MD4Bush Computer Location Revealed

The WBAL Channel ^ | 12/16/05 | WBAL-TV

[conservative in nyc]

Following the discovery of e-mail addresses connected to the MD4Bush mystery, the WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team has uncovered the electronic trail of Internet activity.

Also Friday, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley responded to the latest twist in the MD4Bush mystery.

Last October, MD4Bush used private e-mails on the Free Republic's Web site to coax a former aide to Gov. Bob Ehrlich, Joe Steffen, into discussing the personal life of Baltimore's mayor.

The 11 News I-Team has learned that MD4Bush routinely logged on to the Internet from a computer in the Pasadena area. On Feb. 8 -- the night the story broke about Steffen -- MD4Bush used a computer in Baltimore to make public the private e-mails Steffen had written.

Jim Robinson, the owner operator of Free Republic, revealed on Friday more of what he knows of the electronic trail of the Internet user MD4Bush.

"MD4Bush's (Internet Protocol) addresses are all local Maryland IPs. For a large nationwide Internet service provider, nothing can be learned from them without a subpoena," Robinson said.

According to a Free Republic representative, the records of the ISP would link the MD4Bush account to a specific name and address.

--Snip--

On Friday, the mayor himself acknowledged he not only knows O'Doherty, but endorsed his hiring.

"He's a good guy, and I do know him," O'Malley said.

The mayor repeated that he doesn't know the identity of MD4Bush.

"I don't know who MD4Bush was, and if I find out, my wife and I will thank that person for exposing Gov. (Bob) Ehrlich, and his gutter politics, and his dirty tricks henchman Joe Steffen," O'Malley said.

Sources told the 11 News I-Team that the electronic trail of MD4Bush does not indicate the postings originated from a government or institutional computer.

[Paloma_55]

Sources told the 11 News I-Team that the electronic trail of MD4Bush does not indicate the postings originated from a government or institutional computer

Excuse my ignorance, but how can they determine that w/o the subpeona?

Obtaining an IP address, and the domain from which it comes is easy and available without going *inside* a business or entity. They can tell if it was a private ISP or a government ISP by the address itself.

Once you know it is a private ISP, getting that ISP to divulge the owner if the IP address, which is most likely a dynamic IP address and therefore depends on the time that it was obtained, is now getting into the account of the ISP and divulging its client's identity which would require a subpoena.

[HAL9000]

"I don't know who MD4Bush was, and if I find out, my wife and I will thank that person for exposing Gov. (Bob) Ehrlich, and his gutter politics, and his dirty tricks henchman Joe Steffen," O'Malley said.

After that remark, he should change his name to O'Sleazy. He appears to be one of the most corrupt mayors in office today.

[Nomorjer Kinov]

The governor "should stop chasing a hero and start apologizing to the people of Maryland because Joe Steffen said he did it."

Why does the governor have to apologize to the people of Maryland? Were the people harmed by discussion of O'Malley's reputed skirt chasing?

I cannot comprehend why any Republican would want to represent a state so rife with political inbreeding.

[conservative in nyc]

If you click on the video at the link, David Collins from WBAL-TV actually got an interview with Mayor O'Malley. The Mayor said he didn't know if MD4Bush was someone associated with the administration.

The video also made it clearer that the February MD4Bush-NCPAC FReepmail dump was made from a computer in Baltimore - meaning, it likely wasn't done by the Washington Post and may not have been done from the usual Pasadena, MD location.

The video report is definitely worth a look.

[DrewsDad]

"I don't know who MD4Bush was, and if I find out, my wife and I will thank that person for exposing Gov. (Bob) Ehrlich, and his gutter politics, and his dirty tricks henchman Joe Steffen," O'Malley said.

You need to post this with all of MD4Bush's comments about O'Malley cheating on his wife as well as other smears against Mikulski and others.

Imagine seeing that in a newspaper or TV ad.

[HKMk23]

Many private ISP's do not change your IP all that often, even if you do have a Dynamic IP Address. You may be able to use your computer daily -- turning it off over night, even -- for weeks without the IP address ever being diffferent. Having a Dynamic IP can often mean that you'll get the IP address you had last time you logged onto the ISP's network unless it isn't available for some reason. If such a reason never arises, you can end up with the same IP address almost indefinitely.

Now, if you have an IP address and several dates/times, you can subpoena the ISP to provide the server logs that relate to that IP address for a window of time encompassing the activity shown in your records. Among those server logs are SMTP logs -- email records of what went out to what addresses and when.

Once all that is known, the noose gets real snug real quick.

[Hank Rearden]

I cannot comprehend why any Republican would want to represent a state so rife with political inbreeding.

