

Ask HN: What trails does a missing person leave behind? - niyazpk

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.<p>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?<p>What other things can we track? Money?<p>Is there anything that we are overlooking other than phone, credit transactions etc?
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jacquesm
With 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.

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ErrantX
If 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.

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makecheck
If 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.

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iterationx
did you put his picture on reddit and ask for help to find him?

