Way OT computer question

Paul Shuler · Oct 1, 2015

For the sake of embarrassment I won?t go into too many details here. But here is the short story. I have an older brother that suffers from schizophrenia and paranoia. He is on no meds and is no longer able to care for himself. We are trying to get him served to get guardianship over him. Here is the problem, He is on the move and the sheriff?s office does not have the man power to chase him down just to serve papers. He is posting vile things on the internet on a Dailey basis. How do I go about finding his IP address from his post in hopes of tracking him down. Not looking to break any laws just need to find him and get him help before someone kills him over all the nonsense he is posting. He has a phone but it is a pre paid and he won?t answerer cause he has told others that George Bush listens in on his calls. I am sure this is not the proper place to ask this but I know a lot of you guys are very sharp with computers. Sorry if this has offended anyone. Heck it offends me too but I am right in the middle of it. thank you.

rustyfarmall · Oct 1, 2015

Interesting question, and not offensive. I do not know the answer, except to say that I think you're going to need the help of someone with the authority to legally hack the system. Maybe a good place to start might to contact someone from your local internet provider?

Pooh Bear · Oct 1, 2015

You can "view page source" for one of his posts and most of the time you can find an IP address in all that gobbledygook. Then you can take the IP address and do a "who is" search on it but that will only return the address of the service provider. This might give you a general location.

Pooh Bear

ditchwitch · Oct 1, 2015

Hey Paul. Dont be embarrassed my friend. Not here anyways. All the folks i think come and stay here because everyone here generally is concerned about other folks that need some kind of help. And its not just old tractors. Lots of good helpfull advice here. Good Luck i hope your brother gets some help. I have a older brother bout the same shape.

Larry EC-OH · Oct 1, 2015

Hi,

I did a Google search for: "how can I find someone's location by IP address?"
This got me several answers, but I'm afraid you need to be fairly computer literate to do this. Look for yourself and see if you think it's doable. If not, find a local teenager computer "geek" give him $20 and he'll have your answer pronto.
If your brother is on the move, it will only ping his last location, so you might need to ping several before that to see what direction he's headed.

Good luck my friend.
Larry

TomH in PA · Oct 1, 2015

The IP address probably won't help you all that much. Looking mine up returns a fairly large city that's over an hour from where I live.

tech5201 · Oct 1, 2015

No idea the cost ($300-$500/day?), but there might be a tech-savoy P.I. in a large city near you that might be able to track him down in a few days?

MarkB_MI · Oct 2, 2015

Your chances of tracking him down that way aren't real good. Do you even know how he's getting online? Is he using a smart phone or using free Wifi someplace? LEOs can get a warrant and subpoena ISP and phone company records; you can't.

If there is in fact a warrant out for his arrest, you need to annoy local law enforcement until they do something about it. That is, after all, their job.

If there's no warrant, then I don't see what you're going to do even if you find him. You can't force him to get psychiatric treatment against his will. It is a sad fact that homelessness is the defacto treatment for mental illness in this country.

David G · Oct 2, 2015

I really do not think tracking the IP will do you any good. The Internet has been organized into blocks of IP's on the large providers. You can get the IP, do a "whois" command and find the provider. You will then have to contact the provider and request more detailed information from them. The law enforcement people usually have to get a search warrant to get this released.

It is not like it looks on NCIS.

Way OT computer question

Paul Shuler

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rustyfarmall

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Pooh Bear

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ditchwitch

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Larry EC-OH

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TomH in PA

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tech5201

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MarkB_MI

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David G

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