Computer geeks... I need help with a (real) stalker

[soulshine 0]

I keep recieving anonymous emails that are very unpleasant. As soon as I block the email address I recieve more emails from a slightly different address. The cycle continues... The emails include personal information about me so this is probably someone I know and not just a random spammer.

My question is about IP addresses. I know that it is possible to find out where the emails are being sent from... but I don't know how to do it. Any suggestions?

Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity!
~DEVIOUS BEEF~~FGF #69~

[virgin-burner 1]

oh, i thought you'd like the attention..

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[chuckakers 425]

If you have a real stalker - which it sounds like you might - I would call Johnny Law. Stuff like this can serious pretty quick, and stalkers can be more than unpredictable.

With a court order, the police can find out where the e-mails are coming from.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[soulshine 0]

I agree with you, however I'm not currently living in the US. I'm not sure if the emails are from someone I used to know when I lived there, or if they are from a new aquaintance here in this country.

I would like to know where the emails are coming from and that would help me decide how to proceed with the situation.

Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity!
~DEVIOUS BEEF~~FGF #69~

[JohanW 0]

It would help to know what mail client you use.

If it's Outlook Express, right-click on the message, select properties, select the details tab, click message source. This shows you the full headers. Different mail clients may be slightly different, but you want to look at the full headers. Webmail services may or may not have the possibility to show you this information.

Find the bottom "Received: " header. That one should have the chronologically first timestamp. It should also have the IP-address of the original sender in it.

Later, higher "Received: " headers should list the IP-addresses of mail servers that transported the messages from the sender to you.

If your mail address would be soulshine@example.org, you would see something like mail.example.org as the last server that relayed the message. Your first bet for help (not legal or judicial but technical help) would then be abuse@example.org. Replace example.org with the domain name of your own mail provider.

It is quite possible to forge anything in e-mail, but most people don't know how, fortunately.

Contacting the police is an option. One would hope they have technical experts. And people that are there to physically protect you and arrest stalkers.

If knowing this makes me a geek, so be it. I hope it's useful for once.
Good luck.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[ghost47 18]

Quote

I would like to know where the emails are coming from and that would help me decide how to proceed with the situation.

The IP address of the sender is found in the header of the e-mail. How you view the headers of an e-mail is dependent on how you're viewing e-mail (in Outlook, using a web-based system, etc.) so best to google on that method.

If you scroll down the headers, you should be able to find an originating IP address. (There should be some tutorial that's googleable if you need help on this, too.)

Take that IP address and go to http://www.arin.net/whois

Enter the IP address and click on Search WHOIS.

That should tell you which ISP owns the IP address, and you can go from there.

If it's not a US-based IP, you may have to do the same thing with http://www.apnic.net (Asia), http://www.ripe.net (Europe), http://www.lacnic.net (Latin America), or http://www.afrinic.net (Africa).

Another tool is to go to

http://visualroute.visualware.com/

and enter the IP there. This usually gives you a visual as to where the IP originated.

Good luck.

[PhreeZone 20]

If the senders email address is from a free web based mailer (hotmail, gmail, etc) you can not get info on them with out a court order to the company that is sending the email. If they are doing this then work with your local police to notify them of this and then work towards that court order.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Nightingale 0]

Print out every one of the emails, with complete headers.

Take copies to the police and file a report. They won't do anything, but you're creating a paper trail. Next, go to your county sheriff and do the same thing. Get copies of the reports.

Law enforcement does not generally take stalking, particularly cyber stalking seriously, so you have to be very pro-active. I've had a stalker for going on five years now. I've had police flat out tell me "come back when he hurts you." even though he's emailed things like "I don't want to hurt you but you're pushing my buttons...maybe I'll come down to your apartment (insert address here) and wait." He's stood outside the train station so I've had to drive to work. He's waited outside the music school so I've missed my guitar lessons because I don't want to risk a confrontation. He follows me around town. Cyber stalking escalates.

