To find out IP address.

I want to find out a friends IP address using Yahoo Messenger in order to determine which counrty he/she is in. When you chat with someone is it possible to find out the IP? I had downloaded a program from the net which said that you could, but it did not work at all. Has someone already done that here?

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Comments

TechBoy22

wouldnt it be easier to ask them to do their own ipconfig and tell you the IP address? I wouldnt trust downloading such programs neither as viruses could be attached to it.

dynamik

You'd probably have to have them go to www.whatismyip.com or something like that since ipconfig would probably show a private address.

If you're trying to be sneaky about it, you could use something like wireshark to capture network traffic. You'd have to make a direct connection, otherwise you'd probably just get one of Yahoo's IPs. Some apps allow you to do this explicitly, and other actions, like file transfers, may cause this to happen as well.

http://www.wireshark.org/

TechBoy22

Never heard of such a thing. thats pretty cool. Heh learn somethin new everyday!

Slowhand

dynamik wrote:

You'd probably have to have them go to www.whatismyip.com or something like that since ipconfig would probably show a private address.

I prefer IP Chicken.

Sie

If we are talking Animal IP sites mines:

http://www.ipmonkey.com/

mikej412

If there isn't a server/proxy in the middle of the conversation then you try a netstat command in a command window and see what network connections are open.

Shaz444

Everyone thanks for your help, but I am chatting to a girl, what can I possibly ask her to do (like go to the DOS prompt & ipconfig etc) I think the fact that she is talking to me is enough over here. I was hoping to do all the sneaky stuff on my machine.

dynamik

Has she sent you any pics? If so, did she look like the results of a google image search for "hot chick"?

shednik

mikej412 wrote:

If there isn't a server/proxy in the middle of the conversation then you try a netstat command in a command window and see what network connections are open.

This would be the best option I'd say...most chat clients i believe are just p2p...i know if you direct connection with pidgin it will reveal their ip.

SWM

I prefer www.moanmyip.com

dynamik

SWM wrote:

I prefer www.moanmyip.com

I forgot about that.

TOTALLY NSFW THOUGH

And I feel dumb for suggesting a protocol analyzer over netstat...

Sie

SWM wrote:

I prefer www.moanmyip.com

Ok maybe NSFW, or atleast i know now!

Kalabin

I thought the only way to pull a good IP with netstat while using a messaging service was to actually open a file transfer session between one another. I thought with just messaging it would only show the service you are connected to, I.E MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger servers, not the actual person you are messaging. Please do correct me if I'm wrong on this one, I'm curious myself. If I wasn't at work I would test it

Met44

Any public messaging service such as Yahoo will have a connection to a central company server, since law requires copies of all instant messages to be retained for some period of years. Depending on how the software is engineered, you could have separate flows (one to Yahoo and one to the system you are chatting with). However, I would expect that you simply send the chat message to Yahoo, then Yahoo records your message and sends an identical one to your friend. In any case, you would be able to check that by looking through netstat for different flows and using an online whois service to check what company has registered the IP address.

Interesting thought about opening a file transfer.