Researchers Can Track Skype / BitTorrent User File and User Location

Use a BitTorrent client or P2P to download music? If you also use Skype, you can be tracked and your location can be pulled from the results. Researchers have found a way to track you file sharing action and all sorts of other things, raising privacy concerns.

If you use BitTorrent, and you've used Skype in the past three days, all sorts of things can be tracked -- including your IP address, determining your identity and finding out where your mobile phone has traveled. Apparently Skype was notified of this in May, but hasn't fixed the issue, according to IDG News.

It starts with finding out the IP address, which is like the address numbers on the front of house, but for your computer. Then the IP address can be used to link you to P2P file sharing action or BitTorrent use. The Skype directory can then be searched for a name, birth date and location, which then allows someone to take a pretty smart guess that it was you. Spooky.

"As soon as the BitTorrent crawler detects a matching IP address, it signals the verifier, which immediately calls the corresponding Skype user and, at the same time, initiates a handshake with the BitTorrent client,"reads the white paper from Stevens Le Blond, Chao Zhang, Arnaud Legout, Keith Ross and Walid Dabbous. They also said that if they call the user periodically, they can determine the mobility of the device, so if you've got Skype on your laptop, mobile phone or tablet computer, they can determine things like where you work or where you live. Have fun downloading music knowing that!

Check out more about steaming music sites in the Spacelab Streaming Music Guide. Check out more news about music apps and streaming music on the Digital Music News page.