My laptop was stolen last night. I had Eudora set to automatically check my email, with the password saved (I know, but I had the laptop with me all the time, except for last night when it was stolen from my grandmother’s living room, with people in the house). Tech support said last night that a Comcast user logged in and checked that account. This morning, I’m getting a variety of responses from Earthlink/Mindspring, ranging from “Our email servers don’t keep track of who logged in,” to “We can only tell you that if we’re subpoenaed, for the protection of our users.”
I’m not great with computers, but I remember being able to track my classmates from building to building on campus, just from where they had last checked their email. Am I right that they should be able to tell me the cable address that someone logged into my email from, so I can tell the police? What magic words does one use with an ISP to get someone who remembers when email didn’t mean a web browser and that servers retain info on other computers that connected to them?