Anonymous email - Sky please explain!

[DavidEngland99]

In a recent post Sky said that no email is really anonymous - even a HOTMAIL address. Assuming a HOTMAIL (or similar) email address is set up with a phoney name and address, the only way in which it could be associated with a named person would seem to be if the ISP keeps lists of who is logged in and how they connect to their email.

Obviously, we are not talking about what the secret service might manage to do, but is there REALLY a way to find out who owns a HOTMAIL account? I mean, many people are concerned to protect their privacy and avoid possible embarrassment. Sky, can you elaborate on this a bit!

David

[bloom061604]

Not to butt in, but since Sky hasn't responded, until he does I'll give you my understanding of how it works. I believe when you log onto Hotmail (or Yahoo or any other service) your IP address can be seen on their server. This can be traced to your ISP and ultimately to you. Unfortunately, no one is truly anonymous on the Internet, except spammers, who are expert in evasive tactics.

—Bloom

[DavidEngland99]

Hi Bloom,

Thanks for your reply - perhaps Sky does not want to discuss this! The point is, I thought only the police or security services could obtain the logs from the ISP's that would tie up the date/time when an IP was in use. Obviously anyone with a fixed IP (broadband) would be a bit more vulnerable - but even though I hope HOTMAIL does not give that information out to just anybody. OK, we all know Sky is somebody important - but can he do that?

David

[bloom061604]

I would like to hear Sky's take on this, since I'm in no way an expert on the matter. My guess is an attempt to trace you would be launched only if there was a complaint about some sort of Internet misconduct.

—Bloom

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to hear Sky's take on this, since I'm in no way an expert on the matter. My guess is an attempt to trace you would be launched only if there was a complaint about some sort of Internet misconduct.

That's the only way it can happen since ISPs won't release your details without a warrant.



IP addresses work something like this:

Your ISP allocates an address which is unique to your computer at that point in time. Without them, the Internet wouldn't work because without addresses you wouldn't be able to find anything.

Whenever you connect to another computer on the Internet (to get a web page, ftp, email, usenet, IM, gopher, anything), that computer gets to know your IP address. Again, without this nothing would work (the other computer wouldn't know where to send stuff back to).

To put things into perspective, when you connect to somewhere, your IP address doesn't exactly appear in big flashing red numbers on their screen - instead it gets stored in a log file or a database along with the addresses of every other person who's connected since the file was last cleared. So to get your individual IP address, the owner of a site would have to pick through a file (which will probably be huge) to find it. It would probably take ages.

So what can you do with an IP address once you've got it? Not much, really. You can find out the name of a person's ISP, country and sometimes the region of that country they're likely to be in although it's not always right.

And that's it. You can report that person to their ISP and if they've done something criminal, things may go further - but only with a warrant will they reveal your real-life street address or phone number (and only to law-enforcement agencies - not to webmasters!).

Nothing to be scared of really.

(Incidentally, posting on forums is slightly different - they store IP addresses in a way that's much easier to access but they're only visible to the board's admin)

[Warm Lemonade]

That's the only way it can happen since ISPs won't release your details without a warrant.

That's a nice theory, but not always the case. Some ISPs, AOL in particular, have been known to release personal information following a simple request from law enforcement. That's a clear violation of the American system of checks and balances, and of your privacy, but does your ISP care? Of course not. They just want to be seen as cooperating with law enforcement.

Anonymity on the internet is an illusion. Just ask the people that thought they were anonymously trading MP3s. In those cases, the ISPs werent even approached by law enforcement, a letter from an RIAA attorney was all the ISPs needed to turn over personal information.