How to Find Out Who Owns a Post Office Box

[cmre3456]

Now that you're retired, why not go to law school ?

Definition
In a qui tam action, a private party called a relator brings an action on the government's behalf. The government, not the relator, is considered the real plaintiff. If the government succeeds, the relator receives a share of the award. Also called a popular action.
For example, the federal False Claims Act authorizes qui tam actions against parties who have defrauded the federal government. 31 U.S.C. § 3279 et seq. If successful, a relator in a False Claims Act qui tam action may receive up to 30% of the government's award.

I'll have some of that popcorn, please.

Since no attorneys have responded to my last post, I'll assume I am definitely onto something here:

The registrars have falsified their post office box applications in an effort to thwart any legal action or discovery of them and/or their clients who are the owners of the domains they have registered. This could be justice department material as it also implicates the horrid US Postal Service.

You haven't convinced me that anyone has falsified anything. All I see is that someone doesn't want his "phone number listed." Remember, the internet can't use "amazon.com" any more than the phone service can use your name to dial a call. Both have to be resolved to a number. In the case of a phone it's your name being resolved to a phone number. In the case of a web address, it's the name being resolved to its IP address.

Again, there are legitimate businesses who rent post office boxes to people. The mail goes to that business and then they sort it into their own boxes. There are also legitimate mail forwarding businesses.

It's also legal to use a proxy which will hide your location. In two seconds I can cause it to appear to the world that I'm posting from Russia or Latvia or Viet Nam.

There are also legitimate businesses which register domain names for people, or keep the web site on their own servers so that DNS resolves the domain name to the IP address of the host which then has its own internal DNS which resolves it locally and internally, behind its firewall and/or DMZ and router.

Please show me a law (and we're talking about the law here) which requires the owner of a web site to make his information public? Just because you think he should doesn't mean diddly.

Have your tried a trace route ("tracert") in an attempt to find out WHERE that domain name is hosted? It might give up enough info to eventually get a physical address unless they are trying to hide it.

- - - Updated - - -

If I knew that domain name, I might well do a lot better than you've done tracing that guy. Maybe not, it depends. However, since you already know it all, I'm not offering.

Very recently we had a poster on another forum who was making actual threats to people. I traced him to his desk at work. I even figured out his real name and his email address at work. He works for a fairly large city in the SW. Next I sent him an anonymous and well hidden (the source of the email from him) email right to his desk at work, using his real name. I asked him if he thought the city would like it if they knew he was posting that junk on their equipment while he was being paid to work? I asked him if he'd like for me to send copies of his posts and links to them (which of course show the time of day) to the city manager, the mayor and the city council?

We haven't heard from him since.

[QuiTamMan]

Re: all of the above...yeah, yeah...hurray for you and your IP address "spylunking". This particular site is likely using a foreign hosting location....so that doesn't help at all.
More importantly, that's not the issue. I should be able to serve subpoenas until I can take the website owner to court.
In this case, I can't even get to "first base" to discover the registrar who is also using phone numbers that don't respond.

Fraud is Fraud. The USPS put that check box on the application for a reason. There may even be a statute behind it.
The owner of the website has every reason to conceal his identity. I DON'T DISPUTE THAT.
However, the REGISTRARS are bound to certain ICANN rules as well as laws related to falsifying information.

Unfortunately, in this situation we are dealing with two very bad organizations in ICANN and the USPS.
To say that domain registration reform is needed is the understatement of the century.

The really interesting issue: how many other registrars are getting away with the very same fraud ?
I'll write an article on this, publish it and go from there.

[Mr. Knowitall]

In a qui tam action, a private party called a relator brings an action on the government's behalf. The government, not the relator, is considered the real plaintiff. If the government succeeds, the relator receives a share of the award. Also called a popular action.

So you know how to look up cursory definitions? Great. But what do you imagine that has to do with the present discussion?

The registrars have falsified their post office box applications in an effort to thwart any legal action or discovery of them and/or their clients who are the owners of the domains they have registered.

No, they haven't. They're simply reporting the information that has been registered with them.

This could be justice department material as it also implicates the horrid US Postal Service.

