Mystery URL

This may get me flamed, but here goes. We have a senior employee at our company (A director no less), who also has his own company. This other company may be in direct competition with our own and as a result he won't let us know the URL for it. I know he has a website because he boasts about the number of unique user sessions he gets every week.

I know his companys trading name, the industry he works in and his full name. I've even checked with Companies House and found the trading address. However, I can't find his web site. I have no intention of hacking it, such knowledge is beyond me, but I would like to find this web site (Along with several other senior employees).

Is there some way of doing a reverse URL search ie, finding out what who owns, as opposed to who owns what? This may only be relevant to UK AO ers. This has his own server and rents space to other people rather than having a shared server package. The server is not on his own premises but housed but a hosting company.

If you can find one record of a domain he owns, you can use Network Solutions whois and run a search based on his NIC Handle.

if you have access to his computer look through his history.
use google and search for the trading name and other info.

Thanx jezter6, I have a record of one domain name that he hosts (I did some development work on it), but I don't think he owns it. I have also found the primary and secondary domain servers relevant to that URL but don't know where to go from there.

Cheers casper3699, I have tried the latter, but will also try the former. I have also tried key word searches, because he's alsways going on about how far up the Search Engine listings his site is. He has outworkers dealing with enquiries for him. so this makes thing a little bit more hit and miss.

If he hosts it, then chances are the DNS entries in the NSI whois will be his. Do a search inside NSI on those and see what you can come up with.

Also, try typing those DNS entries into your browser and see if they come up with anything. Who knows, you might get lucky and find a domain sitting on one of them.

If you feel like PM'ing me, I'll see what I can dig up for you. Otherwise, have fun. :)

if all else fails, why not call them up or give them a visit and ask a receptionist, administrative assistant, operator, etc. for generic information (investor relations, directions, offices,....url....etc.).

The guy is just a big talker. He probably doesn't have
a web site. If he did, he would be doing his best to advertise
it, not hide it.
:cool:

For example The Redhead Software Page
:cool:

i gotta agree with rcgreen...why would he want to hide it..unless hes doing something wrong...call him on it ;)

I've checked through the guys history, which he's set to clear every day. I could try resetting it and hope he doesn't notice though. In his favourites folder, there are links to his stats page but of course I'd have to have a username and password for that, although I think I have his dedicated server id. No, I think he is genuine about having another company. I'm just trying to find the URL by stealth means rather than coming into work at the weekend to have a good old dig around. I suspect that most of the time, he uploads stuff from home. To prove a point perhaps, he's just told me that he's paid £4000 for ColdFusion: he can barely use Front Page!

two or three things you could check...:
--IF AND ONLY IF YOU ARE THE SYSADMIN AND/OR AUTHORIZED TO DO SO---
1- Check the recent thread about "The really hidden files"... it mentions IE's hidden log of visited urls..
2- Sniff the network while he browses or check the firewall active states
3- If using a proxy, check the logs of visited sites....

Ammo

If you are the admin, or have the permission of the admin, install a keylogger. Odds are he is manually entering the URL in his browser. With a keylogger, you can see everything he types in the course of a day.

A number of firewalls have some basic reporting tools in them. Included should be something that reports on summary and/or detail of web addresses visited. That report can usually be filtered by IP.

Try that.

Thanks for all the suggestions ammo and everyone else. I do look after the network, although in an unpaid capacity. I'd have to get senior director approval really.