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Can I Get Someone’s Name and Address from Their IP Address?

I have the IP address of someone who’s causing me some problems. Can I get their name and location from that?

Yes and no. But mostly no.

This is perhaps one of the most common questions I get. Unfortunately, people’s expectations have been colored — often dramatically — by popular television shows and movies.

Unfortunately, this is real life, which isn’t nearly as easy or exciting.

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TL;DR:
  • There is public information about IP addresses.
  • Public information is limited to identifying the ISP providing a specific IP address.
  • More details are available from the ISP, but typically only if you have a valid, legal reason.

Publicly available information

As I’ve discussed in previous articles, there are services on the internet that return information about an IP address. An IP address (short for Internet Protocol Address) is a number used to identify a device connected to a TCP/IP network like the internet.

ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, is the canonical place to start. It’s the organization that organizes IP address assignments in the U.S. They provide a “who is” (often just referred to as whois, without the space) search, which will look up the owner of an IP address or refer you to the equivalent service in another country, if appropriate.

DomainTools.com is another one that includes a whois service. It looks up both domain names (like “askleo.com”) and IP addresses, so you can see who owns them.

PlotIP is an interesting service that will also perform a whois lookup and return information about the IP address, including a map of where the service believes the IP address is located.

Push Pin

The problem with public information

In all of these cases, and other similar services, the information retrieved is about the owner of the IP address, not the current user of the IP address.

In other words, the information you get relates only to the ISP or hosting company that has allocated that IP address to one of its customers.

Typically, the information includes the name, address, and phone number of the ISP. In the case of attempts to determine location, the information is at best an approximation, and either represents the location of the ISP’s headquarters or of one of the ISP’s distribution points.

In a practical sense, it is never the location of the actual person who is using that IP address.

Getting more detail

The ISP knows more. In fact, I’d venture to say that the ISP probably knows everything. They know to whom the IP address was assigned. For dynamic IP addresses, I’m sure they know or can find out who it was allocated to, when it was allocated, and for how long it was used.

But there’s an issue that interferes with getting that information from the ISP.

Privacy.

Face it: you wouldn’t want your ISP to just hand out your private information to anyone who walked up with some kind of story claiming they needed it. The same is hopefully true for any and all ISPs: privacy matters.

ISPs will turn over that information to law enforcement when the right requests are made and paperwork presented. In the U.S., that’s typically a court order. In that case, the ISP will provide the information to the police, not to you. The police can then take the appropriate steps based on your reasons for going this far in the first place.

So can I get it or not?

Can you get a name an address from an IP? Yes, if you are the police and have the legal backing to ask for it.

Otherwise, no. If you’re a regular person just trying to track something down on your own, that information is not available. The same privacy policies and restrictions that protect you protect everyone.

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121 comments on “Can I Get Someone’s Name and Address from Their IP Address?”

  1. One other way to get someone’s name and address is if the IP is for their web site server, it’s a dedicated server, and you use WhoIs to look up the registrant info for their domain.

    Now, given that almost every registrar offers anonymous registrations and few people surf from their web server, it’s a fringe case, but it can happen.

    What’s more troubling, though, are cross-site tracking cookies used by major ad networks like DoubleClick.

    A few years back there was news that DoubleClick was going to link up people’s identifiable information with their IP addresses (when they logged in at certain sites, the DoubleClick cookie would register the login), so that as people traversed different sites where DoubleClick served ads, DoubleClick could track their surfing habits and pair those up with their names.

    This caused a firestorm of anger among netizens and many major sites that used DoubleClick were deluged with angry e-mails.

    Eventually, DoubleClick dropped the plan, but it’s not impossible that some ad network could quietly do it. That’s why many “spyware” killers also kill cookies from major ad networks.

