Dear Dragon,
Hate mail is a violation of laws, and matter to the police and to the
ISPs. Hate mail and hate language are not a funny thing. There have
been cases whereas hate emails were the first step towards much more
violent acts and in general, it is not different from stalking and its
possible dangerous consequences.
Referring specifically to your case, email users can enter whatever
data they want in the registration boxes of Hotmail and other free
web-based email services. Try it - go to www.hotmail.com (or any other
like yahoo.com) and try to register yourself as someone else (for
example, if we're dealing with 007, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of
S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and Bond's arch-enemy...), who resides in Cook Islands.
If no one else is already registered with that name in that email
service - congratulations, you have an email in Cook Islands with an
alias. In other words, it is sometimes very hard to track the true
identity of an abuser in these services.
The first law in responding to hate mail is to not respond. This is
would only encourage the flamer even more. In another forum I have
found an opinion that by responding to hate emails "we waste our time
responding to people whose minds cannot be changed"
(http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-halifax/2001-October/000390.html).
The first thing you should do is to check, whether this person really
sends you the mail from hotmail, or is that only a route, and alias.
You do that by choosing to view "full header" of the email. You can
read an explanation of how it works here -
http://www.emailabuse.org/sender.asp and then a "how to" guide on how
to do this here: http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/19.html (by
systems).
Then contact Hotmail, as well as any additional providers (if there
are any revealed in the full header) - forward them the hate mails as
they are (only with full headers) to mailto:abuse@hotmail.com
Reporting abuse can be also done here -
http://www.emailabuse.org/report.asp and more abuse reporting tools
can be found here - http://www.abuse.net/
Another possibility is to report the abuse to www.spamcop.net SpamCop
- they'll continue for you and might virtually nick the person behind
it.
In the UK, hate mail is an act investigated by the police (see for
example http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1182000/1182370.stm
; http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2085114,00.html).
You should also consider contacting the police. Therefore, in order to
file a complaint and to succeed in it, you must maintain documentation
of the hate mail (incl. headers, etc.). Whether to contact Hotmail or
the police first is a tactical question: if you contact Hotmail first,
they might just block this person's email address, and he might move
his "business" elsewhere without stopping to harass you.
There are also sites and support groups that deal directly with the
problem. For example, http://www.emailabuse.org/default.asp is
American (so it doesn't have advices specifically for Brits) but is
very comprehensive. You can also find many such sites in this
directory - http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Abuse/
This is also a good guide on how to protect yourself from mail abuse
(or any other type of cyberstalking) -
http://www.onlineharassment.com/ This FAQ (frequently asked questions)
deals with all sorts of abuse - like Spam, harassment etc.
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/emailfaq.html
Finally, an anecdote. As you probably realise, you're not alone. Among
those who received hate-email is also the Techno star Moby. He found
an original way to deal with that (I doubt if it would work in your
case... - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20020628/0216202.shtml)
To sum up: You asked how you could track down this person/s abusing
you and your email. I suggest you'll report them, and then you'll not
only track them down - if it's possible, with the help of experts -
but also would set the law and their servers against them. Do not try
to retaliate, because it could cost you badly, as I have noted before:
this is not different than "regular" harassment. This answered your
question; however, if you feel you need clarifications, please contact
me again.
I also add my search terms, that might help you:
"hate emails" "criminal law" uk
"hate emails" "criminal act"
"hate emails" fighting
"stopping hate mail" (no results)
"reacting to hate mail" (no results)
"responding to hate mail"
"full headers" spam
hotmail "hate mail"
protection against "hate email"
"hate e-mail" OR "hate email" OR "hate e-mails" OR "hate emails"
(notice how many result this gets -
://www.google.com/search?q=%22hate+e-mail%22+OR+%22hate+email%22+OR+%22hate+e-mails%22+OR+%22hate+emails%22&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
- which says something about the spread of the problem)
"hate emails" spam
"hate email"
related:www.emailabuse.org/
(://www.google.com/search?q=related:www.emailabuse.org/&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=20&sa=N)
"email abuse" "hate mail" (the most fruitful for this answer:
://www.google.com/search?q=%22email+abuse%22+%22hate+mail%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) |
