any Mac Programs to get IP from email address???

[jaesk8er]

I was wondering if any one knew of a program that I could type in a persons email address and get there ip and then get a Geo. location. I know there is one on Window'z.
I wan't to see the person that is tring to buy a rolex watch from my parents is realy from the state that they say that they are in.
So if any one has any idea's or knows of any programs???

 

[Lanbrown]

You can't get the location of someone from their e-mail address. The server that handles the e-mail could be in a different state then where I'm at. You are probably thinking of the hostname. This is a name that is assigned by the ISP and is unique, but can be changed. This typically is more geographically driven, but not always.

 

[spav]

You should be able to pull the originating IP address from the headers. Looks like "recevieved by smtp.something.com or mail.something.com"

That is of course if their IP is legitimate and they're not spoofing.

 

[tomf87]

Originally posted by spav
You should be able to pull the originating IP address from the headers. Looks like "recevieved by smtp.something.com or mail.something.com"

That is of course if their IP is legitimate and they're not spoofing.

Most users do not run email servers at home. They use their ISP's email servers, and locating that IP would only result in locating the ISP's data center, not the user.

 

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by tomf87
Most users do not run email servers at home. They use their ISP's email servers, and locating that IP would only result in locating the ISP's data center, not the user.

Even if you just send your mail using a mail client from home. The SMTP transaction from your home IP to the IP of your ISP's mailserver will be the first entry in the email headers.

After that (or more correctly above that, because every mailserver adds his own text to the top of the message headers) will be the transaction where the mailserver drops the mail at the mailserver that he found resolving the DNS MX records for the domain the mail was sent to.

Mail sent from Hotmail always contains an extra header called "originating-ip" that is the ip-address of the machine the mail was sent from. This is added because mail from Hotmail (or any other webmail service) will not contain the first "hop" from client to mailserver, because it's the webmailserver that is actually sending the message in the first place. You are only talking to the webserver.

 

[Lanbrown]

That does not necessarily mean you can find what state they are in. If it was dial-up you probably could. Broadband is a hit or miss.