    – Greg

    Reply
    • For the most part, we have dynamic (changing) IP addresses, which the ISP distributes & keeps track of. Some ISPs offer the option of a static (unchanging) IP address, and a lot of companies have static IP addresses as well. Th WHOIS registries will often tell you the identities of those with a static IP. While law enforcement has the means to require the ISPs to reveal the identity of who a particular dynamic IP address is assigned to, one can get a judge to issue a subpoena as well. In general, you need to have a civil case filed against someone. But you can file it against a John Doe, for the purpose of finding out their actual identity. Many lawyers are well-versed in this process, but just as many I run into are not. It’s a lot easier to have a lawyer request a subpoena than for you to do it yourself, but if engaging a lawyer for the purpose, it’s a good idea to ask if they’ve done this sort of thing before.

      Reply
  2. Following up on Ed Carver’s comment that “you can use WhoIs to look up the registrant info for their domain:”

    Is there a way to do this on a volume basis?

    For example, create a text file & load it into WhoIs, or elsewhere?

    If I enter 129.34.20.80 into ARIN WhoIS, I get IBM. I’d like to be able to find out the names of all companies where the IP is for their web site server.

    Thx, Bob

    Reply
  3. I was wondering whether a person could be tracked after posting on a forum. After all, most sites record the visitors IP address.

    Reply
  4. The closest I could get from your IP address is “Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad y Telecom” in Costa Rica. I would have to contact them to find out more. It’s doubtful that they’d tell me anything. So technically you can be tracked, if the people tracking you have law enforcement on their side, but most people do not.

    Reply
  5. Lyn, It depends on what ISP (Internet Service Provider) ure using. Some use a static IP which means your IP address is always the same and some use an dynamic IP meaning the IP changes every time you sign on to the internet.

    Jeremy O.

    Reply
  6. Hi Sameer, well you can get the IP address of the person you are chatting too on MSN or Yahoo, but there is a little more you will have to do. Ask the person to send a file to you or vica versa through the send file option of the IM. Then while the file is being transferred you can open the DOS Prompt and type netstat -n and get the listings of all the connections and ports opened from your system to any system or server on the net. But as netstat will give you many results you need to distinguish it, so I suggest that you take the snapshop of the listings and do the analysis later or user various softwares like ethereal etc. Otherwise there is no way to get to know the IP address for live chat or offline messages.

    Reply
  7. Some one is poisoning everything I do and making my life a living hell.He has been trying to end my marriage by sending emails to my husband saying that I am cheating. I have his IP address what can I do with it? c220-239-141-178.eburwd1.vic.optusnet.com.au He is trying to destroy my life, and I have no way to end this. If you can help please let me know how.

    Reply
  8. Hi, i like the way you are explaining this.. I hope that you can help me here.. Someone is taking over my yahoo email. I can’t access it now.. Is there a way to know any information about the person whois accessing my email..

    Reply
  9. Hello Leo, recently someone at my school made a piczo site making very mean and extremely hurtful comments about me and other people in my school, is there anyway to get the person’s ip from the website so i can then contact the proper authorities as some of these remarks re very threatening?

    Reply
    • You are wrong on that one Mr Leo. offcourse she can get the IP of the website….open cmd type tracert plus the website address and u will get the IP then you can contact the Law enforcement agency to do the needful.

      remain bless

      Reply
      • You can get the IP of the website, but this person is asking for the IP of the person who made the website. This wouldn’t be available without intervention from law enforcement.

        Reply
  10. I would login to your eBay account change the password and the email address asap. I don;t believe you can track the person yourself, buy you should report this to Ebay and provide them with the information – thay may be able to use it.

    Reply
  11. There is basically NO WAY for us common people to “track down” and pinpoint or locate a person to their house via the internet just by using the IP adress and hunting ourselves.

    The closest you may get is obtaining their IP address, and going to a site like “Geobytes.com” and clicking “IP Locator” and it will give you what city they may be from. OTher than that… it doesn’t get any closer than that.

    Reply
  12. As I keep telling people, that type of service gets you only the region, not the address. In my case it’s 20 *miles* wrong.

    It does correctly identify my ISP, which is what I’ve been saying all along is all you can get.