You need to be pro-active about your safety, especially if you're pretty sure that it's someone you know in real life. Do NOT respond to the emails. Respond once, with one line. "Do not contact me again." save this email too. Don't block his emails, and don't change your email address, even though the cops will tell you to do this. Doing this will frustrate your stalker and drive him to take more extreme measures to contact you, like showing up at your front door or leaving headless woodland creatures on your vehicle (been there!). Just live your life, document everything as you go, and try to find some kind of humor in the patheticness of someone who has resorted to stalking over the internet.

Also, get yourself into some good self-defense classes, don't go anywhere alone, and if you're inclined and your state and county are cooperative, use those emails and police reports as a way to get a CCW/CHL permit to carry a gun to protect yourself, and take some classes and get some good training if you don't have it already. Stalking is a sign of mental instability, and you don't want to be unprepared if you've got a nutcase after you.

Edit: I just read that you're not currently in the US, so check to see what kind of self defense options may be available to you in wherever you happen to be living.

[JohanW 0]

Getting a gun may be counterproductive. Unless you are proficient with the gun and are prepared to really use it, chances are it will be turned against you. If a gun would be any good, unarmed defense will be just as good. There are no dangerous weapons, there are only dangerous people. That means you, not him. As long as it means him, a gun will not do you any good.

My opinion.

Another opinion, no offense: a dedicated, bigger-than-him boyfriend is the best protection you'll ever have. I do realise there's practical limitations to obtaining said boyfriend.

Walk tall. Speak softly, and carry a big stick. Don't let him get you on the defence (but if you need that advice, it's useless). Don't be a victim. Stand up, and mean it. You can. You will.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[Nightingale 0]

Quote

Getting a gun may be counterproductive. Unless you are proficient with the gun and are prepared to really use it, chances are it will be turned against you. If a gun would be any good, unarmed defense will be just as good. There are no dangerous weapons, there are only dangerous people. That means you, not him. As long as it means him, a gun will not do you any good.
...

I don't want to get this kicked to speaker's corner, but note that I also mentioned training. It's a LOT harder to get proficient at unarmed self defense than it is at armed self defense, particularly for women, who are virtually always going to be smaller and weaker than a man, and we can't count on attackers to be unarmed. That's why we have weapons. I've been doing unarmed self defense for 20 years and armed self defense for about 5. I'm very proficient at hand to hand, and I've used it to save my life before. If I had to do it again, gimme a gun, because even after over ten years of training, that situation was too damn close.

As for the "bigger than him boyfriend", well, a boyfriend can't be with you every second of the day, and a stalker, well, stalks. Eventually, he's going to get you alone and vulnerable, and that's when he's going to make his move. So, unless you're prepared to be with a woman every moment, that really isn't a good option, is it?

[JohanW 0]

Just noticed you (Soulshine) recently moved to Amsterdam. If this is happening here in Holland, forget about the weapon permit. No such thing here.

This also means you're not in America, where I wouldn't know if you ought to go to the local police or the FBI or whatever; in Holland, I could find out what should work best. Or you could pay your friendly wijkagent a visit and take it from there. That's what I would try first.

If you need more help, feel free to PM me.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[shropshire 0]

It doesn't matter where you are - I'd go to the police. It's there job, they have the right tools, contacts etc.. know what they are doing (mostly).

I wouldn't leave this to a bunch of drunken bums on DZ.COM

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[dannydan 5]

freakin creeps!!! Better not be one of "the family" members....

[RhondaLea 4]

You can go to http://www.spamcop.net/anonsignup.shtml and paste in the email (text and headers) to find exactly where it comes from (just don't send the reports). Unfortunately, it is possible that your stalker is using a proxy or a remailer. If so, obtaining an IP address is useless, but remailers will block your address from their servers if you ask. The address to contact the remailer will be in the email headers.

As others have said, you should go to the police. Unless a stalker is totally ham-handed, s/he will be very hard for you to identify on your own.

Here's some helpful information from the US Department of Justice, including a list of online resources (at the end of the page):

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/cyberstalking.htm

Also, if you speak the language (I don't), you can google "cyberstalking" here:

http://www.google.nl/

Hang in there.

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[lippy 918]

Quote

I wouldn't leave this to a bunch of drunken bums on DZ.COM

I'm mostly sober right now

I got nuthin

[ryoder 1,590]

Quote

I wouldn't leave this to a bunch of drunken bums on DZ.COM

I am not drunk!

