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determining IP of a computer from either aim or mail

excalibur313

excalibur313

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2003
780
5
Cambridge, MA
This is going to sound much more sketchy than it is but I have a computer set up at my parents house and I want to use remote desktop at college to help them back up some information. I was curious if there is a way I can determine an IP address from either email or an aim screen name that is away. I know that I could ask but they are sort of computer illiterate and I'd like to surprise them and do it before they get back to their computer. I know the passwords and everything and I could probably guess as to the router IP within the network. Also does remote desktop work with computers that don't have it? I'm kind of new to the software. Thank you so much for your help.
Stephen
 
excalibur313 said:
This is going to sound much more sketchy than it is but I have a computer set up at my parents house and I want to use remote desktop at college to help them back up some information. I was curious if there is a way I can determine an IP address from either email or an aim screen name that is away. I know that I could ask but they are sort of computer illiterate and I'd like to surprise them and do it before they get back to their computer. I know the passwords and everything and I could probably guess as to the router IP within the network. Also does remote desktop work with computers that don't have it? I'm kind of new to the software. Thank you so much for your help.
Stephen
Click to expand...

WHOA! :eek:

There may be HUGE legal ramifications in doing what you're proposing! :(
 
I can't offer much help for now, but if you get a chance, register with a free DNS service, like DynDNS.com or No-ip.com. I know some, if not most, Linksys routers (like the WRT54G) can update DynDNS and other hosts by themselves. No-IP has a client that can update it as well. To see an example, check out http://counterfit.no-ip.info:2002 That's my Spy page, and gets updated by the No-Ip.com client (wish I could get the daemon to run though :()
 
excalibur313 said:
I can determine an IP address from either email or an aim screen name that is away.
Click to expand...

Have them send a mail to you, read the headers (Long Headers in Apple mail, Cmd-Shift-H). The lowest entry in the list of "Received:"-headers should give you the IP address of their PC.
If they are behind a router you have to connect to their router's IP. In this case the router has to have NAT and port forwarding activated which means: lots of other trouble waiting for you... :cool:
 
Counterfit said:
No-IP has a client that can update it as well. To see an example, check out http://counterfit.no-ip.info:2002 That's my Spy page, and gets updated by the No-Ip.com client (wish I could get the daemon to run though :()
Click to expand...

Ok that page made me do a double take, since the first things I looked at all matched my computers specs (CPU type, speed, RAM), but then I noticed everything else was totally wrong. So it just auto updates and displays your info online? Thats pretty cool.
 
excalibur313 said:
This is going to sound much more sketchy than it is but I have a computer set up at my parents house and I want to use remote desktop at college to help them back up some information. I was curious if there is a way I can determine an IP address from either email or an aim screen name that is away. I know that I could ask but they are sort of computer illiterate and I'd like to surprise them and do it before they get back to their computer. I know the passwords and everything and I could probably guess as to the router IP within the network. Also does remote desktop work with computers that don't have it? I'm kind of new to the software. Thank you so much for your help.
Stephen
Click to expand...

1. Have them go to www.whatismyip.com and ask them to give you the IP it displays.

2. Configure a Dynamic DNS service (like suggested above, No-ip, etc.) and configure port forwarding on the router to forward the RD connections to the specific computer on the LAN. For this you'll need to know the internal IP assigned.
 
baummer said:
1. Have them go to www.whatismyip.com and ask them to give you the IP it displays.

2. Configure a Dynamic DNS service (like suggested above, No-ip, etc.) and configure port forwarding on the router to forward the RD connections to the specific computer on the LAN. For this you'll need to know the internal IP assigned.
Click to expand...

That only seems to work on the internal IP address. I did it here at work and I received an internal addy of 198.105.65.xxx ;) which isn't my real-world addy when people on the outside need to contact my machine.
 
efoto said:
That only seems to work on the internal IP address. I did it here at work and I received an internal addy of 198.105.65.xxx ;) which isn't my real-world addy when people on the outside need to contact my machine.
Click to expand...

That's odd; never had a problem before. Could be the way your work's network is configured. I used this method with my parents' computer; gave me the external IP. Could also try http://www.showmyip.com/
 
excalibur313 said:
This is going to sound much more sketchy than it is but I have a computer set up at my parents house and I want to use remote desktop at college to help them back up some information. I was curious if there is a way I can determine an IP address from either email or an aim screen name that is away. I know that I could ask but they are sort of computer illiterate and I'd like to surprise them and do it before they get back to their computer. I know the passwords and everything and I could probably guess as to the router IP within the network. Also does remote desktop work with computers that don't have it? I'm kind of new to the software. Thank you so much for your help.
Stephen
Click to expand...

Good luck with that.

If they are behind a router (like I think you are saying), you won't be able to do much without setting up port forwarding and you won't be able to configure port forwarding until someone enables remote management on the router. So in any case, you will need someone on their end to do some level of work.
 
baummer said:
That's odd; never had a problem before. Could be the way your work's network is configured. I used this method with my parents' computer; gave me the external IP. Could also try http://www.showmyip.com/
Click to expand...

It must be our network settings, that site gives the same IP. Oh well, guess it's harder to get into our network than I thought. IT must actually be doing something :rolleyes:
 
tag said:
Ok that page made me do a double take, since the first things I looked at all matched my computers specs (CPU type, speed, RAM), but then I noticed everything else was totally wrong. So it just auto updates and displays your info online? Thats pretty cool.
Click to expand...
Not quite. Whenever someone requests a page (or screenshot) it's generated right there. It uses about 3% CPU when idling, probably keeping track of everything, goes to about 30% when the main page (or screenshot) is requested.
 
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