    Reply
  13. Recently in June 2006 someone had posted my unlisted name and home address at a yahoo group. I was able to get their IP address and find out the location of the person. I have their yahoo ID and a copy of the posting of my address. I filed a complaint with Yahoo and they took the necessary action according to their TOS,which is being ban from Yahoo.
    I still would like to know who this person is and how they were able to get hold of my unlisted address. I contacted the FBI and they said to file a complaint online, Internet Crime Center.
    Any other suggestions?

    Reply
  14. Hi Leo, suppose someone knows your IP, and he calls your ISP, but your Ip is not static. My IPS can still give my personal information, even if my IP changes everytime? They keep a log with all the IPs they gave me?

    Reply
  15. good morning
    how can I get the IP address of a person who is in a room in paltalk messenger?
    I’m waiting for your respnse.
    sorry if the this question is out of subject.

    Reply
    • You can actually get the IP address from ANY online chat room. As long a they are connected to the internet, you can get the IP.
      Simply open up an online IP Logger and create a tracker link and send it to your victim. Who ever clicks the link will have their IP address shown in the IP Logger.

      Reply
  16. To get someone’s IP from yahoo messenger conversation, go to start -> run and type cmd, then in the window type netstat, but before close any other open programs. This will show all your connections, if you have few, it will be easy to get their IP address.

    To find information about it try http://www.ipgp.net

    Reply
  17. hey leo i am trying to find out who a user of an msn account is, as he has been menacing people at my school. We have tried everything in terms of trying to talk it out of him (who he is) but to no avail. Will the method shown in the article work for the IP of this person’s msn address??

    Reply
  18. —–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
    Hash: SHA1

    “The method in the article” doesn’t get you the name of the person.

    The best you can do without help is to identify their ISP – Internet Service
    Provider. To actually identify the person you’ll need that ISP’s help, and THAT
    will likely take a court order.

    Leo
    —–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–
    Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

    iD8DBQFGUxVpCMEe9B/8oqERAg2LAJ9WfzcX3TKan4KFV1x+GaQuxe3nPACgiNZ2
    ppg/idxqwgLkqHBSgVuLCCk=
    =9R4x
    —–END PGP SIGNATURE—–

    Reply
  19. i had some kids say they were going to change my name on msn messanger. inorder to do that they had to basicly recreated a password because they must of knowen my security question i have both of thier ip addresses but i was wondering if u can somehow contact hotmail to get the last ip addresses from them so i can prove they did it cause im afraid they did more then that.

    Reply
  20. IP address 69.120.95.217
    Hostname ool-45785fd9.dyn.optonline.net
    ISP Optimum Online (Cablevision Systems)
    Country United States

    here you go my friend prashant

    Reply
  21. I am working for an IT security training project.Is there a way to get web site address and phone number by IP Address?

    Reply
  22. —–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
    Hash: SHA1

    You must live close to your ISP’s point of presence, because it’s still only
    information ABOUT YOUR ISP that these services can return. They CANNOT go
    further, unless your ISP makes the information public.

    In my case, they’re 300 miles off.

    Leo
    —–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–
    Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

    iD8DBQFGaIvsCMEe9B/8oqERAnjrAJ0XohUa+YNpKdR1n80eOKJQFV6LyQCfYQ/z
    duw18f/KUjcsOS/v8JnHcLM=
    =sF8b
    —–END PGP SIGNATURE—–

    Reply
  23. my computer got hacked into by someone who keeps changing they’re name on yahoo. but seems to keep the same area in mind from [email address removed] to [email address removed] which is just recently. well here’s my problem, they have managed to not only hack my computer but also my razor phone and sent everything from my txt’s and instant messanger conversations to my spouse and all his friends. this person claims i know who it is but when i get the emails it keeps changing from i to we and they wanted me to just leave my husband for them..i feel like i’m on a lifetime movie. i don’t know what to do..can anyone help and what really sucks is all this started when i started to talking to a friend who is in the Navy..apparently IT’s have a whole new way of life in the military.

