Find out who's at the other end of your line, with
Network Tracer

Have you ever wanted your own World Wide Web tracker, to tell you who manages the web site you're visiting, who owns the domain name you want, or who runs the mail server that just sent you the latest piece of anonymous spam?

Well, now you can have it. It's name is Network Tracer, and it's a free program written by Keith Little of PCHelp.

"A few uses for the Network Tracer:

• Identifying the owners and/or hosts of websites and domain names
• Tracking down the source of unwanted email
• Identifying and tracing the host in an obscured URL
• Interpreting your website access logs
• Tracing suspicious connections reported by your firewall or port monitor
• Finding what others can learn from your IP address
• Checking out chat partners"

Saltmeadow uses Network Tracer to uncover the sources of suspicious contacts reported by our firewalls. It is also increasingly handy for finding out if that domain name you want is really unclaimed, because it searches several registries, not just Network Solutions'. Now that NetSol is no longer the only agency permitted to register domain names, we couldn't do without Network Tracer. We think you'll like it.

And if you're interested in the nuts and bolts of your PC or of the Internet, you'll also like the wealth of other information at the PCHelp web site: from Little's original and ingenious work on scrap files and trans-domain cookies (he was the first to discover that Microsoft was using cookies to transfer information between its domains, something widely thought impossible) to detailed instructions on how spammers and hackers "spoof" (fake) their email and Internet Protocol addresses.

NOTE: Network Tracer is currently available only for Win9x and WinME. A WinNT version is offered for download but is no longer being updated. PCHelp says a WinXT version is contemplated.