Sean Welsh (Sean) (64.81.73.194)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2003 - 1:07 pm: | |
There is no definitive way to track anyone on the internet from email headers alone, as all headers can be spoofed.
The only way to trace emails back to their source is to go to each ISP along the actual transit path, staring with the one that actually forwarded the message to the final recipient, and see if they have full logs that would reveal the actual incoming path. Even then, a good cracker will have started with an anonymous IP and an "open" SMTP server.
Chances are very high that at least one of the ISP's (more likely, though, ALL of them) will not have logs sufficient for this purpose.
Lastly, good luck getting any ISP to talk to you without a subpoena. If a serious crime has been committed (death threats, terrorist activity, etc.) you might be able to get law enforcement to do this, and the ISPs will generally cooperate with an investigation by law enforcement.
-Sean (who was in the business for years) |