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Ask HN: What trails does a missing person leave behind?
One of my friends is missing for the past two weeks. The Police is trying to find him and all efforts to date were fruitless.
I was just wondering what trails a missing person could leave behind. Some things are obvious like tracking the phone (In my friend's case he did not take his phone with him). But still how accurately can we track a person with a phone?
What other things can we track? Money?
Is there anything that we are overlooking other than phone, credit transactions etc?
- jacquesm 17y agoWith a cell phone you can track someone within a few hundred meters in a city cell, in a rural cell within a kilometer or two. As for 'trails', try the past, if the person used a computer and you have access to it (legally) you could try to figure out what they were doing before they went off. Browser histories, email, IM & skype, msn and IRC chat records as well as the contents of input fields on forms can be quite revealing.
- makecheck 17y agoIf you know any web forums that he would log into, there will often be a date of last activity (e.g. in his user profile). Forums often have their own message systems, too.
- ErrantX 17y agoIf it's a planned disappearance then his computer might well yield some information. Use a tool to extract web history from deleted file space (and live space) and have a go through it - if you have access. If he visits forums, blogs etc. ask for their help in obtaining the last IP address they have for him - this would track him to a rough geographical location.
- iterationx 17y agodid you put his picture on reddit and ask for help to find him?