What is an Email Header Comparison?

If you Google Email Header Trace you'll get hundreds of thousands of results. Most of the pages will give you detailed step by step instructions on how to perform an email header trace.Usually in reply to a question about how to identify the sender of an email.

The instructions will tell you how to obtain the headers,do a WHOIS and a DNS lookup and other very interesting technical advice.

Unfortunately all that advice will most likely get you is an ISP and maybe a city from where the email originated.
Even worse I've seen that many of the advice is confusing and you may wind up tracing your own Ip address instead of the senders.

Not to say that header information is useless. In the hands of a trained investigator that is experienced in Internet investigations a header can be very helpful in identifying the sender of an email.

A Header Comparison is when you take the email header from the person you want identified and compare that header to a list of suspects you think may have sent the first email to you anonymously.

A basic header comparison can rule out suspects and narrow down that list. A seasoned professional investigator that has experience in Internet investigations, can perform a more detailed header comparison investigation , using little known methods to determine unique identifying information about the senders and suspects computers. Either clearing them as a suspect or identifying them beyond a doubt.


Ed Opperman is the president of Opperman Investigations.
He is considered as an Email Tracing expert. If you need assistance in dealing with a header comparison you can visit his web site. www.emailrevealer.com.