locating a person

[akif]

hi,

can i know the exact location of a person chatting with me in yahoo messenger ?
how much can i know about him ? (actually i m pointing towards knowing IP address etc. or whatever is used for this purpose)

thx.

[Bumpus]

ICQ years ago used to let you poll a user for their IP Address, but I think all of that has changed. We use AIM here at work and to my knowledge, you can not poll that user for their IP Address. Mostly because of security issues. If there is a way, I'm not aware of it. But, then again, I sure don't know it all.

You'll just have to trust that that 22 year old model from New York isn't a 40 year old Construction worker!

Bumpus

[akif]

You'll just have to trust that that 22 year old model from New York isn't a 40 year old Construction worker!


lol....
ya..... got a similar sort of reply from another forum.
Anyway.... thx a lot.

[Paul Komski]

http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/mesg/details.html
Yahoo! Messenger sometimes uses a peer-to-peer connection during its operation, including times when you may be using it for instant messaging (text conversations), file sharing and webcam streaming. Peer-to-peer means that your computer connects directly to the other user's computer in the conversation without needing to go through Yahoo! servers. As such, your IP address is available to users you share a peer-to-peer connection with.

So the IP addy information is there - it just needs digging out. I dont use any messaging clients so cant directly help with that. A firewall or packet sniffing app should be able to detect it if its not in the Yahoo configuration itself. Unless the chat is with someone on a static IP not using a proxy - the IP address is most unlikely to help you locate the physical position.