Can you trace an ip address if they are using a wireless connection that belongs to someone else?

Question

Someone is emailing me from several different yahoo accounts several times a day. They haven't said anything that was threatening yet but it's become bothersome.

Answer 1

Look , if these are YAHOO accounts, report it to YAHOO.
It really doesn't matter the ip that originiated the mail They can indeed take care of the issue.

Answer 2

Okay I'm going to assume you're referring to either a traceroute or whois.

A traceroute (tracert command in Windows) will track every step to an ip address (ie: show you all the hops from source to destination).
A whois (check out www.dnsstuff.com) will show you who an ip address, ip block or internet domain belongs to.

With Wireless connections, be aware of the following:
- They usually belong to a big ISP, so if you have an IP.
- They are usually dynamic which means that the ip address someone is using is likely to change the next time they log on. (ie: the ip address they were using will be given to someone else).
- Wireless connections can appear that they're coming from a different country (per whois) than they actually are. An example of this is Telecom T3G (ie: Mobile Broadband). I'm not too sure if it still does it, but whois attempts on a T3G IP address used to bring up an Amercian Telco and Address. I can't remember who, or if it still does it.
- Some people do travel around connecting to unsecured Wireless networks for free Internet connectivity temporarily.

If you're concerned from a commercial security perspective, it would pay to have lots of info (Firewall logs etc) and provide that to the ISP concerned with a detailed explanation of your concerns. Obviously it is easiest for them to address problems while they are occurring and historical problems may only be resolved if you initiate legal proceedings.

Answer 3

When traced, it will go to the local access point of the internet source. So if it were you using your neighbor's wifi, the trace will go to your neighbor's house.

If you're starting to hack, make sure that you do it with a null pc, no valuable info on it. You may just wind up in a trap, such as JTB's. :) or others....

Answer 4

JTB's answer speaks to the neighbor's side of the router for the wifi connection. From the other side--the Internet side--I think one can only trace back (easily, anyway) to the router itself.

Answer 5

My WiFi net is open.
And i have some programs installed that read packet's from the computer connected to my net.
With that i can get your usernames, passwords, and bank stuff etc.