How To Bait And Catch The Anonymous Person Harassing You On The Internet

By Author: dav web
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The IP address alone will not lead you to the troll’s address in all cases,” says Bopp in an email. “But it will narrow the location down and using cross-referencing and further research, it is very much feasible to create a profile, extract a name and a location.”

This technique is far easier than the other option: suing your John Doe and going to court to get Internet companies to help you identify him or her. Back in 2010, model-turned-business consultant Carla Franklin was upset by nasty comments about her on YouTube that came, she said, from someone stalking her. A judge ordered Google to hand over the IP addresses behind the nasty comments. Now, two years later, she is finally unmasking the tormenter: Chico Moss, 34, who she is suing for stalking, harassment, invasion of privacy, defamation, and identity theft, among other claims.

These were the steps she had to pursue to go after her online harasser. Franklin described by email the two-year-long process involved in outing (and suing) her troll:

Obtain the IP and e-mail account information (which cannot be faked) through court order:
...
... Google (like any only service, i.e. Yahoo, Reddit, etc) only has access to IP addresses, e-mail accounts (for confirmation), and user name (which can be faked). There were 2 distinct IP addresses
After I won my order against Google, I received the IP and e-mail account information from the company in October 2010.
I did some investigative work and discovered that the internet service providers (ISPs) were 1) Earthlink-home ISP and 2) Wholesale internet – a reseller to the financial services community. So, I knew that my stalker committed the crimes from home and work.
Obtain the home and office address from the ISPs that own the IP addresses:
Through another court order (that I brought by myself), in February of 2012, I subpoenaed Earthlink and Wholesale Internet for the physical street addresses the and client names that were associated with the IP addresses in question (see Exhibit C). My subpoenas and court order did not contain the name of the person that I suspected of stalking me, only the IP addresses associated with each ISP.
I had each company served by process. They had roughly 20 days to respond, I believe.
Wholesale internet contacted Palisade Capital Management and told them that they received a court order regarding a John Doe who was stalking and harassing me, and the IP address linked back to their offices. Palisade’s IT team investigated further and found that the IP address for the date in question linked back to the computer of Chico Shon Moss, a VP of Private Equity there and the man I suspected of stalking me.
Earthlink owned the other IP address, and sent notice to the home address of the account holder associated with that IP address that I had a court order to obtain his true name and address because the IP address had been used to commit a cybercrime. The account was none other than Chico Shon Moss, again.

As you can see, the court route is more arduous. Of course, if you have plans to press charges against your troll — or sue him or her — you may need to take the more laborious route to get the evidence to stand up in court.

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