AIM help

hi all,,

My Question is how do people find out your ip through AIM, Gaim .etc . All the people i know they know how to do it .Is there any way to to block it some how so they wont be able to get it each time i talk to them?

They are able to discover an IP when a direct connection is made, or when a file is sent from one client to another, or by tricking a user to open a website they have control over. It's fundamentally impossible to discover the IP of a client on AIM with just a screen name and nothing further. You can prevent an IP from being revealed by using the AOL proxy for direct connections, which is found in AIM preferences. I don't think Gaim or others support this...

thanks Soda_Popinsky ill look around in there see what happens..also if lets say he has a firewall can he view my ip fromthe logs?

If you are currently talking to them you can run 'netstat -a' and grab an IP that way. With a little bit of trial and error you should be able to tell which IP belongs to the person you are talking to.

i tried doing netstat -a and it gave me this " aimexpress-vr04.evip.aol.com:http" no ip in there .didnt work any other way?

Hi hitmun,

Try using "netstat -an" instead ... this will give you the IP address behind "aimexpress-vr04.evip.aol.com".

The other option is to do:

"nslookup aimexpress-vr04.evip.aol.com"

Cheers,

BrainStop

nope doesnt work..i came close though one timeon getting the ip ... :(

Quote:

---

If you are currently talking to them you can run 'netstat -a' and grab an IP that way. With a little bit of trial and error you should be able to tell which IP belongs to the person you are talking to.

---

Wrong. You'll see the hostname of the central chat server.

Quote:

---

Hi hitmun,

Try using "netstat -an" instead ... this will give you the IP address behind "aimexpress-vr04.evip.aol.com".

The other option is to do:

"nslookup aimexpress-vr04.evip.aol.com"

Cheers,

BrainStop

---

Wrong. You'll see the IP address of the central chat server.

Quote:

---

nope doesnt work..i came close though one timeon getting the ip ...

---

Huh? Is that like, "I'm a little bit pregnant."?

Anyway,

If any of you bothered to read the explanation that Soda gave you would know that you have to make a direct connection before your source IP can be discovered. Chat services run through a central server, which hides your IP from each end of the conversation. The exception to this is when you accept file transfers, DCCs, or you get tricked into going to a host that the attacker has control over. Other than these methods, your IP is not visible to the attacker. To sum it up, YOU have to do something stupid in order for the attacker to get your IP. Even then, this isn't exactly the end of the world.

--TH13

once again the day is saved thanks to thehorse, your friendly neighborhood moderator.....good job!
I knew a little about the subject, but I didn't think it was enough to help anyone so I kept my mouth shut, but I've now confirmed my suspicions about the subject in this thread.

Aim gives you the ability to use a proxy during a direct connect and there have been programs in the past that used exploits to find any user's ip.