Maryland's also one of those "government states", like Connecticut, that produces large quantities of nothing but parasites who commute to D.C. every day to screw the rest of us normal people.

[SuziQ]

"I don't know who MD4Bush was, and if I find out, my wife and I will thank that person for exposing Gov. (Bob) Ehrlich, and his gutter politics, and his dirty tricks henchman Joe Steffen," O'Malley said.

Typical Democrat. His man does the dirty deed, and he KNOWS it, but he blames the whole thing on the Republicans.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Governmental agencies and most companies have static IP addresses which are assigned to them, either singly or in blocks....or by their ISP. Who owns those addresses is public knowledge.

[Fishtalk]

Thanks, the Mayor is obviously trying to brazen out his connection to O'Doherty, figuring nobody will get a subpoena.

Sadly that is probably true.

Well you know what? Ehrlich knows about this. He fired his own employee, Steffan. He readily agreed to an investigation am I right?

The bottom line is if Ehrlich HIMSELF doesn't demand an investigation into this then forgettaboutit.

Shows all the signs of a spineless Repub I'm sorry to say. They've got to fight back against this stuff. There's nary thing you or I can do about it.

BTW, I lived in Pasadena Md. for 15 years.

[DrewsDad]

Headline: Mayor O'Malley Wants to Thank FR Poster who Accused Him of Cheating on his Wife

Posted 10/08/2004:
Yeah, he cheats on his wife. I heard that he is not allowed in the house and is living in some new high-rise near city hall. He's is a young arrogant punk for sure. I can't him, he is like Slick-Willy.

Posted 12/13/2004:
Amazing that they could take Kerick down sooooo easily-- yet O'Malley still roams unscathed. Should send a note to Kerick, Baltimore is looking for a Police commissioner, it doesn’t matter if you cheat on your wife.

Posted 10/27/2004:
By the way nice comment on Mikulski, she is a lezbo, funny how that hasn't been in the news either.

Then stand back and let them explain that is was only a dirty trick.

[benjibrowder]

Correction: Mayor O'Malley Wants to Thank FR Poster who Staged a Conspiracy against Himself with information about an Affair against his Wife.

[hellbender]

You are absolutely right. I think the proximity to DC is partly responsible for the slickness and sophistication of Demonrat corruption in MD. Slander and dirty tricks are standard practice in MD, more than the strong-arm tactics of some other Demon strongholds. These scum have corrupted everything, including law enforcement and the judiciary. For example, the State Prosecutor, who is supposed to fight corruption, was used by the Demons to prosecute whistleblower Linda Tripp.

[conservative in nyc]

How far away from Pasadena, MD can the computer be? Annapolis is about 10 miles away, as the crow flies. Downtown Baltimore is about 13 miles. From Internet research, it appears that some Comcast IP addresses might map to Pasadena.

[Anti-Bubba182]

The Democrat controlled legislature controls the committee that has the subpoena power. With a Democrat controlled committee investigating there is no chance a subpoena will be issued by them. They know where it will lead.

Erlich is primarily concerned with covering his six. He won't go out on a limb on this.

[maica]

What an arrogant punk.

@@@

arrogant but with uncontrolled flapping gums. This is going to be an amazing contest. I think he will lose the primary!

[Tunehead54]

A subpoena is not necessarily necessary.

It would depend on the ISP and their privacy rules. There is no inherent right to privacy in your internet connections. Most ISPs log at least a month's worth of connections, if not more, and if presented with a request for info regarding the bad manners of one of their subscribers, they might just say "Here you go": XXX was logged at that IP at that time and date.If they violate their privacy policy it might open them up to a lawsuit but the info would already be out there. ;-)

[tgslTakoma]

Actually, the IP address can be identified as "Department of Commerce" or "Verizon," with some tracking stuff I am familiar with. Some smaller businesses may have accounts with Verizon (just a for instance), so cannot be further ID'd without legal instruction to the ISP to do so from a court. I think that's what Jim is talking about. I think they could identify the exact computer in O'Malley's office (another for instance) that was used, with the appropriate legal order.

But, since this is Maryland, and Maryland is lousy with RATS, we should not hold our breath waiting for that to happen.

[TheForceOfOne]

Would this work?

http://www.arin.net/whois/

ARIN WHOIS Database Search

ARIN's WHOIS service provides a mechanism for finding contact and registration information for resources registered with ARIN. ARIN's database contains IP addresses, autonomous system [AS] numbers, organizations or customers that are associated with these resources, and related Points of Contact [POC].

[TheForceOfOne]

Or this one, it will give you a map showing the physical location of the IP address.

http://www.geobytes.com/TraceRouteLocator.htm

This trace route location service is provided for FREE by Geobytes, inc to assist you in locating the geographical location of IP Addresses.