    Reply
  24. Hi leo.
    After someone emailed me some spam last month, my washing machine has been leaving my underwear all gray. Please, please help me!

    Reply
  25. Hi great site and very helpful insights :). my isp moblie addy has been found out and shared. im awear not much can be done with someone having my isp address. But i was told the person posting it had “inside” knowledge to seek my details ie name address this has got me thinking can just anyone that works for law enforment or service provider trace a random isp address? And are they allowed to share information found to people like friends or family ect if law enforcement is not seeking it? And is there away to protect my isp address or too late now its out there?

    Reply
    • So there are a couple of miss-statements here that make me wonder if perhaps there’s come confusion. It’s not an “ISP” address, it’s an IP address. That’s commonly exposed, and in fact simply leaving a comment here tells me what your IP address is. “Normal” people cannot get any useful information from it – as the article you commented on states. Law enforcement can, but typically not without a court order. Exactly how hard that is, or even if it’s required at all, will vary depending on your country, your location within that country, the laws in effect, and even the level of corruption, if any, in your legal system. EVERYTHING is really dependant on how interesting you are, and for the most of us that’s “not very”. It’s not trivial to get the information, so I wouldn’t expect law enforcement to do it without a valid reason in general.

      Reply
  26. This is great info and in context of the subject line Leo has provided all the facts about what is available from just using the IP address. Unfortunately, with the combination of other meta data most web sites can easily connect you with what you may think is an anonymous post and keep a history of all your activities.

    Every time you connect to a website your IP address is included and available.
    So when you register for any site that includes your name and/or Email your IP address is going to be included as a gift to the website. Any future communications with that site could easily be connected to the IP address used when you registered.

    While it was once common for ISP’s like Time Warner or Comcast to assign dynamic IP addresses it’s easier for them to keep you using the same. ISP’s make a point to tell you they use dynamic IP addresses to prevent you from running servers or other high volume services. So while they won’t guarantee a permanent IP address they rarely change it. I don’t remember the last time my IP address changed.

    So anytime you sign up for a forum, register your software or make an online purchase that company could create a database with your history including every time you visit.
    Bill

    Reply
  27. IP cant be traced , i mean to the location …Most of the online tools are mere and near finder..
    Some application are there to download,,which is utter useless..
    Some one who wants to Trace IP of others may be doing some nasty things with them ( Not All )

    Reply
  28. I’ve had the same problem as the original poster. My blog was being used against me in legal situations. Rest assure that it was inconclusive evidence, but just knowing you’re being tracked that way…
    1. I placed an ip tracker on my blog and sure enough I got over 100 hits a day from two people in particular.
    2. I then used an ip blocker called toolator to block the two suspected ip addresses. You can block up to three for free.
    Its hard to know when Internet stalking becomes an Internet crime. You can be 99% sure who your harasser is, but who wants to be at the butt-end of bad guess work?!

    Reply
    • And when you think about it from the other point of view… it’s a good thing. I certainly don’t want everyone to be able to track my location!

      Reply
  29. i have a situation i would like some advise on pertaining to IP addresses and email. Recently i was using Yahoo email where i listed a few items for sales online. I started communicating with this couple that was interested in a item for sale. we were communicating through Yahoo sms and their cell phone (which they gave me) as well as email. Long story short they started receiving many repeating texts to their cell phone from my account due to an issue with yahoo messenger which i was unaware were being sent – some of which were weeks old. they threatened to file a police report if i didnt stop and also advised me that they have my email, name, place of employment and license plate number which i believe they probably got from watching me where we were supposed to meet while i waited and they never showed. they threatened to prosecute me. I deleted my yahoo account in effort to stop the texts to their phone. I do not believe they know my real name or anything in detail about me other than my email address. What would they need to do to find out who i am? Would police call the ISP to obtain my computers IP and locate me? Would they have to go to the local police and file a report first or could they go right to a court? how long would it take for the police to locate me via an IP address. I have information showing yahoo was having issues with their sms service and i also have a ticket number for when i closed my yahoo account. I am more worried about what they may be doing behind the scenes that i do not yet know about. Any information would be helpful
    thanks

    Reply
    • Typically it does involve law enforcement of some sort. All you can do is be prepared with the information it sounds you have just in case they take action, but personally I’d be surprised.

