Let's say you receive a text. The phone number is from a random place in another state. The text states something important enough for you to really want to/need to find the source of it. But when you call the number, it's not a working number. So in your very ametuer research with limited resources, you're able to deduce that it is likely generated from a computer and not an actual phone number.

Is there ANY way to find out more information about who could have sent it, or at least a general location from where it could have been sent? This isn't something threatening to the point to where the police should be involved, but it is something that you really want to look into further, just in case.

And this for a friend (no for real) so I may not know ALL of the info, but I think I do, in case someone has suggestions. I know that there was no info in the details of the text that could be researched, and I know the number and that it was generated out of Huntsville, AL although it's pretty certain that it wasn't actually sent from there. If I'm leaving out relevant info, just ask.

Please, thank you and Gig 'em.

Not sure if it's still the case, but a lot of the cell providers used to have a way to send a text message via their website and you could put any FROM number. Without getting the police involved I doubt you could get much else from it.

dam

There are also many sites where you can send a text to a number without ever entering any information.

I'm sure that it can be tracked back to your IP address with some computer forensics, but I doubt that many people could accomplish that without police help and help from your ISP.

I tried some of those sites once. It shows it coming from your IP. A proxy makes that easy enough though.

I would think if it was a fake number, you would need their ISP to provide the information as your ISP would only see the IP of the server it came from

I tried this site, http://www.sendanonymoussms.com/ but the text never arrived.

This site, http://www.smsspoofing.com/ says that they have not seen such a service work to a US number.