# Can a Yahoo.com suffixed e-mail be traced to a person or location?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 27, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873 "2003-10-27T17:25:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/1 "2003-10-27T17:25:43Z")
How far can an e-mail address be traced? Can I find the owner of the account? Or where it was sent from?
I recieved a very vague and somewhat scary e-mail from someone that claims to know me personally. Can I find out who this person is before I reply and inadvertantly lead this person on?
It`s a \<[Yahoo.com](http://Yahoo.com)\> suffixed e-mail address.
Oh, and if so, how?
Thanks in advance…
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### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/2 "2003-10-27T17:52:11Z")
How would I do this?
I recieved a strangely vague yet scary e-mail from someone who knows me (some details were given). Yet, I don`t want to respond and lead them on. I would like to find out who this person is though.
The prefix name in the address does not match any names that apparently exist on this planet, so the prefix (ex. =Name@Yahoo.com)
is a fake name. Can I find out who sent this, or where it was sent from?
Thanks in advance…
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### Author:  [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2003, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/3 "2003-10-27T17:54:03Z")
Look in the email headers, and you’ll find the originating IP address in there.
It’ll say somethign like “Received: from 123.45.67.89 by [something.yahoo.com](http://something.yahoo.com)”
and/or “X-Originating-IP: [123.45.67.89]”
You can then take that IP address and put into a reverse lookup site/application, and it will give you information of varying worth. You might try [This Place](http://remote.12dt.com/rns/)
You’ll at least get an ISP, but for very large ISPs, like AOL or Road Runner, that may not be very helpful. Most large ISPs break their DNS hames into regional, so you may see something like [cinci.rr.com](http://cinci.rr.com). Then you know the person is in Cincinnati.
You could then be so devious as to cross reference that IP, or an appropriate range of IPs, with other emails you may have received from people who are suspect. So if you start to think it’s someone you know, and you’ve got other email from that person (even from different email addresses, as long as it was the same computer that sent them), you can feel more confident you’ve narrowed it down.
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### Author:  [@badmana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badmana)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/4 "2003-10-27T17:58:41Z")
Hmm, you can find the IP of the computer which sent the email (is Yahoo internet based only? I’m not sure) and then you could try to resolve the IP and find out which company it came from (as in, if it’s an ISP you know).
The problem is that if it’s not static, you’ll have no way to trace it other than having the IP it had at that time. In order to take it a step further you need to have the police check.
I would assume yahoo keeps track of IPs so check out the properties of the email. It should contain the IP of the sending computer.
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### Author:  [@Church\_Key\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Church_Key_Kid)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/5 "2003-10-27T18:17:07Z")
You could also try browsing to [http://profiles.yahoo.com/name](http://profiles.yahoo.com/name) and see what comes up… like [http://profiles.yahoo.com/whuckfistle](http://profiles.yahoo.com/whuckfistle)
Or try searching Google for both their email address and just the first part of their email address.
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### Author:  [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/6 "2003-10-27T18:17:48Z")
Change your mail options to show **Full Headers**. Try to locate the originating IP address.
Then plug that IP address into [this webpage’s search box](http://www.arin.net/whois/). This will tell you the city and/or ISP where the message came from. Even if it’s Yahoo internet mail, the person had to be conntected to the internet somehow. Even if the message was sent from a public connection (like at a library), you should be able to figure out the city it’s in. If it turns out that the message came from a library connection in, say, Duluth, MN, that should narrow it down for you.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/7 "2003-10-28T05:39:24Z")
The thread was posted twice, so I have merged the two. After a first attempt, please check to see if the thread was posted, even if you get an error message.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
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### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2003, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/8 "2003-10-28T11:39:45Z")
I tried to check.
I re-opened IE, and got back into GQ and didn`t see it on the list of threads (it should have been right there near the top). I assumed the hamsters had lost it at this point.
Thanks for fixing the problem, **bibliophage**.
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### Author:  [@ABBAJen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ABBAJen)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-yahoo-com-suffixed-e-mail-be-traced-to-a-person-or-location/209873/9 "2003-10-28T14:24:59Z")
[http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation](http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation)
If you have an IP address, go here. It is very accurate, I’ve checked mine and some friends and they were right. 🙂