Introduction: Obtaining an extortionist’s IP address requires preserving the integrity of the digital evidence. The essential phases—preservation and technical analysis—along with the tools we use at Detective Hacker are outlined below.
| Extortion channel | Where to find the IP | Correct procedure |
|---|---|---|
The Received: line closest to the sender in the raw header |
Download the message as .eml, select “Show original,” and copy it without editing. |
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| SMS / VoIP calls | Carrier CDR records | Judicial or prosecutor’s request—Art. 588 LECrim (ES) / equivalent court order. |
| Social networks (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) | Server logs | Requires a judicial request to the platform (MLAT or Budapest Convention). |
| Encrypted messaging (Telegram, Signal) | Registration IP / last login (if retained by the provider) | Same: judicial request. |
| Extortion website (forum, pastebin, dark web) | access.log of the hosting or Cloudflare | Request to the provider; if using a reverse proxy, check X-Forwarded-For headers. |
| Tool | Use |
|---|---|
| Wireshark | Capture packets in real time (VoIP, web chats) and isolate the source IP. |
| FTK Imager / Autopsy | Clone and inspect the victim’s server or PC disk without altering MAC times. |
| Logstash + Kibana (ELK) | Ingest and sign email, firewall, and IDS logs; build attribution dashboards. |
| HashCalc / OpenSSL | Compute and verify SHA-256 and SHA-512 for evidence sealing. |
| Magnet AXIOM Cloud | Legally extract records from Snapchat, WhatsApp Cloud, and Facebook under court order. |
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