I was using Yahoo Chat through Yahoo Instant Messenger. All of a sudden on the chat screen some guy posts my IP address and says he's gonna send me a crash in 10 seconds. But nothing happened. And Everything he had typed about my ip address disappeared off the chat screen. How did he get my ip address and how did he make what he typed go away? BTW, I do use a firewall. It's the Windows XP firewall though.

Xp firewall is very limited.You are better off with a free firewall like Sygate 5.0 or Zone Alarm basic.They are both available at wilders.org for download and review.I would disable the xp firewall and download and install one of the above mentioned firewalls.I have used them both.As far as someone threatening you in chat....I know from experience that there are those types of problems on yahoo in particular.I know very little about the technical part of that.I have been "flooded" and "nuked" many times there.How they do it I don't know,but you have ppl with knowledge and lots of time on their hands and evidently some of those ppl have an ego thing about troubling other users.You can report the incident to yahoo in chat help but I doubt it will do any good.Will a firewall stop this from happening?I dont think so,cuz they probably acess your messenger which is open.I had an unknown individual access me on a messenger service,so I know it happens.Maybe someone can recommend a security program/tool that will protect you in addition to a firewall.Sorry I can't be of more help. JB

Once some one sends you an IM in Yahoo Chat or any Messenger, the IP is easy to get they do have to connect to your computer .. but i won't get into the details. The booters in yahoo are also easy to do people create programmes like Silent Butterfly and Flat liner to boot you, grab your ip and hack you. To help with boots, just look up the text that pops up on your screen and copy it ... type it into your filter file in the yahoo directory and go to prefrences and raise your chat word filter to High... this will help with any similar boots ... but new ones will continue to crash you. No perfect solution to this except if maybe yahoo will consider removing the IE integration with their messenger. Hope this helps ....

Hello Mike, I sure Hope you got the answer to your question from the posts above because Jim and Hylian just gave you a good detail, and from what I know is that yahoo does have many many problems and holes, and once you are interested in chatting you must do all you can to secure your PC by having softwares like Zone Alarm, AddAware, Trojan Hunter etc installed on your computer, and you realy can't do anything about those things other then trying to get all the security that you possibly can, and things can even get through those softwares too sometimes, and the question that How he typed the text there and made it dissappear? Well I gues the Software that he was using just made the text appear at Your Screen and it was not realy at everybody's and that might be just all that could do, and when something like that happens you should confirm it from somebody else in the chat room if they had witnessed what you saw or not, I am not saying that somebody can not do more then that, there are hacking softwares which can enable you to harm machines very easily, But I am saying that this particular person was just scarring you and there are people who can do much more the what can be immagined but I am also sure that they won't waste there time being in a chatroom and I am sure now you will not be having trouble understanding the problem because of the detailed posts above But I feel like you are more interested in "Knowing about How to get the IP Address of the person that You are talking to" Well if that is so and if you will not use it to harm anybody then there are also softwares which would enable you to get the IP addresses and you can also check out "Netstat" command ;-) I am afraid thats all I can tell you, and you better "SEARCH" for more Info, Hope it helps, Have a NICE day Sir, Byeeeeee Wazir

Instant messengers are infamous for getting people in trouble same with chat rooms. I know from experience not to make new friends on ICQ. But like he said above if you must at LEAST get some free and VERY usefull things. AD AWARE:if you dont have this already...why Zone Alarm: necessity and instead of trojan hunter(which only can find like %50 of trojans) go for Tauscan (%94)

well...i dont think above ones are the best replies to get for the query. now to get an IP in yahoo is damn so easy. netstat worx.when on icq, type netstat -n (remember only one internet app. shoud be running and that is icq. else u'll mess up with lotsa IPs) and u get it. but in Yahoo or MSN chat clients, story is different. They send IMs from their respective servers. so ppl play a trick. when u send a file or something from these clients, servers are bypassed and then type netstat -n . U GET THE IP OF THE PERSON U R TALKING TO. and about that missing text..answer is YAHPRO/booter section... hope this helps.. bye ya all