ip address

[Kelly+Kim]

Is there anyway to find out the ip address of someone
IM'ing me?To see what the ip address it's coming from?

 

[Chuck]

Is there anyway to find out the ip address of someone
IM'ing me?To see what the ip address it's coming from?

One of the advantages of IM is anonymity - identity and location. You don't
want strangers knowing your name or location (in most cases), and they don't
want you knowing theirs. No IM program that I know of will blatantly display an
ip address for a contact.

Most IM traffic goes between you and the IM server - watch your IM traffic using
a packet monitor like Port Explorer
<http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/index.php?page=home>, or TCPView
<http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/tcpview.shtml> (both free). You'll
notice that all of the text conversation traffic goes between you and the IM
server.

Depending upon the IM program (MSN/Windows Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger use
different protocols), you may have direct communication with the other party
when you do audio or video conversations, or send files. With a packet monitor,
you can see the ip address of the other party then. But you'll need a packet
monitor to get the address.

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Kelly+Kim]

Thanks,my sister is a little paronoid,she has a right to
be,just wanted to see if 19 different AOL IM are coming
from the same person.I think the best thing for us to do
is change our screen names and make sure only secure
people get them.Thanks for your help,we'll be looking at
the pacet monitors too.Cheers Kim

 

[Chuck]

Thanks,my sister is a little paronoid,she has a right to
be,just wanted to see if 19 different AOL IM are coming
from the same person.I think the best thing for us to do
is change our screen names and make sure only secure
people get them.Thanks for your help,we'll be looking at
the pacet monitors too.Cheers Kim

Kim,

It's a good idea to be paranoid these days. Your sis has the right idea.

Changing your screen names is probably a good idea, but it may not totally solve
your problems.

MSN/Windows Messenger suffers from SPIM (IM spam) attacks, and their advice is
to Block anyone not already in your contacts list. IOW, you can't use MM/WM for
finding new friends. The bad guys use dictionary attacks to send spim, just
like spam. :-(

If you do change your screen name, you probably should use something non-trivial
(not easily guess able ie by a dictionary spimmer).

And remember, if you use a packet monitor to find out someone's ip address, THEY
can do the same with you. Be careful.

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.