This seems a good place to get a difinitive answer to a question I've been searching for ages:

Is it possible / feesable to trace back a call that was made from a skype out number to PSTN specificaly to a skype account and IP address at time of call? (uk law applicable), further is this evidence forensicaly sound?

I have seen many posts on this subject , but thus far inable to get anything difinitive, many thanks in advance to the person who can claify this .

Pretty sure the answer is no from a user point of view. SKYPE has no caller ID on SKYPEOUT. Wether SKYPE could trace it I am not sure.

Yeah my question specificaly relates to skype admin, do they keep forensicaly sound IP to PSTN records, etc?

According to my account history, records of SkypeOut calls are kept for 8 months. This would link the call to an account, but I don't know if the IP data is logged in order to link the call to a location.

I think the IP data must be logged because there have been many posts on here where people go to another country and try to use Skypeout away from there home location and are told there account is blocked because there are using it from a high fraud IP/Country.

lol can anyone offer anything more difinitive than this?Skype could just configure thier servers not to accept a designated 'IP range'. doesnt necessarily mean that Caller to IP address info is being retained for any lengh of time, please I'm not inviting speculation,but input from someone technicaly orientated who can shed some inside knowledge.

i have tried reading few online articles, (using searches)

it appears that for billing purposes, skype would need to keep a record of the numbers you have called. where there is a record, there is the ability to trace. add to this the fact that once you associate your skype account to a credit card it appears to be impossible to remove that association... so some of your details are floating around somewhere.

however, skype and other voip services have special promotions... these promotions do not require you to provide billing addresses, personal data, or anything of the sort... and in these cases tracing calls is made much more difficult.

now to add confusion, skypes promotional offers are subject to your location (determined by your IP) and also sometimes if your IP location does not match your credit card location they block you... so this too suggests skype keeps a record of your IP for the promotional purposes even if they do not require a credit card or other personal info. also note, they keep a record of calls (including free calls) made in your account history (for 6 months?)....

so from what i have read through various articles... voip calls to pstn lines can be traced, however doing so is not feasible as there is too much work and cost involved.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060824-7582.html seems to say it was done once, and other sites have published similar stories

Thanks, good response, but still speculative in many areas, and not the difinitive reply I'd like. For one as I mentioned above, the fact that free skype out promotions dont work from any given country does not mean that skype keeps a IP to username map record for any lengh of time, but is more indicative that skype servers, and routers are configured to only allow dial out from known "IP ranges". To explain this more, the server will for example be configured to give all cutomers from Luxembourg free skype out as long as they dial out from a luxembourg IP range, Luxembourg has only 3 registered IP ranges as follows 127.xx.xx.xx , 10.xx.xx.xx , 192.xx.xx.xx (IP ranges here are merely for demonstration) << If your IP address doesn't start with 127, 10, or 192 = no free skypeout. There is no logging of IP addresses needed here.

Once again, can anyone please offer something they have 'real' knowledge of, and not mere speculation, reading a few other posts, I think it will clear this up for alot of other people, Skype staff anyone ?

I am sorry but I have to ask the question, why this fascination about whether Skype is traceable or not, provided you are carrying out operation over the internet via Skype that are fully legal why worry.

It's for an academic project I'm working on. However its pretty frightening the numebr of people who subscribe to the 'I'm not doing anything wrong, so I deserve no right to privacy' argument like your self.

Thank you for your reply now I can understand why you wanted the information.

I did not say I did not want any privacy I fully respect people privacy but people seem to me to go over the top on it some times. There never is and never wiil be total privacy unless you lock yourself away on some remote island somewhere and the I an sure somebody will be watching you via satalite or something like that.

Good point. The authorities in some countries (like the USA, for example) can tap your telephone, if they think they have a good reason to do so. We are told Skype calls are encrypted, so they cannot be so easily tapped by the authorities. That surely leads to the question: is it illegal to use Skype in countries like the USA?

feels like a different discussion point and this thread might get hijacked... maybe a good idea to begin a new thread? i know i'd definately be interested in putting my views forward to that question.