      Reply
  30. Tell me one thing. Let say if someone did review comments about former company in some site. can the ip address tracked for that review comments? can that former company able to find the ip address??

    Reply
    • It’s unlikely that they would get access to the IP addresses unless they managed that website or somehow could get tat website to give them that information. In any case, as it says in this article, they wouldn’t be able to determine who wrote the comment simply knowing the IP address.

      Reply
  31. I did the IP check up on that website, you are right about it not being accurate. I accidently gave my IP to some people on Skype, but I’m glad that the IP gives out the wrong address. It says I’m in Hawlay PA which is off. That’s just where the PC was SOLD. So they can’t get my physical address?

    Reply
  32. Hey Leo,

    I’ve heard of people getting people’s personal information (including SSN) by knowing their IP. They call their ISP pretending to be a tech from the ISP and use ‘social engineering’ to get the information. Obviously this could be prevented if ISP’s had strict protocol for their support staff to follow in regards to verifying the caller is indeed really one of their techs on site. Who knows what the rules are for ISP support staff…

    Reply
  33. Hi Leo,

    I had a relative work for Microsoft in Seattle a few years ago. Small world. I have a question for you. If you cannot get a police to get a court order to find outwho a blogger is, yet the blogger alluded that you were party to lying so another party could lie and steal from an organization, could an attorney get that information for me somehow? I have a person who is cyber-stalking me and cyber-bullying me and also harassing me in person and I would lie to know if it was definitely them saying those things about me.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Reply
  34. Leo,
    On twitter, If someone sends me a link as a private message taking me to a ip tracer page, once I click the link, can they access my IP address? I mean, is twitter shadowing my IP address once I leave the twitter domain? (twitter might have a matrix assigning new IP address for outside of its domain) It sounds costy but I would like to know. This is important especially for people whose identity under threat by its own government. Thanks for your immediate response.

    Reply
    • When you click on a link twitter is typically no longer involved. The web site you visit (ANY website you visit) gets your IP address. Heck, I got your IP address with this comment. And to be super clear: it doesn’t matter. Read the article and you’ll see why.

      Reply
  35. Hi Leo
    I need to ask you a question and I hope you help me – because I need this answer
    I live in a small city – in my city about 20 poeple has internet in there home
    so I need to find the IP address of some one’s of them but I dont have any contact with
    not email , not chating
    please help me how can I find some one’s IP address in my network area
    great thanks
    Best regards :
    Raha

    Reply
  36. Question:
    It’s looking like I will need to subpoena google for IP addresses for BlogSpot posts and possibly gmail information on posts that are over 2 years old. From what I’ve located on the net, it looks like google only retains IP addresses for 9 – 24 months at most. Is it at all possible there would be any way they could even provide me with the info at all with my lawyer’s help or do you figure it’s information that’s just too old?

    Reply
  37. one time i saw this video on youtube where he traces their name and phone number but im not sure if its all done by ip tracing

    Reply
  38. I just found an email I sent that a whois search revealed exactly what building I was in when I sent the email. I sent if from a university where I work and the university was listed as the ISP, and the address was listed as the building I was in. So, be careful if you are sending an email or visiting a website from a university or large company which operates it’s own ISP.

