Is there a way to find an IP address by a person's name?

Question

I know about WhoIs applications but I need a way to find a person's IP address from another computer. I'm making a Chat application but I would like to add a function to find IP address by name since most people don't actually know their IP address. Any suggestions for finding an IP address or some other way to connect?

Ok so the original idea won't work. Any suggestions on how to make a connection with something static that most people would know?

Answer 1

I don't know much about chat protocols but it seems to me chatting takes place through an intermediary server.

E.g. IMs. You log onto the the IM server and then your presence is made known to the public. Your logging onto the server informs the IM server of your IP

Somewhere you need a fixed host. Take out a domain and write a server app to create an IP <---> name (user name) cross reference. Create a client app the chatters install on their systems that keeps their particular IP<--->name entry current.

In fact, botnets run on this idea. Somehow malicious user X puts what is essentially an IRC client onto user Y's system and that client registers with a control server and from that control server malicious crackers can control an army of systems.

Answer 2

I don't know of any way you could just type in a name and have an IP address come up. And if you could, it generally would not be the same from session to session (especially for dial-up users).

Then you have the people who use proxies to visit places like "Myspace". The IP will change every time their proxy does.

I'm thinking you need to figure another way to go about this.

Answer 3

I guess the problem is that IP addresses are not associated with person's names! So, I think you should work the problem around by some other method. There is no such link of IP addresses to person's names!

Answer 4

You could if everyone had a static IP, but I doubt that's gonna happen any time soon, so as the other person said, you might wanna find another way to do this.