[folz]

This was posted about a couple of days ago (https://torrentfreak.com/security-flaw-links-bittorrent-user...), and the Register makes the same (incorrect) assumption as TorrentFreak that IPs can be traced to a single person.

This attack vector links Skype accounts to IP addresses, and then tries to find those IP addresses in BitTorrent swarms. But IP addresses are not people: an IP assigned to an account I owned is not necessarily being used by me, and the person who has a Skype account using a given IP is not necessarily the same person who is using BitTorrent to join a swarm from that IP.

The major issue here is that anyone can find out the IP address of any Skype user just by knowing their username, which can be found in the Skype global directory. Even worse, the user isn't able to block this (or even be notified about this) and the attack can be done by someone not in your contact list.

[pyre]

While I agree with you, I'll add that the ability to use Skype to 'track' someone across IPs (and then through the BitTorrent swarms) allows more evidence than a simple 'it came from this IP.'