finding out isps and addresses

hi
this may be a stupid question but i'm still going to ask it.
I really need to know what exactly is possible to find out, simply from an email header, if the email is from yahoo.
Is it possible, for instance, to find out someones ISP, if so, can they then figure out where you are geographically (even vaguely)

This is very important, so any response would be appreciated alot. I remember when the whole SERPO thing was going on and people were analysing email headers, so thats where this comes from.

I am currently about to start something (would rather not say here, but if you wish to know, send me a U2U)...and it is essential that i protect my identity

thanks

[edit on 17-9-2006 by geek101]

this is really important guys....please help me out here

There are many free websites out there where all you have to do is enter the IP and you'll get oodles of info about it. Simply Google"IP trace" and you'll get a dozen possibilities. I use this one, VisualRoute IP Tracing, When I'm playin with the 419 scammers.

[edit on 17-9-2006 by Tiloke]

damn....so it IS possible to find out where someone is, just from email headers?

they wouldnt be able to find out exactly where you live, would they?

My first thought is "What on earth has this guy done that he's so worried about his email being traced?"

I don't' think you have too much to worry about. You can narrow the sender down to a state, county, and maybe a town if you're lucky. Unless you have a static business ip address it's going to be impossible to find out who you are. The only hope someone has is to track it down to an Internet Service Provider( ISP such as Yahoo or SBC) and beg for your address. Your ISP is the only one that would truly know the address where you sent an email from. In most cases you can only get that information when you pry the information from their cold dead hands. The RIAA goes through this all the time trying to find out who is sharing files. If they don't have a court order, they're out of luck.

In short, unless you do something illegal you're in the clear. That email of love you wrote to your secret crush can't be traced back to you.

Here are some helpful hints to start getting you information from email senders>

If you have yahoo/sbc-ATT email accounts:

Open an email, on the bottom right cornor there is a clickable link that says "Brief Headers", right click that and it will become Full Headers showing a lot of detailed info for tracking.

In Hotmail accounts: open an email and click on "view email message source"

mr monsoon....thanks alot for that

dbates....lol.....first, i'm not a guy. Secondly, i know it all sounds cloak and dagger stuff, but as i said, i am starting something up, and i would prefer to remain anonymous.

(have ALWAYS wanted to use that dancing banana)

If you have an IP address you can just use nslookup or a similar to see if it has a domain name associated with it. Alternatively you can try to look it up in the ICANN.

Originally posted by geek101
Is it possible, for instance, to find out someones ISP, if so, can they then figure out where you are geographically (even vaguely)

When you send an email, you are saying 'this is my real name, this is my real street address".

nygdan.....i created a yahoo account with fake postcode and fake name. So in other words...that email cannot be traced back to me....right?

i am trying my best to understand this, honestly.....the way i see it so far...you can trace an isp address, but only to a vague geographical location. And email headers....i dont know...i couldnt see anything in there that i could trace via.

dbates said that it is impossible to track you down unless someone gets it from your ISP. So unless i want to get REALLY paranoid and think that they could do that...i should just calm down...lol

thank you everyone for your help :-)

IP information goes out on email headers (its also broadcast whenever a person is connected to the internet). IP information is associated with your name, home address, etc. That association is kept by your service providers, and, as Dbates says, it should require contacting the service provider company, and they'll tend to only give that information out to the government in police matters (or at the hint of a request, like with AT&T and others in the recent wiretapping debacle).

I won't pretend to understand most of this stuff, but, for my self, if I wanted to prevent an average person resolving my IP to my address from emails and 'hits' on any of their websites, I wouldn't really worry. BUT, if I had done something that might really tick off some violent yahoos, like told off the KKK or something like that, I'd be more wary of not taking another level of precaution. I am pretty sure that there are services on the internet that will provide a good way to keep your IP out of any emails that you send, that reroute it in some way or another. That might be worthwhile.