Well, you go right ahead and let the DOJ know about the issue. Believe it or not, though, they've heard of the Internet before, know what domain names are, and have had to deal with private registrations, P.O. boxes and the like.

More importantly, that's not the issue. I should be able to serve subpoenas until I can take the website owner to court.

And the reason you cannot file a lawsuit, assuming you have a cause of action, then use subpoenas would be... what?

In this case, I can't even get to "first base" to discover the registrar who is also using phone numbers that don't respond.

If the contact information associated with a website is bad - not accurate, but making it difficult to track down the owner, but actually inaccurate - take it up with the registrar.

Fraud is Fraud. The USPS put that check box on the application for a reason. There may even be a statute behind it.

Knock yourself out. But even if we presuppose that a business applies for a post office box and checks the "personal" box, there would be no conceivable "fraud" against a third party who, for example, sends mail to the business as the P.O. box.

However, the REGISTRARS are bound to certain ICANN rules as well as laws related to falsifying information.

Again, all you've told us is that they're accurately reporting the information conveyed to them by the owner of the website. Again, if its actually wrong, you are free to complain.

The really interesting issue: how many other registrars are getting away with the very same fraud ?

The imaginary variety? People get away with imaginary acts of fraud all the time.

I'll write an article on this, publish it and go from there.

I'll make a few tinfoil hats for the release party.

[cmre3456]

Re: all of the above...yeah, yeah...hurray for you and your IP address "spylunking". This particular site is likely using a foreign hosting location....so that doesn't help at all.

That's quite the assumption and even if true, it matters not. Are you the last person on earth to know that WWW stands for "World Wide Web?" Are you the last person on earth to know that DNS servers on the backbone of the internet have the whole world registered on them? How else could I send an email to Russia or visit a web site in the UK? Even email addresses have to be resolved to a number - the IP address of the owner of the email address.

When I type "amazon.com" into my browser's address bar or click a hyperlink to amazon, I'm asking the WWW to return one specific page on amazon's site. My browser doesn't first send packets directly to amazon. It sends them to a DNS server which knows amazon's IP address and that server returns that IP to my computer. Then my computer seamlessly re-sends the request as the IP number which is internet routable. Again, your computer is like your telephone in that it can't deal with names. Your computer needs the number and so it first sends a request to DNS for the number - that IP address so that it can actually route the request to the proper recipient.

Now, my address bar for amazon.com may look like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref...590119-8224145

All of the forward slashes after .com indicate one certain page of the thousands of pages at amazon.com. Amazon's servers resolve that.

More importantly,

That would be "more important." Adding the ly makes important into an adverb and there's no verb to modify. What you want to say is "(What is) more important (is)."

(More importantly,) that's not the issue. I should be able to serve subpoenas until I can take the website owner to court.
In this case, I can't even get to "first base" to discover the registrar who is also using phone numbers that don't respond.

No you shouldn't. You just want to so you "assume" you should.

Fraud is Fraud. The USPS put that check box on the application for a reason. There may even be a statute behind it.
The owner of the website has every reason to conceal his identity. I DON'T DISPUTE THAT.
However, the REGISTRARS are bound to certain ICANN rules as well as laws related to falsifying information.

Well, since this is a legal forum, please post those laws. The last I knew, registration of domain names and issuance of blocks of IP addresses was all started in the 1970's by UC at Berkeley and Stanford. In fact they, not Al Gore, invented the internet. They invented TCP/IP which makes it all possible. Every node that I know of on the internet backbone is privately owned and the rules for registration and usage were developed by the private sector, not the government.

Governments have been very reluctant to regulate the internet. They get so much push back from the public it's unbelievable.

Unfortunately, in this situation we are dealing with two very bad organizations in ICANN and the USPS.
To say that domain registration reform is needed is the understatement of the century.

You just don't like it because it doesn't fit in with your plans. That doesn't make your opinions correct.

The really interesting issue: how many other registrars are getting away with the very same fraud ?
I'll write an article on this, publish it and go from there.

Write your article. Your lack of knowledge will give everyone a good laugh.

[QuiTamMan]

You know where to shove all of that popcorn, right ?