Unauthorized access to emails question

[Gear_Jammer]

My buddy left his old company and went to work for one of its competitors about 3 months ago. Before he left his former job he turned in his laptop, on which he thought he’d deleted passwords, etc. to all of his personal online accounts, including his personal email through Verizon. He's not very computer savvy and it turns out he didn’t get them all and his ex-boss has been logging into my buddy's personal email for the last 3 months, going through a lot of his old and new emails and then sharing the information with his former coworkers and others. My buddy was unaware it was happening until one of his former co-workers called him the other day to tell him. He suspects his ex-boss may have also accessed his bank accounts online too, but he's not sure of that yet. My buddy has already changed the passwords to all his accounts, but is pissed about it and wants to do something about it. I'm preparing a nasty cease & desist letter that will hopefully get the attention of his ex-boss and the owners of the company.

Texas Penal Code §16.04 states that unauthorized access to an online account is crime so my buddy is thinking about contacting the po-po, but he wants to have more solid proof of it than what his former coworker told him. He contacted Verizon who his personal email is through to see if there was a way to find out whether his old laptop accessed his email account, but between him not being computer savvy and their customer service sucking and giving him the run around he's gotten nowhere.

First, have any of you had a situation like this, and if so, where you able to trace it back to a particular computer and/or location. Second, wouldn't the best way to prove this be a log of all of the IP address that logged into his account?

TIA!!!

[Silverback]

Depending on their documented IT policy, it may state that the computer is company property and and access or usage to personal sites can be tracked and logged, etc.

Legally? That's your ball game

[Gasser64]

Their IT policy won't cover accessing his bank accounts. Guy could be in for some jail time if they prove he did that.

[Gear_Jammer]

The former employer's IT policy doesn't allow for access to employees personal accounts, email or otherwise, while they are an employee or after they leave, so I've got them there. And as Gasser said, even if it covered email accounts, bank accounts and the like are definitely off-limits.

My question is really whether there's a way to determine what computers were used to login to accounts - i.e. a log of all the IP addresses? Would the IP addresses be the "digital fingerprints" showing that or is there something else? One of the reasons I ask is my buddy contacted Verizon to see if they would give him that and they said they need a subpoena before they will release that info even when you are the owner of the account. Before I go to the trouble of pursuing that, I want to make sure the IP addresses would show that and/or if there's a better way to prove it. Does that make sense?

[Gasser64]

I'm just curious, but was the old boss a big time jerk or something? What kind of guy goes through all of someone's personal stuff, including their bank accounts

[Gear_Jammer]

I'm just curious, but was the old boss a big time jerk or something? What kind of guy goes through all of someone's personal stuff, including their bank accounts

I somewhat misspoke - the guy that's going through all his stuff is the guy that replaced my buddy as the VP of the company. He's a total joke and allegedly has a history of doing stuff like this. For example, my buddy bought a high 5 figure car after he left the company. The guy read those emails, saw how much he paid for it and then went and told his former co-workers the amount and that my buddy could afford it because he was getting bonuses from making them work so hard all the time. Regardless of whether that was true or not, it makes my buddy look like an A$$HOLE so none of those people will ever want to work for him again, which is exactly what the new guy wants to happen. It's a very competitive sales oriented job where it's not uncommon for management to leave and later recruit the former employees after the non-compete time period ends. I think he got scared that my buddy might start doing that so he decided he would poison the waters a little and unfortunately it appears to be working at the moment.

[Ruffdaddy]

The former employer's IT policy doesn't allow for access to employees personal accounts, email or otherwise, while they are an employee or after they leave, so I've got them there. And as Gasser said, even if it covered email accounts, bank accounts and the like are definitely off-limits.

My question is really whether there's a way to determine what computers were used to login to accounts - i.e. a log of all the IP addresses? Would the IP addresses be the "digital fingerprints" showing that or is there something else? One of the reasons I ask is my buddy contacted Verizon to see if they would give him that and they said they need a subpoena before they will release that info even when you are the owner of the account. Before I go to the trouble of pursuing that, I want to make sure the IP addresses would show that and/or if there's a better way to prove it. Does that make sense?

If the old companies IP address accessed the accounts after he no longer had access to the old companies internet...i believe they will know. Thats how they flag new log ins, fraud...etc.

But if your buddy really was overworking people and just getting rich while others suffered, Id call this his comeuppance. I don't know either way.