The Ubiquitous IP Address

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Written by Dan Schaefer

According to the ureadit server, your IP address is: 38.107.179.217. Unless you’re using a proxy server, this IP address should point to your Internet Service Provider. You can get lots of information from the IP address by looking up the address at WhatIsMyIP.

I often use the IP lookup service when I receive an email from a dubious source. Usually, these emails ask me to log into a certain site to get some information. For example, yesterday my wife forwarded me an email that she'd received. The email read:

Hello and thank you for replying to our ad!
We are very interested in personally meeting with you as soon as
possible and would like to schedule an interview with you.

Please schedule an interview on our website: http://itcrealestate.co.cc

After you enter your phone number, we will contact you within 24-hour
time frame to give you detailed information regarding your interview
schedule.

Immediately, I smelled a rat, but to be certain, I decided to investigate more. The first thing I did was open a command window and “ping” the suspicious site:

ping itcrealestate.co.cc

It did not matter that the target website did not respond to the ping. I simply used the ping utility to find out what the real IP address was. This mechanism uses something called DNS, which, if I took the time to explain now, I would lose my momentum.

Here’s what I received from the ping:

“Pinging itcrealestate.co.cc [114.207.244.144] with 32 bytes of data:”

Aha! The IP address 114.207.244.144 meant something to me. I copied that address into the form at WhatIsMyIp and found out that the address was registered by a Mr. Lee, located in Seoul, South Korea.

Then, on an isolated PC, I actually clicked on the link and learned that Mr. Lee wanted me to enter my cell phone number. The instructions he provided were very clear: Enter the cell phone number, and I would be sent a confirmation text message. The confirmation message would have a special PIN number, which I was to enter on his web page. Then, according to the original email, I would be contacted within 24 hours so that a job interview could be scheduled.

By strange coincidence, I just blogged about this very scam a few days ago, and here it is again!

So here’s yet more anti-scam advice:

If you suspect an online scam, track down the IP address. When you learn the source of the address, ask yourself if it makes sense. In my case, it didn’t make sense that my wife, living in Southern California, should have to provide a cell phone number to some guy in Korea before she could have a job interview.
Use Google and Bing to search for the terms “scam” and the suspected site name. If someone has been scammed already, there may well be information already online.
Ask yourself how the potential scammer was able to contact you in the first place. If it was the result of leaving your name on a highly visible site, like CraigsList, then be aware that a vast majority of such emails are scams. It’s probably about 90% scams, though I don’t know for sure. I’m basing my experience on all the emails my wife received ever since she responded to some job postings on CraigsList.

In general, if your gut instinct says it’s a scam, then it probably is.

BTW: The offending website appears to have been removed, so if you go looking for it now, you’ll end up at the Internet Service Provider’s website. No doubt, Mr. Lee is probably getting out of Dodge as I write this blog.

PS: For more great information on how to track down IP addresses and emails, check out the forums at WhatIsMyIp.

Best,

Dan

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