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A friend of mine recently got her Gmail account "hacked" because of a weak password (the same as her login..).

While sanitizing her account, I removed the forwarding of her emails to one email address (let's say [email protected]). I typed the scammer's email in a search engine, and I found one domain name which seems to be related to him/her.

The Registrant, Administrative contact, and Technical contact use this email address, and the postal address is filled with plausible data.

Are these informations reliable ?

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  • Upvoting so others will read the response: hacking back is a no-no
    – Rubber Duck
    Apr 11, 2014 at 18:42
  • OK I will rephrase the question to remove my idea of scamming the scammer.
    – alecail
    Apr 11, 2014 at 18:47
  • Good idea, and otherwise good question.
    – Rubber Duck
    Apr 11, 2014 at 18:52

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The domain name that is used for the email address of a scammer may be only loosely related to the scammer himself. E.g. if a scammer uses an Hotmail address, would you conclude that Microsoft (the owner of Hotmail) is an accomplice ?

Probabilities are quite high that the names and addresses indicated in the whois database are fake, or point to an innocent bystander (or possibly the owner of a domain whose mail server got hacked). I suggest refraining from "having fun" as the potential for collateral damage is quite high.

It is usually considered more reasonable to complain with the registrar -- who, in that case, actually manages the incoming emails (try: host -t mx networks2013.com).

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  • "Having fun" does not really sound like the intent or expected behavior of an information security forum. +Tom Leek is right, it is probably fake information in the record. Or it might be real information, but that person themselves is unaware of the problem because they themselves may be compromised and are just a connection point in the chain back to the real bad guy. "Hack Back" is generally a really, really bad idea, unless you are a sovereign nation state with a diplomatic and militaristic capability to back up any mistakes you might make.
    – 0xSheepdog
    Apr 11, 2014 at 18:28

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