Before reading: No you can not trace someone's home adress with his/her IP.
A lot of people seem to think they can hunt scammers down using their IP. The oposite of this is true. However, you can track the IP of people in a certain range. This may come in handy to find out if your fellow trader is actually telling the truth about where he lives.
Firstly, you need to know how to find his IP.
Options:
1. Simply trace it via MSN Plus! Script: Ip GET
2. Get it from the headers in your hotmail
3. Send a file to him
How to?
Way one(Recommended)
If you don't have MSN Plus! go to Messenger Plus! Live - The Windows Live Messenger Extension and download it. Once installed, download this script (Choose mirror 2). In the chat window there will appear a button next to the speaker button. Click on it, and click on IPget -> Connection.
In most cases, the IP will appear when the person appears online / starts a chat with you. The script isnt working perfect, therefore it's recommended to only have 1!!! chat open. Close all your open Firefox / IE screens and other connections that might influence the result. Once you have only the chat with the trader open, it must be the only ip on the connection list.
Way two(Alternative)
Since the Windows Live Hotmail is introduced (Blaaarghghh btw), you can now right-click on the e-mail and select "View Source". For different languages, just pick the last option.
In the middle of it, you'll see something similar to this:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
X-ip: XX.XX.XX.XX
X-Ip is the IP of the trader that has sent you an e-mail.
Way 3(Very alternative)
1.Send a random file to the trader.
2. Close down all your other connections once again. It's recommended to send a large file to it. Send fore example a screenshot in BMP format of your char to him.
3. Go to start > run.
4. Type in "cmd"
5. In the command prompt, type netstat. You'll see the NAMES of the open connections
6. Type netstat /n. You'll now see the IP of the connections. You can easily see the MSN one, just look up on the previous command you entered, it will say something like: "4238123dasd.gateway.edge.messenger.blabla"
Tracing it!
There are alot of ways of tracking / tracing an IP. You can use advanced programs for it, but you can also use free sites. I recommend the last one.
You just need to enter the IP adress you found in the previous steps and click on "Trace" or "Track" in the bunch of sites for this.
Sites you can use
1. Visual IP Trace server: trace IP address, IP address location, IP tracer, whois lookup (I think this one is limited, though it works as a tit in whipped cream pudding)
2. IP Address Location: Find IP Address Search - My IP Lookup Locator (Scroll down. Perfect for just tracing the country. Look above on the results, they give a hawt GIF of the flag aswell.)
3. Traceroute, Ping, Domain Name Server (DNS) Lookup, WHOIS, and DNS Records Lookup
4. Etcetera
Just thought id bring this guide to you guys.