obtaining the name that goes with an IP address

Apologies if this has been covered before. What does it take to get an ISP to release a name that goes with an IP address? Does it require a warrant or is a subpoena enough? I'm not talking about an instance of national security where NSA is involved or anything, just a situation that might involve a hobbyist and LE.

My experience is there's no such thing as one answer. Some ISPs (and websites) will release account holder identity information in response to a simple request, while others will ignore subpoenas and warrants. Moreover, the chance of disclosure is greater if it's a law enforcement agency making the request, and less if the target has an aggressive lawyer to battle warrants and subpoenas. So the practical answer is: It depends on the particular circumstances of the particular case.

Add on to Jon's correct answer of no such thing as a single answer.
Most, if not all, ISPs have policies and request procedures on the matter, which policies can be different, and which are almost always posted .
Thus, you may be able to look up your specific ISPs procedures/policies.
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Keep in mind, it is easy to buy a used computer off of craigslist with cash and find creative ways of attaching various names, addresses and contact info to your new computer.

you didn't state why you wanted it. Are you getting spammed or a DDOS attack? If so, you can report that to the ISP and they will normally look into it and shut down the user. That doesn't mean he won't be back up and running in 5 minutes though. Depending on what they are doing, they might be able to just hook up at McD's or a Starbucks and you aren't going to get that shut down.

I know as an IPP, if I get reports of any of my clients spamming, I will look into it and if it is actually the customer spamming, I will shut them down because my upstream providers will cut my feed if I don't and that will affect all of my customers.

Redor:
The op was looking for the customers billing name out of the telco billing system that's for the Telcos ip address that the customer has.

It was more a question asked out of paranoia than practicality. I have no need to find anyone's name from their IP address. I was just curious as to how much trouble LE would have obtaining a name that goes with an IP address.

For example, an escort's website is taken over for purposes of entrapment, and the IP address of visitors are logged somewhere by the host. Someone then knows that a person is a customer of AT&T. What would it take to get AT&T to release the billing name and address? Would it require a warrant or just an LE request for cooperation?

I do realize that the whole situation described above is not all that likely unless it was a felony investigation, but I was just curious about how willingly an ISP would turn over customer info.

Stop engaging in pointless mental masturbation. Instead, call a hooker and engage in actual masturbation.

Besides, I already answered your question. You could come up with a gazillion ridiculous hypos and my answer would stay the same.

It was more a question asked out of paranoia than practicality. I have no need to find anyone's name from their IP address. I was just curious as to how much trouble LE would have obtaining a name that goes with an IP address.

For example, an escort's website is taken over for purposes of entrapment, and the IP address of visitors are logged somewhere by the host. Someone then knows that a person is a customer of AT&T. What would it take to get AT&T to release the billing name and address? Would it require a warrant or just an LE request for cooperation?

I do realize that the whole situation described above is not all that likely unless it was a felony investigation, but I was just curious about how willingly an ISP would turn over customer info. Originally Posted by willro

1st you are assuming the site logs IP address's that log into it. Some do, some don't. It depends on the server the site is run on.

IP address's are usually dynamic aka they change when your modem connects each time (broadband modems that stay connected have a 1 week DHCP lease but usually get the same IP when it requests an IP after a release)

Tracking IP address's is fairly useless if the hobbyist uses a public WIFI that has no sign on page. Yes they can track the IP to the coffee house but that is as far as it goes.

What would it take for a site to turn over the records? Having worked for a very large web hosting company, usually a LEGAL request outlining what they were searching for in specifics. No fishing trips here.

All of the above focuses on ISP data....

Do not overlook the many e-mail hosts out there who also will release data to LE in many instances. will

Allo websites, e-mail hosting services and ISPs will, somewhere on their own website, post a TOS (terms of service) outlining policies and procedures; usually also a "Legal" notice to law enforcement regarding data release to LE.

= = = = =

fwiw, I have personal knowledge of LE requesting and obtaining users' data when investigating serious criminal acts, such as homicide, child pornography and the like. My personal assumption (always risky) is that hobbying appears for the most part to be very low on the LE to-do list in relation to all the other tasks.

If anonymity is what you are looking for consider something like: https://www.torproject.org/

Basically, it tunnels your traffic through a network so that it appears to come from random points around the internet. Masking the original source. Sufficient to prevent local LE from figuring you out.

There is another way to get around this. Pay for a secure VPN service that is using an anonymous proxy. The traffic is encrypted, it will appear to come from an IP in Turkey or where ever you choose. You may have a little slower browsing, but there are very, very few LE departments that have the resources to look into this. Its basically like the tor network someone mentioned.

1st you are assuming the site logs IP address's that log into it. Some do, some don't. It depends on the server the site is run on.

IP address's are usually dynamic aka they change when your modem connects each time (broadband modems that stay connected have a 1 week DHCP lease but usually get the same IP when it requests an IP after a release. Originally Posted by Mr. GPop

Technical correction: under the DHCP protocol, the server sets a release timestamp, aka ownership length, and normally, the client will issue a renewal request at about the halfway mark to the timestamp. This allows an always-on device to keep the IP address indefinitely. And often, on a reset or reconnect, the server will re-assign the last address used by the device if it is available, though I have seen resets get new addresses. Also, there is a release protocol where the client can specifically release the granted IP address at any time, and some devices do so as part of their shutdown protocol. Finally, the lifetime of the address is configurable, so wifi hotspots will often set it very short to recover addresses soon after the user departs.

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