    Reply
  39. Dear Leo,
    hoping you with good health, it is to state that i borrowed loan amounting to Rupees 112000/- (PKR) and became a member of http://www.cclicking.com and i started earning and returned back my loan amount. later than when a month passed, someone hacked my email address and i requested the admin to help me recover my account he helped me and reset my password and internal informations. also told me the ip addresses from which the hacker successfully logged in to my account at http://www.cclicking.com the ip addresses are as under:
    59.103.212.73 login time 16:05 date 11-07-2014 according to pakistan time
    59.103.214.215 login time 14:34 date 11-07-2014 according to pakistan time
    182.168.247.104 login time 19:15 date 11-07-2014 according to pakistan time
    182.188.244.126 login time 00:33 date 13-07-2014 according to pakistan time
    please help me finding the person who is that can you please provide me his phone number? i will be thankful to you. May Allah almighty bless you. REGARDS: Muhammad Yousuf Saad, from Taunsa Sharif, District Dera Ghazi Khan, Province Punjab, Pakistan. email address {REMOVED}

    Reply
  40. Hi Leo,

    I frequently browse twitter, you tube, facebook and prezi (primarily for presentations).
    Even if I don’t log/ comment and just merely read through others page specifically those mentioned above, will they be able to trace who’s visiting their sites? Will they know my IP address or even the country where I’m from?

    Appreciate your reply.

    Thanks,
    Ivan

    Reply
    • Any website you visit can know your IP address. If you mean the people whose pages you are visiting on social media sites, then no. Facebook and the other social media sites don’t generally give that information to the people whose sites are visited.

      Reply
    • ALL websites you visit get your IP address. I did by your even leaving this comment. What they can do with that, as the article points out, is next to nothing unless they have legal authority and a reason. (My *guess* is that you’re in Hong Kong.)

      Reply
  41. Hi, I’ve recently got some electronics stolen at home. Because I’m close to a hoarder I kept all the original boxes so I still had serial numbers and stuff. I called the police but we had no lead as to who could’ve done it. So I purposely left unchanged my Netflix info for the ps4 that was stolen, in hope someone would be stupid enough to try and use it. It so happens someone did. From a Ps4 someone logged into my netflix account and Netflix recorded the IP address. I had a date, hour and IP address. Having found this new info I contacted the police again and told me it wasn’t much and it probably won’t be investigated because of a lack of resource. I then contacted the ISP to see if I had any way of getting the info to transmit it to the police to try and move things along. Of course, for privacy reasons that info cannot be disclosed to a normal civilian like me. Is there nothing else I can do? Its not really just for the ps4 but for the principle and for honor. The ps4 could be broken for all I care, I just want justice. I paid that console with my suckass job and some useless shit just grabbed it.

    Thank you for your time

    Reply
    • I don’t believe there is anything more you can do. The resource issue that law enforcement faces is perhaps the single biggest roadblock to progress. I believe that to be true almost worldwide.

      Reply
  42. Hi Leo, I enjoy reading your info. Like most ,if not all , I get spam, phishing and spoofing. So annoying even though Gmail does seem to recognize most and puts into spam folder but I just get so annoyed when some bathplug copies my own email address as it makes me wonder can the mongrel access my mail. even though has made me change my pass-word several times and in the end just cancelled that particular email address which means different letter heads, business cads, receipts etc, and so can be a real pain in the A
    However I have downloaded a utillity : Nirsoft’s ‘IPNETINFO “That does give me the customers name of a hosting company and in one instant was able to have the spoofer in this case, identified.
    Was I just lucky. What I did was to send to, two of the hosting companies involved, copies of the headers of the fraudulent emails I had got in my gmail account. I’m not involved with, only a user of ipnetinfo.
    Cheers Nick
    http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/ipnetinfo.html

    Reply
      • This girl I know I always talks about how you can buy a software for when you look up a person’s ip address and it will show you their name, cell phone number, and exact address to their home. Is that true? I’ve been trying to find the software she claims to be talking about and always come up empty handed.

        Reply
    • You can, most ips can be traced to a location. You must have the wits to figure it out. Getting the name of the culprit is a little harder. I don’t what Leos talking about maybe hes just not a good spy

      Reply
      • You’re wrong. All the IP address gives you is the location of the server that a person is going through. It’s useless. For instance, I live in Idaho and my IP address shows me in Kalispell Montana… hundreds of miles away. You would have to get my actual location directly from my internet provider. As Leo correctly says, that would take a court order.

