Is MSN messenger or AIM user IP traceable?

[ABAMOTO]

Dear all:
My best friend just had his car broken in, and his laptop was stolen. Now that thief uses his laptop to go on internet, and my friend's AIM and MSN automatically logs on.

My question is, is there a way to trace the connection from MSN or AIM based on IP address? Is it peer to peer? Anyone? Please help...

thanks...

 

[xmb]

The users themselfes arent peer-to-peer set, messages and logins go throught the microsoft server. There may though be a way of getting info including the ip, or getting an ip with some 'request chat channel' or something requests to the user. I dunno aim, check

http://www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/index.php

. Mac for productivity
.. Linux for developement
... Windows for solitaire

 

[aldend123]

if you can convince him to "direct connect" to you through AIM, you can gain his IP [then contact the police and notify them that you have the theif's IP and you'd like to gain their help in contacting the ISP and getting his address]

aimsn1 > aolserver > aimsn2
aimsn2 > aolserver > aimsn1

thats how it usually works, meaning no ip shown, just aol's

direct connect:
aimsn1 > aimsn2
aimsn2 > aimsn1

close all internet-accessing programs [p2p progs, web browsers etc,] open AIM and Log In, go to a DOS Command Prompt [go to > Start Menu > Run ... type Command]

type Netstat -N
write all the IP's down
now direct connect to this guy.. since hes on the victem's SN, pretend to be a former love interest and wanting to send some nude pictures to the guy... thief will think "oo good naked pics of this guy's girlfriend. or someting of this sort. anyways to do this you'd need to direct connect, once direct connected, perhaps actually send some nude pictures of the same girl so he wont get suspicious. but before you send any pics, but AFTER the direct connect is established, type Netstat -N into the command prompt once again, compair.... there should be one new IP there. but if there's more, just write ALL of it down, one of those IP's should be the thief's.

 

[xmb]

netstat /a /n >netstat.file to output to a file, instead of writing up anything manually.. I dunno if /a /n makes a difference than just /n (-N ?)

In other words, any output from commands entered at the dos prompt can be redirected with '>to_file' to that file, without (back)slashes in the current directory.

 

[ABAMOTO]

thank you all.
I think for some ISP, I am able to get the IP address. However, that might not be the correct location though. MSN and AIM need to initiate a session such as file transfer in order to connect directly with each other, which is the only way to lock someone's IP from CMD.

Thank you all for your help =)