IDENTIFICATION REPORT

The Identification Report with the trace analysis results is provided in your web browser window. The report is separated into the sections described below, and may vary depending on the information available for the entity (or ‘target’) you have traced.

Identification and Registration Summary

The top section of the report summarizes the primary trace results: the IP address and estimated location, registration information for the target's domain (if any), and the network provider, or ISP, providing Internet service for the target.

Estimated location: The geographical location is a key piece of information for identifying fraudsters, hackers and the like. If an email message, website or IP address is located in a country or region different from what you expect, and/or from a country known for high fraud rates, the intentions of the target could well be sinister.

The trace results check the known locations of servers near the target, and reports the known location when available. If not available, the location of the target's ISP is provided, which is usually in the same country as the target, but may not be in the same city.

Network Contact Information: The network owner, or ISP, providing Internet access for an IP address or web site, is the company responsible for reviewing and taking action on abuse reports. In addition, ISPs are normally located in the same area or region as their users, so the location of the network provider is often a good estimation of the end-user location.

Domain Contact Information: A domain is the name registered by a company, organization or individual that is used for web site or email adresses, such as ‘visualware.com’. The domain registration provides details about who has registered a web site address, helpful information for verifying a web site owner.

Additional identification details are provided when available, including the time zone, the type of Internet applications running on the target system, and copyright information from the target system web page.

In-depth information about an email

This section is reported when tracing an email message you have received (details), and includes helpful information for identifying the sender of an email message, and/or evaluating the validity of an email message.

The in-depth details include the IP address of the computer where the email message orignate, the email address and other pieces of information that may be helpful in identifying the sender or the sender's intent. For example, a common trick deployed by the originators of email abuse (such as spam, phishing and virus emails) is to insert false headers into the email in an attempt to hide the source of the message. The real headers and false headers get muddled together, creating a sort of ‘digital smoke screen’ so it is difficult to know which header is the originating header. This process of trying to hide the originator is an illegal act called misdirection. eMailTrackerPro sees through this technique, identifies which headers are real and false, and reports the act of misdirection. You can be sure that any email with misdirection should not be trusted.

The in-depth details also reports the computer name when available, which is another important clue to the target's identity as it is common for computer owners to use their own name or online alias for their computer name.

Route Map

The map section of the report shows the Internet route between your location and the target being traced.

A solid line represents a known location in the Visualware database, and a dotted line represents an estimated location which is derived from the registration details for the target's ISP. The Internet route is an important piece of evidence when tracking a target's location as it represents a trail to the destination. While the estimated location is usually correct at a country level, any city locations identified as 'known' that are close to the target destination further help to qualify the target's physical location at the city level.

Route Table

The route table shows each segment, or network ‘hop’ of the the Internet route between your location and the target being traced. While both the Route Map and Route Table show the Internet route, the Route Table provides more detail that can be examined for clues to the target's location.

Locations in bold are known locations that have been identified by the Visualware IP location database. Locations in parentheses are estimated locations that are derived from registration databases. While estimated locations are usually correct at the country level, any known locations that appear in the last 2 or 3 rows are a good indicator of the target's physical city location. For example, in the route table above the target is likely to be located in the Burbank, CA, USA or nearby surrounding area.

Further Network Details

This sections provides the complete registration information for the target's ISP and domain (when available).

While the Network and Domain Owner details are summarized in the top summary section of the Identification Report, the complete registration records are provided in this section as they often contain additional contact information that may be helpful in tracking and reporting a target.

Analysis of the System's Applications

This section provides a report detailing any Internet services that may be running on the target computer being traced.

The type of applications running on a target system is useful information as it can provide insight into the ownership and geographical location of the target. The most common applications on the Internet are web servers (websites, HTTP), mail servers (email, SMTP) and file transfer servers (file downloads, FTP). As an example, web server applications (such as www.visualware.com) are particularly useful because web pages along the lines of ‘contact us’ often exist to provide details such as names, phone numbers and other contact related information.