        Reply
  43. Hey, I want to look for an IP for an email that I have how do you get it when their is no email that has been sent. But just an email address is what you have and thus you can not go to the email header. Assist.

    Reply
    • The thing is that an email address can be used from anywhere. So this will tell you little more than where the server that hosts the may be located. For instance, you can use whois.net to find the IP address of gmail.com. But it will tell you very little about a person using a Gmail address.

      Reply
  44. Hey Leo,
    One question, is it possible to know the company name who is using the internet services of the service provider?

    Example, If I am using the internet can anyone get to know my details apart from the details of ISP through IP address only?

    Reply
  45. You can rely on http://www.ip-tracker.org/ to find the place which the IP is assigned at, but be careful, the precision isn’t good enough to point you in the right direction (my place was located in a 50km radius around the place the website judged me to be) and you’ll never get street name and house number, you’ll need to contact the internet service provider(ISP) to give you that info or know how to track the address from the ISP to the person that has gained the IP, which is not easy at all, and you can be arrested by trying to do that, so I wouldn’t recommend trying.
    (This website is indeed good to know where an IP is near to and maybe even discover the city on which it’s located, for advertisement purposes.)

    Reply
  46. One of my neighbours used my wifi and as a result I got an outstanding bill.Is it possible for me to get his IP address ?And if I do and complain to my ISP,can they track him down?

    Reply
    • Yes, but it is your IP address. Since he was on your network, he was using your IP address. The ISP can’t track him. And in cases where they can track someone, they won’t, unless made to by law enforcement.

      Reply
  47. By obtaining his ip address,i could complain to my isp and file a complaint so that he can be made to pay for the outstanding bill(on the assumption that my complaint to the isp can help me get a court order)(something like that)

    Reply
    • The thing is that it is your IP address. If he used your internet connection, then he was using your IP address.

      Also. It is your responsibility to have your router secured. Please read this article – https://askleo.com/7-steps-to-a-secure-router/

      You may have one recourse, however. If your ISP sent out a technician who set up your internet connection and failed to secure your router for you, then you may have grounds to complain to your ISP. If, on the other hand, you either requested that your wifi connection not be secure, or if you gave your neighbor your password, then you won’t have any grounds to stand on and will be responsible for the bill.

      Reply
    • If you are referring to someone who illegally used your internet connection, the only IP number which would show up is yours, because going through your internet he would be using your IP address.,

      Reply
  48. How can I get the precise GPS location from a cell number or the address from the cell number is there a way to use the SMS or MMS and can I go into that phone without having the phone and read the texts and phone calls and hear what they’re saying without having the phone in my presents or without downloading an app to the phone

    Reply
  49. A user is leaving hateful comments to me that verge into death threats. I know their IP address since I track my blog, and so I have an estimation for where they live. I want to know who’s behind this, would contacting the server help in some way?

    Reply
  50. i was playing an online video game when someone listed off my zip code, do they know my exact adress? what should i do?

    Reply
  51. Hello, I believe we am being framed for sending anonymous harassing emails I did not send. I was told by the accusing party that through an attorney a subpoena was gotten and Google was subpoenaed for records. This was 4 Wk’s ago. They have told me that they have proof emails came from my IP address. I was never notified via google about a subpoena NOR was I notified by my ISP provider that a subpoena was issued and my information given out. (I certainly did not speak to anyone at google but I did speak to my ISP who looked up account and said there was no subpoena and no info disclosed). My question is, how is it possible someone is framing me and claiming proof that I created and sent emails that I did not? Does google respond that fast to subpoenas? Wouldn’t they still have to subpoena ISP to get my Exact location?? I freaked out by this as someone is framing me and hacked into home network

    Reply
    • This sounds like a scam. More than likely your ISP is right… there is no subpoena. If a subpoena does exist you can contact local law enforcement to verify. This is probably scammers calling you up and trying to scare you. Their goal is to get you to give them money to save you from something that does not exist. Hang up on them and/or don’t read their emails. It may be useful to report the incident to your local police. They can’t do anything, but if they get several reports of this nature they will notify the public about the scam.

