Tracing your location through ip

[legionaire]

To begin with, i know the importance of the ip. But how your location is traced? I'm asking because i connect through a free number of a local ISP without entering my personal details.
Can I still be traced?

[slick8790]

Correct me if i am wrong, but i think you can still be traced. It would kinda go like this:

1. Someone gets your IP and wants to trace you.
2. Trace leads to block of IP's owned by Local ISP
3. The person who wants to trace you calls up Local ISP and asks them to check their logs for what phone number was connected to that IP at so and so time.
4. Local ISP looks at their logs and sees your phone number, and turns it over to the Tracer.
5. Tracer contacts the phone company to see who's number that is.
6. Phone company hands over all you details, and you are officialy traced.

AFAIK, thats how it would work. Hope i helped a little



slick


[edit] of course, the Tracer would have to have some proof you did someting illegal to get past step 2, or Local ISP wont turn over their logs [/edit]

[scriptkiddie18]

lol...correct me if i am wrong but why would they just turn over your info....
isnt it like confidential

/scriptkiddie18

[slick8790]

well, if you read my edit, which i put up before your post, it says

[edit] of course, the Tracer would have to have some proof you did someting illegal to get past step 2, or Local ISP wont turn over their logs [/edit]

[Tiger Shark]

correct me if i am wrong but why would they just turn over your info....

While the big ISP's may just stonewall you..... You'd be really surprised how smaller ISP's can be socially engineered..... Especially really late at night....

[moxnix]

5. Tracer contacts the phone company to see who's number that is.
6. Phone company hands over all you details, and you are officialy traced.

Or/instead...tracer could just enter number directly into google and get a reverse number look up, and skip the hassle with the phone company.

[scriptkiddie18]

While the big ISP's may just stonewall you..... You'd be really surprised how smaller ISP's can be socially engineered..... Especially really late at night....

so that does not include SBC heh cause they are pretty big...but still i think they need a lot of info about me to be able to do that ...but still anything is possible lol

[Cybr1d]

well...CORRECT ME if i'm wrong but, dialing to a ISP (AKA Dial-up), will give you a different IP address and the trace will always be different. Here's something I got from the web which could give you some information:

There are two different types of IP addresses, static and dynamic. Most of the ISP's have a pool of IP addresses from which they assign to users as they sign in. There is no guarantee that you will have the same IP address any time that you dial into your ISP's server. This type of IP address assigning is called dynamic. My ISP did at one time offer a static IP address for an extra $5 per month, but then when they were running out of IP addresses and went to get more from the IP Gods, they were turned down for the reason that the static addresses were wasting IP addresses. In order to please the Gods they sacrificed the static IP program.

Quote taken from: http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials...le.php/1503031 written by, Bob Dromboski.

Happy Holidays


P.S. To answer your question:

http://consumer.net/IPpaper.asp
Copyright 1998 Russ Smith

How Can Users be Traced from their IP Addresses?

Once an IP address is captured several methods can be used to trace the user. These tools can be found at http://Network-Tools.com.

Determine who owns the network. IP addresses are distributed in blocks to network providers or private companies. By searching IP registration databases it is possible to determine who owns an IP address block. Databases are available on the Internet for the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions. Sophisticated computer break-ins sometimes include an attempt to erase the IP addresses captured by the log files to prevent this type of lookup.
Perform a "reverse lookup." This converts the IP address into a computer name [Example: convert 206.156.18.122 into www.consumer.net]. This is used to determine if a computer is part of a registered Internet domain.
Conduct a Traceroute. When information packets travel through the Internet they pass through several computers in a hierarchical fashion. Normally packets pass from the user to their Internet Service Provider (ISP) until it reaches the user's "backbone" provider. It then transfers to the destination "backbone " provider down to the ISP of the destination computer and finally to the intended recipient. It is often possible to determine an approximate physical location of an IP address in this fashion. It is also possible to determine the computer's ISP and/or network provider even if the computer itself is not part of a domain. This is usually how junk e-mail or "spam" is traced.
Review domain registration information via the "WHOIS" databases. Domain registration information is available via the Internet by performing a WHOIS on the domain name portion of the computer name [Example: for www.consumer.net perform WHOIS CONSUMER.NET to obtain the registration information].
Search the Internet for the IP address and/or computer name. It is often possible to find matches from users making public postings on discussion boards or from web sites that leave their log files open to the Internet. Of course, web site owners and/or banner networks could have additional non-public information based on activities at their web sites.
Generally, users who have fixed Internet connections (cable modems, private companies, etc.) have fixed IP addresses. Dial-up Internet providers usually give addresses dynamically from a pool when a user dials in to connect (such as a pool of 100 IP addresses per 800 subscribers).

Internal network procedures also affect the amount of information that can be gleaned from an IP address. If a proxy sits between the users and the Internet all of the users appear to come from one computer. In these cases, users can only traced as far as the proxy unless additional information is known. The computer names can also sometimes be used to gather additional information. One major provider's computer names usually include the nearest big city of the user. Some networks simply use the e-mail address in the computer name [Example: russ.consumer.net has e-mail address russ@consumer.net].

Ambiguities in user identification by IP address are reduced by the use of "Internet cookies." These are text files that gives users a unique identity. Cookies would essentially become unnecessary if everyone had fixed IP addresses.

[slick8790]

maybe i should have been more clear in my first post. that is how i thought that they would trace you if they had evidence a certain IP defaced their website or something. while i understand the dynamic/static stuff, wouldnt the isp just be able to search their logs based on who had that specific ip at the time of the defacement?

[Striek]

Of course they would be able to trace it, provided they keep logs. Many ISP do not keep logs beyond 24 or 48 hours or something like that. Some even make a point of not keeping logs. Bills are before the US senate right now try try to force ISP's to keep logs indefinetely.

But beyond the diffuculty with recovering logs that no longer exist, the release of personal information by an ISP is a violation of privacy rights. This requires a search warrant. Even if it didn't require a search warrant, most ISP's will not givce out this info without one anyway. It's just common sense.

To get a search warrant would require resonable grounds that a crime has been committed or will be committerd and that evidence in light of that crime will be found in the location specified by the search warrant. That's a lot of trouble for the police to go through to get your logs.

So yes, your IP address is traceable this way, but not by you or me, and not without a warrant, and not without a crime. The closest you or I will ever get to tracing an IP address is finding the ISP's abuse hotline.