A Computer Question

[maggieaxid]

I have a computer question for all you computer literate people. I am involved in a ID theft thing (ie my ex tried to open credit cards in my name and actually charged a lot of shit on one of them) and the police are involved. However, the officer kept talking about getting the ISP records from the provider.

Now can someone explain to me what an ISP address is? (i am blonde, so please explain in blonde terms!)

[chideltjen]

An ISP is an internet service provider... AOL is an ISP, etc

The officer may want an IP ADDRESS. And IP address is the location of the computer in a network. With an IP, you can find out the general vicinity of someone who logged onto your website, signed a guestbook, bought something online, etc. Better technology might be able to get you an actual location of the thief, but I'm not sure.

[Rudey]

I doubt you would be able to just obtain IP addresses. Usually they aren't even handed out unless your ISP gets a warrant.

What I think they mean is a log of all IPs you've accessed from your machine.

-Rudey

[maggieaxid]

Thanks for the clarification. The officer is getting the records from AOL and MSN (the isp!) whether or not he has a warrant, he didn't disclose to me. I guess then they will try and get an IP address.

This is such a mess! I mean, the dude already bought golf clubs off the internet on a credit card opened in my name, sent to his house, and the clubs were signed for BY HIM! I mean, we have all seen enough law & order to figure it out!

[WCUgirl]

If you need to know the IP address of the computer you are using, go to www.whatismyip.com. It will tell you.

ETA: Yay for my 500th post!

[aephi alum]

If you're looking for your own IP address, you should know that it is probably dynamic - meaning that every time you connect to your ISP, you get whatever address happens to be available from a pool. Even with broadband, it changes from time to time.

If you're looking for IP addresses of websites visited from your computer, check your web browser's history (although there are ways around this). Your ISP probably also has a log - which would most likely require a warrant for the authorities to obtain.

Sorry to hear about your identity theft problems... hope everything works out.

[AGDee]

Originally posted by AXiD670
If you need to know the IP address of the computer you are using, go to www.whatismyip.com. It will tell you.

ETA: Yay for my 500th post!

You can open a DOS command prompt window and type

ipconfig /all

That will give you your current IP also.