Looking for PI recommnedations - need to determine sender of emails

[Lifted]

I'm looking for a PI, on behalf of my employeer, to determine the sender of some emails we have received from an email account at one of the major free email providers.

If anyone has any recommendations please list here, or send a PM. :ninja:

 

[Savatar]

Unless you get incredibly lucky with the IP and happen to find them using the same IP to talk about themselves online (within a reasonable time period), then this may be out of your reach and even out of the reach of most PIs (they're not technically savvy).

Unfortunately, you'd have to get the registration information from their ISP (assuming they didn't use a vpn/proxy to send it - in which case you'd have to request the IPs from each proxy along the way). And most ISPs will not release that information without a court order. You can try contacting their abuse emails with the full email header to see if they can provide the information, but I doubt they will - especially with all the people panicking about privacy now.

Can you paste the full email header here (with the recipient details removed and not the actual contents)?

 

[Lifted]

I have the IP which is useless in this instance. It was sent from an IP that is most likely an AT&T cell phone. A couple of people I spoke with who are former law enforcement felt we may be able to get a non-criminal subpoena depending on the content of the email or the content of future emails if we can manage to coax the sender into providing us with cause for a doe subpoena (in relation to a law suit).

 

[Savatar]

Ok, as a matter of course, I would probably try sending an email to abuse@att.net first (and/or with the email service provider). They may investigate and generate a case number internally that would make it easier for them to comply with law enforcement in the future (and would provide a paper trail). From AT&T's website, it says:

If you are reporting harassment (threats of bodily harm or damage to property), please send an e-mail to abuse@att.net. with the subject line "Harassment" and include full message headers, firewall logs,and any other pertinent details in the body of the e-mail. If you are reporting harassment that suggests threats of bodily harm or damage to property, please take steps to protect yourself and your property by reporting the harassment to your local law enforcement agency. We will investigate your complaint as quickly as possible and, should the need arise, we will fully cooperate with local law enforcement.

Source: http://www.att.com/esupport/postmaster/reporting/

 

[SecurityTheatre]

I'm looking for a PI, on behalf of my employeer, to determine the sender of some emails we have received from an email account at one of the major free email providers.

If anyone has any recommendations please list here, or send a PM. :ninja:

Without a court order (read: without a crime taking place), it is unlikely you will get any IP-> user data. Especially true if you're talking about a cell phone, which is NATed regionally and likely difficult to identify to a specific user, even in the context of a law enforcement request.

To be fair, a good PI might reply with some sort of embedded link or tracking image. This could reveal the identity of the sender, but might be considered hacking, based on the overly broad interpretation of the CFAA that seems to be in common use today, so caveat emptor.