      Reply
    • I can’t give you legal advice here. While, as Connie says, it SOUNDS like a scam, you should consult an attorney or a local professional to look into this in more detail.

      Reply
  52. Connie, thank you for the fast reply. If you can believe it, this is someone I personally know accusing me of this, not a stranger trying to get money. I did contact my county courthouse and there IS in fact a subpoena to Google that states an out of state motion for a subpoena for electronic records/information. So they have subpoenaed Google 4 Wk’s ago and apparently got a response this fast and ping to my home. But how could they eat that without my ISP provider? Again, subpoena was only to Google. Again, I did NOT send these emails from my phone or cell if that even mattered so I am utterly perplexed on how they could be being told from Google it was me

    Reply
  53. Hello,this is urgent,my phone was stolen two days ago at 2.00 a.m and gmail notified me that an attempt to sign in at 5.30 a.m the same day was blocked.gmail also showed me the ip adress….can i use it to track down the thief?and is it illegal to track it on my own or will i have to consult the police

    Reply
  54. Hi, if you posted on a forum and they found out your ip I do understand that the isp is what they can get and that would be the service provider you are with.

    My question is what if they knew a let’s say a sales representative or a call centre employee. Would they be able to track your identity down just by knowing your ip? Or would this require someone that works at the the company with a it or tech background to do this.

    Reply
    • Servers know your IP address as soon as you visit them. So yes, a forum does see your IP address. So does any webpage you visit. All servers record the IP addresses of users as they browse through the internet – and we are talking billions and billions of hits each day. And yes, probably, the IP address they are seeing is the IP of your ISP. Tracing the IP address from your ISP to you would take the cooperation of the ISP, probably through a warrant of some kind. And yes again, an unscrupulous employee of the ISP may also be able to look you up. It would probably require someone who works at the company.

      Notice that I say “probably” several times because there are numerous variables at play including the use of VPN’s to mask IP addresses, and hacker’s abilities to hack an ISP databases.

      Bottom line is that you probably don’t have to worry about a forum finding out who you are. Doing that would be really hard and require a lot of resources.

      Reply
  55. somebody hacked my fb account and post something advertisement in 40 people from my friend list … so how can i find that person… ☻

    i have details:
    IP: 128.90.105.52
    Decimal: 2153408820
    Hostname: 128.90.105.52
    ASN: 22363
    ISP: Unus
    Organization: Powerhouse Management
    Services: None detected
    Type: Broadband
    Assignment: Static IP

    Reply
    • Please read the article you are commenting on, it answers your question. Although the IP address is in Panama. It would be hard to get the Panamanian law enforcement involve in something like that.

      Reply
  56. I am interested in how people know who viewed or downloaded something illegal from an ip address? What i mean is, if ip address is dynamic that means a lot of people shared same ip address…so how do they know who exactly was the person who did something illegal on internet?

    Reply
    • This is why it usually takes much more information than just an IP address. (And that information — like ISP access logs — is typically only available with a warrant).

      Reply
  57. Recently ( past 4 months ) myself and my ex girlfriend have been getting harassing messenger messages and texts as well . I am being implemented as the one doing this and I haven’t done anything . I do not know how to do anything that contains more then Facebook or things like this . My question is , is it possible and how much of a possibility for some one to hack my I phone and also make it all look like I’m doing this . I’m told from several that it’s possible my iPhones up address could have been spoofed from me . Whatever that is ? Can someone help me with this ?

    Reply
  58. someone wants to open my facebook id but fortunately it not be open and facebook send a message to me and i got ip address and all other details like IP Host name city. but i just want to know about his name…….. can anyone please help me out ?

    Reply

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