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[BillyVance 34]

Quote

Quote

I wouldn't leave this to a bunch of drunken bums on DZ.COM

I am not drunk!

Ah! So you're a bum!

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[SuFantasma 0]

An IP address will not yield an answer..... neither will incoming reply-to address nor the server address....

Y yo, pa' vivir con miedo, prefiero morir sonriendo, con el recuerdo vivo".
- Ruben Blades, "Adan Garcia"

[JohnMitchell 16]

Quote

Getting a gun may be counterproductive. Unless you are proficient with the gun and are prepared to really use it, chances are it will be turned against you. If a gun would be any good, unarmed defense will be just as good. There are no dangerous weapons, there are only dangerous people. That means you, not him. As long as it means him, a gun will not do you any good.

My opinion.

carry a big stick.

This might get moved to SC, but you're full of crap. There are plenty of people who can pull the trigger on a gun when they are threatened. That old "taken away and turned against you" tale rarely holds true in real life. I have several friends/coworkers who have defended themselves with firearms. Not one had their weapon "turned against them".

What could you possibly mean by "if any gun would be good, unarmed defense would be just as good"? What color is the sky in your world? A good firearm is the best equalizer between an 120# woman and a 200+# man. Nightingale is quite skilled in self defense, but it's hard to beat a 125 grain hollow point at 1300 fps.

Who in the heck destroyed your brain with all this anti gun hysteria? You say "carry a big stick." Ain't no better stick than a good firearm. My daughters all know how to shoot, how to operate firearms. Don't buy into the anti gun propaganda. They want you to think guns are ineffective. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

Quite sincerely, John

[JohnMitchell 16]

Quote

I am not drunk!

Well . . . I am.

[Amazon 7]

Yo John..


He's a furiner.. in Amsterdam.... that presents a problem with obtaining a suitable bang stick

That is where Pattie is too

[JohnMitchell 16]

Quote

He's a furiner.. in Amsterdam.... that presents a problem with obtaining a suitable bang stick

That is where Pattie is too

Thanks, Amazon. I saw that after I posted. Still, when I've traveled in Europe, I saw plenty of firearms for sale. Heck, in France I saw a .22 rifle with silencer for sale in a shop window. Amazing thing for an American to see. Wish I could have brought it home with me.

Although I can appreciate his different cultural point of view, I still feel it doesn't make his inherently false positions any more true. Sorry.

[JohanW 0]

Being able to buy a firearm does not make it legal to carry it. Being able to pull the trigger does not make the bullet go where you'd like it to.

And, being oceans apart, our outlooks are obviously different.

I believe less than mortal violence would be enough. A can of mace, or a taser, would probably be enough to fight him off. (I have to admit I don't know if either of *those* would be legal to carry here either. But people do, all the time. And they won't get you in as much trouble if you feel you have to use them, and do.)

You seem to be reasoning from a point of view where carrying anything less than the biggest stick you can get is useless.

Different. Not necessarily better, but in this country, you don't have to stay in the car with your hands visible on the wheel when pulled over by a police officer .. very different. And yes, my personal experience with firearms is limited, I may very well harbour a misconception or two about their use. And no, I don't like 'em. Remind me not to stalk your daughters.

Back to the regularly scheduled thread, did OP go to the police yet? Or find out anything useful from the mail headers?

Johan.
I am. I think.

[ryoder 1,590]

Quote

Heck, in France I saw a .22 rifle with silencer for sale in a shop window. Amazing thing for an American to see. Wish I could have brought it home with me.

America; Where you can be arrested if your car is too loud, or your gun is too quiet.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[starkmtn 0]

I'm going to reiterate much of what Nightingale said. A stalker is looking for engagement, and yes, blocking IP's and changing your email address count as engagement. They send the message "I notice you, and I am changing my behaviour on account of yours."

I _highly_ recommend a book called _The Gift of Fear_ by Gavin De Becker. Here's a link:
http://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=the+gift+of+fear

Good luck!

"You guys should just do CRW. There are so many more ways to get killed, it makes a CYPRES seem safe." -Kevin Keenan