Intruder Alert!
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Rickmansworth
Age: 74
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Intruder Alert!
Anybody out there work for the C.I.A. or G.C.H.Q. ?
I turned on my machine recently and noticed that a couple of emails on the webserver had disappeared - one from somebody to me and the answer from me - gone. Seemed to be a bit fishy so I logged out of one address to look at another and in this one I could literally see the verbage being removed as if being eaten by an invisible caterpillar!
It's rather strange that whoever did this pulled only replies and answers from one person which points to who did it with a big finger but firstly - how?
And secondly is there a definite way of identifying the culprit?
I turned on my machine recently and noticed that a couple of emails on the webserver had disappeared - one from somebody to me and the answer from me - gone. Seemed to be a bit fishy so I logged out of one address to look at another and in this one I could literally see the verbage being removed as if being eaten by an invisible caterpillar!
It's rather strange that whoever did this pulled only replies and answers from one person which points to who did it with a big finger but firstly - how?
And secondly is there a definite way of identifying the culprit?
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Quite possibly! I'm unfortunate enough to have a Tiscali account and it's quite well known that they lost loads of data a while back.
However; this doesn't change my question - is it possible to find the guys that did this?
However; this doesn't change my question - is it possible to find the guys that did this?
Join Date: Dec 2013
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The basic answer to your question is, yes, it can be done.
The bad news is that you are probably not going to be able to do it yourself, or get anyone else to do it for you, unless crime is involved, or large sums of money change hands.
The boring technical details.
The majority of users on the Internet are assigned a dynamic network address from a block of thousands held by their local server. When they log out, the address is reassigned to a new user.
The server address is usually fixed and in certain circumstances particular terminals may have a fixed address. A system administrator would require a fixed address to solve certain network problems. It would be a real pain if every time the system was reset a new dynamic address was assigned to the terminal being used, or one being fixed.
It is relatively straight forward to track a block address back to a particular internet server or service provider. It is a lot harder to identify a particular computer that was assigned a dynamic address within that block.
Think Internet cafe. Easy to identify that a communication came from that block address, but which customers were logged on at that time, and how the heck do you identify them, etc, etc.
It can be done, but even if you do identify a specific computer or terminal being used, it is very difficult to get anyone to take you seriously. In the UK it would probably take a court warrant even to get access to user logs to see who might have been using a given terminal at a certain time.
If it is some random teenager, forget it. If it industrial espionage, the police computer crimes unit might be interested. Otherwise, make use of the security tools available to you, use properly secure random passwords and change them frequently (at least every four weeks).
There are plenty of programs on the Internet that simplify tracing routing connections between computers. They do require a decent level of technical knowledge to use them effectively. They can also be "dual purpose" in the uses to which they can be put, so not necessarily legal. Most of this software runs using the Linux operating system, so a steep learning curve lies ahead if you go down this route. Simply scanning the open ports of certain web addresses can result in an early morning knock on the door. If you use this type of software, you are basically putting yourself in the same category as the malicious computer hackers and could easily face the same penalties. Proceed with extreme caution!
The bad news is that you are probably not going to be able to do it yourself, or get anyone else to do it for you, unless crime is involved, or large sums of money change hands.
The boring technical details.
The majority of users on the Internet are assigned a dynamic network address from a block of thousands held by their local server. When they log out, the address is reassigned to a new user.
The server address is usually fixed and in certain circumstances particular terminals may have a fixed address. A system administrator would require a fixed address to solve certain network problems. It would be a real pain if every time the system was reset a new dynamic address was assigned to the terminal being used, or one being fixed.
It is relatively straight forward to track a block address back to a particular internet server or service provider. It is a lot harder to identify a particular computer that was assigned a dynamic address within that block.
Think Internet cafe. Easy to identify that a communication came from that block address, but which customers were logged on at that time, and how the heck do you identify them, etc, etc.
It can be done, but even if you do identify a specific computer or terminal being used, it is very difficult to get anyone to take you seriously. In the UK it would probably take a court warrant even to get access to user logs to see who might have been using a given terminal at a certain time.
If it is some random teenager, forget it. If it industrial espionage, the police computer crimes unit might be interested. Otherwise, make use of the security tools available to you, use properly secure random passwords and change them frequently (at least every four weeks).
There are plenty of programs on the Internet that simplify tracing routing connections between computers. They do require a decent level of technical knowledge to use them effectively. They can also be "dual purpose" in the uses to which they can be put, so not necessarily legal. Most of this software runs using the Linux operating system, so a steep learning curve lies ahead if you go down this route. Simply scanning the open ports of certain web addresses can result in an early morning knock on the door. If you use this type of software, you are basically putting yourself in the same category as the malicious computer hackers and could easily face the same penalties. Proceed with extreme caution!
