Alright, here we go down this road once more. I'm interested in trying to find the IP address of one of my Yahoo Messenger friends. Here's what I know (think) already:
Normal instant messages are routed through a Yahoo server. I'm not sure of the ports in use, though it seems that these connections are made via FTP ports and sent in clear text (thank you Wireshark 
. Now, various people have suggested initiating a file transfer or viewing a webcam to help obtain an IP address. I have done both with varying results. I have started several file transfers, but I have been unable to find the right IP address listed with a netstat command (though in hind sight, maybe I should ahve used netstat -n). I also run several netstats while I was viewing their webcam. I found the correct IP once, but only once out of many attempts at running the command (and it was connected to my machine over port 5100).
Now here's where things get interesting. On my Fedora machine, I have a Yahoo client called GYachE. This interesting little program allows for both voice chat and webcams over the Yahoo network, and is great for us Linux users (though if Yahoo made a Linux client available, I'd probably be happy to use it instead). Anyway, I was checking out this program, and I was viewing a webcam with it. Get this. In the webcam window, not only was the correct IP address shown, but I was also able to see the webcam owners NAT address (something in the 10.x.x.x range, we confirmed it on their side via ipconfig /all). How the hell did that happen?
So in conclusion, there must be a way to identify a friends IP via a webcam connection. Does anyone know the details on how this connection is established, and at what point is the best time to use "netstat" for an IP retrieval? Also, does the same hold true for file transfers? I'm aware that Yahoo allegdely uses a peer-to-peer transfer scheme for these two services, but this could be wrong considering file transfers don't require the same QoS that webcams do. Any information about these topics would be appreciated. Me and my wife would really like to know what information is sent out to our "friends", and what can be obtained .
Oh and by the way, please don't refer me to any /\/\@d haX0rz sites or software. I'm trying to use software and commands I'm familiar with, or at least is sanctioned in some way shape or form. I'm sure your friend of a friend has mad skillZ, but if he can throw together a VB program to do it, I'm sure it can be done using what I've got already .
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How do you know you were looking at the correct IP Address? You may have been looking at the IP Address of the Yahoo Server