If I have someone's IP address...

[Ezekiel]

yeah, i've been running ip scanners and trying to connect through certain ports through telnet but i've had no luck

You do know that routers do not accept incoming connections on any port unless the user explicitly tells it to, right? Trying to telnet to most home users on any port is like running at full speed into a wall... It doesn't get you anywhere.

People have got to stop thinking telnet is some magical tool that uses elite hacking methods to gain access to any computer. It is an interface to plain winsock connections; nothing more. If the user doesn't choose to run some sort of server program and doesn't forward the ports to his/her internal IP address, connecting will return nothing. Even though windows listens for connections on certain ports by default (file sharing, etc), the user would still have to expose himself via the router.

In reply to the above post, most ISPs do not block any ports - it wouldn't be in their interests to do so because it restricts internet access and loses ********s. Some of the crappiest ISPs block certain bittorrent ports (and SMTP sometimes), but this can be overcome by use of nonstandard ports. Unless of course they inspect packets to determine the protocol... But even then you can use encryption. If they block the windows file-sharing ports (so many tuts on netbios hacking these days), you can use a SOCKS proxy to overcome this problem.