Email Header Trace- Some Interesting Facts

If you want to identify the origins of a suspicious or questionable email then employing an email header trace is the best method to find the suspects. Using an email header trace, you can screen an incoming email, find out the information regarding the header, scrutinize it thoroughly and locate the origin of the email.

In the frequent questions on finding the sender of a particular email, the common answer you get is to trace the header to find the sender identity. But with the help of the header trace you can get only the sender's ISP which is not sufficient enough to identify the sender. In case of the presence of a civil litigation case, a subpoena duces tucem (which is an order for the witness to produce the related documents) is issued to the ISP. The records and other information in custody of the ISP regarding the sender will be submitted. If it is a criminal case, a search warrant can be issued by the court to the ISP.

In the absence of a pending civil or criminal case, it is quite difficult to trace the sender even if the recipient identifies the email origin using a header trace. With neither a warrant nor a subpoena it is impossible to find out about the sender. But when you are equipped with an email header comparison tool along with the header trace, the identity can be found easily.

For instance if the sender of the suspicious mail is your ex girlfriend , boyfriend or partner and you suspect them, an experienced investigator specializing in the email header trace can very easily find the suspect by comparing the header with that of the suspect. If both headers point to the same computer you can confirm the suspect. Thus with an email header comparison you can rule out or confirm the suspect and if an expert is involved in the investigation then more information can be garnered about the sender like the browser, MAC ID and the operating system used by the sender.

Thus a thorough comparison performed on the email will either rule out the possibility of the suspect or incriminate him. While hiring an investigator, make sure you check their qualification. You can check this out online by doing a Google search and find if they are experienced professionals in the field of email header tracing. A good investigator will do a thorough job of the concerned investigation, taking every little point related to the case into consideration and provide you with much more information than you had required, at the start of the investigation.