Can An Email From a Library Or Public Computer Still Be Traced?

As a private investigator that specializes in email investigations and tracing emails to locate and or identify the sender, I am often asked about public computers. What if the email was sent from a library or Internet cafe? Can it still be traced? Can the sender be identified? The short answer is that yes it is possible.

If you do a Google search of "How to trace an email" you will find several hundred well meaning people instructing you to first locate the headers from the incoming email, obtain the senders IP address and use an IP look up tool or Whois to trace that IP address to an Internet service Provider. These are wonderful instructions if you want to find out if the sender has DLS or cable but not much good for anything else. In some cases it maybe a local or regional ISP and that may give you a city or state the sender may have been in when he sent the email but not much else. When most people ask , how to trace an email what they really want is the name and address of the person behind the email address. This can be accomplished even if the person sent the email from a library or public computer.

The first step in this investigation is a database search to see if the email account was set up for the purpose of sending that one email or if it's an email account that has been in general use for awhile. You might get lucky and get a name right way but in most cases you won't. The person that sent the email set up a fake email account just for the purpose of sending you that one mysterious email.

So let's examine the headers and see what we get. First we will take the IP address and use a geo tracking tool to find the geographic location from where the email was sent. Next we'll use a Whois tool to find the name of the ISP. We may find out the IP traces to a public library, It will indicate the City of "blank". Some investigators like myself will maintain a database of IP addresses that are in use at public locations. This would make this part of the investigation much simpler and an address can be obtained right away. Once you have the location of the library you have to evaluate the seriousness of the investigation. If there is a crime or litigation a court order can be obtained and served on the library. Any time a person uses a computer at a library their library card number is logged in the computer and a usage history is recorded and maintained at the library.This information can reveal the name and address of the person using the computer at the time the email was sent.

But what if you can't get a court order? What if a fake or stolen ID was used to obtain the library card? Can we still find them? Yes! There is a whole other avenue of email investigation that you will seldom see described online. Because most people are simply unaware of the possibilities in tracing emails. Besides examining the incoming information from an email you can also send an email to that email address and obtain identifying information about the computer that opens the email. The email may have been sent from a public computer but when a trained investigator replies to that email it may be opened at the senders home or work place . This could reveal a wealth of information about that person, such as name , address , phone number and occupation.

So just because an email was sent from a library or public Internet cafe does not mean that the sender of that email cannot be traced back and identified. There are literally dozens of other methods not listed in this article that an investigator will use to identify that person.

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