Re: How does Password Recovery work on a Website?

From: Barry Margolin (barmar_at_alum.mit.edu)
Date: 03/18/04 

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 01:04:35 -0500

In article <c3apkj$6lo$1@mawar.singnet.com.sg>,
 "Jimmy Hsu" <hotjava@singnet.com.sg> wrote:

> Perhaps, let me re-phrase my question. We often read in the press about
> guys who create a fictitious account (username) using Yahoo or Hotmail, and
> then from there send out porno or defamatory materials to their enemies.
> Some recipients of these offensive material can file a police report against
> the ISP, and somehow from there, the ISP can track the culprit down.
> I'm sure you must have read about these in the press occasionally.
>
> I'm sure the culprit wouldn't leave his real email address when
> creating/registering the fictitious Yahoo or Hotmail account.

Cases like this generally involve human investigation.

Yahoo's web server log contains the IP address of the browser that was
used to send out the mail, and the time that it took place. From the IP
address they can find out the user's ISP. The ISP can look in their
logs to see which customer the IP was assigned to at that time, and they
can pass this on to law enforcement.

It's totally unrelated to how a web site sends routine mail to you. The
above type of investigation is only feasible when you're trying to track
down a specific user. There's no way that a web site would have their
employees try to do it for everyone who establishes an account. Even if
they wanted to, most ISPs will refuse to pass on the customer
information without a court order. 

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

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