wwp8

is it possible to locate the contact details from an email address (from isp)
and the ip address

rich101

To determine the IP address from an email i.e. MeAndYou@cnn.com, use nslookup (command line) or www.demon.net/external and that will give you the IP address of the MX record for the domain as below -

host -t mx cnn.com.
The MX (Mail eXchange) records control which hosts to send mail for this domain to. If there are no MX records, mail may only be used for sub-domains or individual hosts, or may not be used at all. For instance, there are no MX records for the domain ".com"

cnn.com mail is handled (pri=20) by atlmail2.turner.com
cnn.com mail is handled (pri=30) by nymail1.turner.com
cnn.com mail is handled (pri=5) by atlmail3.turner.com
cnn.com mail is handled (pri=10) by atlmail1.turner.com
cnn.com mail is handled (pri=10) by atlmail4.turner.com

You can then simply resolve the IP address of one/all the mail servers and tracert or otherwise to determine the geographical location.

Hope this helps, but please no stalking

rich

stevencotton

IP addresses don't always show the correct location geographically, consider AOL users in the UK that appear to be from the US as one example of many.

rich101

Steve,

Quite correct.

A lot of companies use a global SMTP gateway MailSweeper etc.. so that will cloak the origin as you stated

Sometimes the smtp message header can help, assuming it has not been spoofed ! Easily done

rich