Because I don't want to make my question search-able on the net. I will
present a hypothetical case ; my case is very similar to this.
Suppose you have an account with a ISP/hosting company (let's call
them ISPAmerica). You store your personal files (documents, mails,
websites etc.) on this account. Now somebody else (let's call this
person hacker) accesses this account. You come to know later that your
account was hacked. So you call the hosting company ISPAmerica and ask
them to give you:
1. Log of all the IP-addresses that accessed your account. (Once you
have this information, you'd recognize your own IP addresses, and
figure out what are suspect IP addresses. Once you have that, you can
get a good general idea of geographic location of the hacker, and make
an educated guess about the identity of the hacker).
2. You ask them to tell you the details of the account activity while
it was under the control of hacker on so-and-so-date and
so-and-so-time. So, that you can know what all information was
compromised etc.
But ISPAmerica tells you that even though this is your 'own' account;
they still won't disclose account access/history information to you
without a subpoena.
How do you go about obtaining this subpoena as to compel
ISPAmerica to provide you with information about your 'own' account ?!
Also, consider that ISPAmerica is within US; and I am outside of the
US but I could travel, if required, though I'd prefer not to. |
Clarification of Question by
xar172-ga
on
18 Apr 2006 15:43 PDT
Well, my accounts were hacked. I know this because hacker did some
stuff to my accounts (like deleting information etc.); and changed the
passwords of few of the accounts; and I wish to find out who this
person was. I may or may not file a case after figuring out the
identity. But I'd still like to know who this person was.
---
I found something relevant : http://www.kslaw.com/library/articles.asp?1025
This is about how to obtain a subpoena to discover the identity of
'anonymous' hacker. Let me paste one sub-section from it here:
How To Obtain A Subpoena
There are at least two ways to obtain a subpoena to identify an
anonymous hacker: (1) file a pre-litigation discovery request, or (2)
file a lawsuit against "John Doe" and issue a subpoena in connection
with that lawsuit.
Filing A Pre-Litigation Discovery Request
In some states, litigants can file a pre-litigation discovery request
to ascertain information necessary to file a lawsuit. Such a request
enables a company to subpoena a third party for documents,
information, or a deposition if such discovery is likely to lead to
the discovery of admissible evidence. For a court to grant permission
to serve pre-litigation discovery, a party must show that it will be
irreparably harmed in the absence of such discovery. One downside of
proceeding this way is that the party must wait until the court
reviews the request for pre-litigation discovery and, in recent years,
courts have begun to scrutinize such requests.
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