IP address from the email header when he sends a reply. Be creative and do something to make him reply.
If you have an email agent that has email tracking, you should be able to find the IP address once he receives it.

Then you can contact the officials and give them the IP address and time at which he opened the email. They can trace the IP back to ISP and furthermore, the individual.

Believe me; I have been on both sides of the fence.

Member Avatar for dtfan6

The quickest way is to contact that person's ISP through your own. They will in turn investigate, as they do not want legal hassles of their own later if nothing was done. This advice is from an author of an article (don't remember who) that specializes in security stuff, and that was his advice to anyone experiencing what you are. Good luck and I hope you can get it all straightened out - keep us posted, ok?

Member Avatar for mackone

Here I've got one more link which will help to track ip address when on messengers, for an instance in MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger or any other
Instant Messenger's. Try
I don't use the messenger services but when I P2P I can see
everybody's IP address and DNS name.

Member Avatar for kolettemane

Hmm... this is interesting!

Member Avatar for suki_boy

Well to get the Persons IP when ur talking in MSN just go on Run=>cmd=>Netstat.ANd there are all Ip.If u want to tracei it u can write Tracert and the web or Ip.Eg.tracert www.google.com

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