Ask HN: tracking a criminal down electronically
Recently a rogue real estate broker defrauded me of $2000, which to me is a decent sum of money. I reported the matter to the authorities; however, they are having issues tracking the guy down physically because they are using fairly outdated methods (Visiting everyone in the neighborhood to ask if they've seen him lately? Come on, what is this, 1980?)
Anyway - I know the e-mail address that the guy uses. I know the phone number that he uses. All of that stuff leaves an electronic trail that is, in the end, traceable to a physical location. Anyone have experience with how to do this, correctly and legally?
17 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 44.8 ms ] threadAnyways post up the info and I'll see if I can find him. There is pretty much 10 or so steps to go through to see if there is info about the guy online
Basically your goal is to use the small pieces of information that you have and piecing that together to find additional info. Finding a person's blog, or a forum username is a goldmine.
It varies with what information you already have. If all you have is a phone #, there is basically just 3 steps:
1. Check Google looking for (###) ###-####, ###-###-####
2. Do a reverse lookup on whitepages.org
3. Use one of the people search websites like pipl.com
Although phone # is usually something you don't have. In fact you are pretty much at the point where its time to trick the guy into revealing more info. Simply have a friend call him up, saying that he is looking for a real estate broker, and setup a meeting at the guy's offices. For a new client, the guy will give up all the information that you'll need.
If all of that fails, try this. Set up a webserver for which you have complete logging. Then, send the guy an email from a different account with a link. If somehow you can get him to visit your webserver, you can log his IP address. This is completely legal and there's not even anything that underhanded about it. You just need to get him to visit a webpage on your server. The IP address will give you an ISP and a general location. Armed with this data, you should have no trouble.
EDIT: For those that are suggesting he post the info, I strongly advise against it. Also, why would you track down someone when you don't even know the truthfulness of the original poster's story? I don't believe he's lying, but that doesn't mean I would get personally involved. There is a big difference between giving general advice and actually carrying out the action yourself. Further, HN doesn't need to follow the type of witchhunt behaviour that often happens on other sites like Reddit.
Unfortunately, its rather easy to get beyond the range any realistic, legal tracking can be done. Your best bet of finally tracking the person down is to go by the phone number, but that will likely (if he knows what he's doing) be a pre-paid phone with fake information that has no way to be traced back to him (other than rough estimates of location, and the phone companies are unlikely to release that kind of information).
Its really unfortunate that most of cyber-forensics relies on analysis of computer systems to prove that a person did something, rather than finding and tracking down who did it.
With all that said, the good news is that a few Google searches may turn up some useful information. Google the phone number, email and name, maybe you'll get lucky and either find the person bragging about it, or someone else in the same situation.
Or...
You could post what you know up here and round up an HN posse.
Edit: That last line is sarcasm. Don't really do that.
No, there are so many things wrong with that idea. Leave that stuff to Reddit and 4Chan. There's nothing wrong with giving general advice, but there's no reason to drag the HN name into an issue like this.
Frankly, this type of thing is a lot harder than it seems. Although, law enforcement should be able to run his social security and credit card numbers to find him. Once he settles somewhere and his new info has time to get into the "system" it will be easier for you to find him.
If they won't do that, do it yourself. The easy way is to just do a reverse phone number look up. I found a site that will do single lookup for around $15. It may not be accurate, but that is relatively inexpensive. But I don't see why the police would not have already done this if possible.
Address lookup: http://www.numberinvestigator.com/
Otherwise, you will probably need a court order, but I don't believe that should be too hard to get.It sounds like the amount might be small enough to be handled by small claims court. So just file a case yourself. I don't think he actually needs to get served, you just have to make a reasonable effort. Since you can't get his address, I'd hire a process server, or just try to contact him through all means possible.. If the judge won't accept your efforts to serve him, I think you could reasonably subpoena the phone company for his address. If he doesn't show up, you will easily win, and I am sure you can obtain his address through a court order for collection purposes.
Of course I am not a lawyer, so I might be totally wrong in what I suggest.
How to file a case in small claims:http://consumerist.com/consumer/small-claims-court/how-to-ta...