1. whois lookup

The first thing you ask yourself is what is whois? and how it works?

When you register a domain name, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) requires your domain name registrar to submit your personal contact information to the WHOIS database. Once your listing appears in this online directory, it is publicly available to anyone who chooses to check domain names using the WHOIS search tool.

There are a variety of third parties who may check domain names in the WHOIS database, including:

• Individuals check domain names for expiration dates
• Registrars check domain names when transferring ownership
• Authorities check domain names when investigating criminal activity

As an accredited domain names registrar, Network Solutions® must comply with the WHOIS database requirements set forth by ICANN. However, in an effort to ensure that customers feel comfortable with the visibility of their personal information, Network Solutions offers three options for your WHOIS database listing.

Public WHOIS Database Listing
If you're comfortable with having your information available to the public — and don't want the extra fee associated with private domain registration — Network Solutions will submit a public listing to the WHOIS database. This listing will include your name, address, phone number, email address and domain name expiration date. Your host name and IP address will also be listed.

Private WHOIS Database Listing
Having your personal information made available to the public will increase your risk of becoming a victim of hackers, spammers and even data miners. To keep your contact information out of the hands of those who may use it maliciously, Network Solutions® offers private domain name registration. For a small monthly fee, we'll act as your proxy — which means that anyone who does a WHOIS lookup for your domain name information will find our contact information, not yours.

Enhanced Business Listing in WHOIS Database
Network Solutions strives to bring online solutions to small business owners. By advertising your business in the WHOIS database, you can leverage over 30 million people who check domain names in the WHOIS database every month to help drive more traffic to your Website and your offline business location. Your enhanced business listing can be customized to meet your needs and may include: your location, operating hours, products and services, special offers, and even domain names for sale.

Network Solutions® believes that its customers should ultimately decide how their contact information will be listed in the WHOIS database. When you're ready to register a domain name, consider your options before your personal information becomes available to the public.

This is how whois works. So tracing your hyip site is easy. But mostly it is privacy protected. This is not a direct proof that your hyip is a scam.

Tutorial: How I search up a domain his whois.

1. Go to google and type: "whois lookup +site url+"     replace +site url+ with the site url

2. Click one of the site (third link) of google you get returned.

3. Normally you get redirected automaticaly to the right whois of the site. But if it wouldnt give you direct information you can always type in the url of your hyip into that site.

What Will u normally get returned?

For example www.guarddogmonitor.com

Front Page Information

Website Title:	GuardDogMonitor HYIP Monitoring :: Program list
Title Relevancy	40%
Meta Keywords:	hyip, advise, blog about hyips, free moeny
Relevancy:	0% relevant
SEO Score:	69%
Terms:	607 (Unique: 263, Linked: 62)
Images:	71 (Alt tags missing: 40)
Links:	63   (Internal: 41, Outbound: 13)
AboutUs:	Wiki article on Guarddogmonitor.com

Whois Record

Registration Service Provided By: WEB4AFRICA
Contact: +233.21921912
Website: http://www.web4africa.net

Web4Africa offers affordable domain name registration and reliable web hosting services to
clients worldwide. We accept Alertpay, Paypal, Moneybookers, Liberty Reserve, credit/debit
cards & more! Domain names from only $8.5/yr!
Please report abuse issues to abuse[at]web4africa.net

Domain Name: GUARDDOGMONITOR.COM

Registrant:
PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin        ()
P.O. Box 97
Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Moergestel
null,5066 ZH
NL
Tel. +45.36946676

Creation Date: 20-Jul-2009
Expiration Date: 20-Jul-2010

Domain servers in listed order:
ns2.hostecon.com
ns1.hostecon.com

Administrative Contact:
PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin        ()
P.O. Box 97
Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Moergestel
null,5066 ZH
NL
Tel. +45.36946676

Technical Contact:
PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin        ()
P.O. Box 97
Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Moergestel
null,5066 ZH
NL
Tel. +45.36946676

Billing Contact:
PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin        ()
P.O. Box 97
Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Moergestel
null,5066 ZH
NL
Tel. +45.36946676

Status:ACTIVE

So we get our domain domain hoster. This is how a protected looks like. Of non protected domains you can see the phone adresse, were he lives, country,...

So its very hard to trace your hyip owner. If he gives his adresse. maybe than you should try google maps. Or maybe he lives just next door. Its your money.so why you shouldnt take precautions (;.

Other things we can get info of him is his IP. This can be extracted out of the emails he send. But than is the question if he works from behind a proxy server. This turial you get tomorrow.

Happy investing,

authur: ben