Location Setting

[Shoe]

Whenever web site pick up my location, they show me in a nearby town
instead of the town where I am. Is there a setting somewhere in
Windows that sets my location? I have been unable to locate anything
in control panel.

 

[richard]

Whenever web site pick up my location, they show me in a nearby town
instead of the town where I am. Is there a setting somewhere in
Windows that sets my location? I have been unable to locate anything
in control panel.

web sites detect an IP, check the files and see where that IP is
registered.
Some times, they just look up to see who owns that IP block and use that,
which may give entirely different results.
I've seen my IP show up in several different cities.
On the same day!

Contrary to hollywood drama, no, they can not pinpoint your location by
your IP alone.

 

[Asger Joergensen]

Hi richard

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:05:57 -0400, Shoe wrote:

Contrary to hollywood drama, no, they can not pinpoint your location by
your IP alone.

Shouldn't there have been added ?
unless you have a fixed IP address.

 

[John Williamson]

Hi richard


Shouldn't there have been added ?
unless you have a fixed IP address.

Which can be spoofed, or have all calls to it redirected elsewhere.

 

[Shoe]

Which can be spoofed, or have all calls to it redirected elsewhere.

OK, thanks. The town it is showing is the adress of my ISP, so your
responses are correct.

 

[Paul]

web sites detect an IP, check the files and see where that IP is
registered.
Some times, they just look up to see who owns that IP block and use that,
which may give entirely different results.
I've seen my IP show up in several different cities.
On the same day!

Contrary to hollywood drama, no, they can not pinpoint your location by
your IP alone.

http://static.usenix.org/events/nsdi11/tech/full_papers/Wang_Yong.pdf

"Our approach effectively addresses this problem and geolocates
the targets within a few kilometers."

Trivial geolocation, is obtained by mapping your IP address, to the
street address of the head office of your ISP. This can result in
gross errors in geolocation, such as showing you a weather report
for an entirely different big city. I always get a chuckle, when some
web site puts "weather info" for the wrong city.

More active geolocation methods, are going to find your city more
successfully. And on more than one occasion, I've seen targeted
advertising, that suggests the web site knows more than just the
"head office" info the other sites use.

Paul

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

[snip]

Trivial geolocation, is obtained by mapping your IP address, to the
street address of the head office of your ISP. This can result in

Or the ADSL provider that one's ISP uses.

gross errors in geolocation, such as showing you a weather report
for an entirely different big city. I always get a chuckle, when some
web site puts "weather info" for the wrong city.

Or being offered the opportunity for a date that evening in a
city four hours away. Not terribly workable at 5 PM. I so love
untargetted advertising.

More active geolocation methods, are going to find your city more
successfully. And on more than one occasion, I've seen targeted
advertising, that suggests the web site knows more than just the
"head office" info the other sites use.

As have I. I am in the same city as my ISP, so, in my case, they
are drilling down more deeply, but how it would work if I were in
another community than that of my ISP, I do not know.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Char Jackson]

Or the ADSL provider that one's ISP uses.

I tried, but failed, to make sense of that statement.

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

I tried, but failed, to make sense of that statement.

My ISP (OCIS) buys ADSL service from Telus. I pay OCIS for my
ADSL. OCIS pays Telus.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Char Jackson]

My ISP (OCIS) buys ADSL service from Telus. I pay OCIS for my
ADSL. OCIS pays Telus.

I think I see what you're saying. I think so, anyway. Thanks.

 

[Evan Platt]

web sites detect an IP, check the files

"Check the files"?

Please expand.

and see where that IP is registered.
Some times, they just look up to see who owns that IP block and use that,
which may give entirely different results.
I've seen my IP show up in several different cities.
On the same day!

From different sites?

Contrary to hollywood drama, no, they can not pinpoint your location by
your IP alone.

Yes, with a court order and the assistance of the ISP, they can.

 

[John Williamson]

Yes, with a court order and the assistance of the ISP, they can.

I'd like to see them try that for the system I'm using at the moment,
without the co-operation of at least one more organisation. Even then,
they could probably only locate me to within a mile or so.

I've been in three widely separated different locations today, according
to Google. I've moved less than ten miles. If I'd set up a VPN,
tunnelling through to the internet, I would have been even harder to trace.

 

[Susan & Bill]

OK, thanks. The town it is showing is the adress of my ISP, so your
responses are correct.

Today, I received this:
Subject: NOTICE: Important notice from Bank of America Alert
with this link in the https://www.bankofamerica.com/logon/

and this message:
Security Alert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As part of our security measure, We regularly screen activity in the Bank of
America system. You received this message due to an issue on your account.
Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have
reason to believe there might be security breach on your account.

First, I don't have a Bank of America so I was suspicious. I copied the
shortcut link and pasted it into notepad. Instead of
https://www.bankofamerica.com/, it was http://www.castechint.com/doc/

I checked the IP address and it traced to HaKovshim Street in Tel Aviv,
Israel.
IP country code: IL
IP address country: Israel
IP address state: Tel Aviv
IP address city: Tel Aviv-yafo
IP address latitude: 32.0678
IP address longitude: 34.7647
ISP of this IP [?]: Golden Lines Cable
Organization: Golden Lines Cable

Well, anyway, the point of my reply is that I never realized that I could
pin down the street, longitude and longitude of where a message originates.
Man, I learn something new every day!
(I sent the source on to Comcast Abuse.)

 

[Stan Brown]

As part of our security measure, We regularly screen activity in the Bank of
America system. You received this message due to an issue on your account.
Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have
reason to believe there might be security breach on your account.

First, I don't have a Bank of America so I was suspicious. I copied the
shortcut link and pasted it into notepad. Instead of
https://www.bankofamerica.com/, it was http://www.castechint.com/doc/

You need a better mail program. In Thunderbird, when I hover over a
link it shows me the actual URL.

Not that I would ever be stupid enough to click on a link supposedly
from a bank, Papyal, the United Nations compensation fund, or
anything else -- and I'm glad to see that you're not that stupid
either.

 

[Susan & Bill]

OK, thanks. The town it is showing is the adress of my ISP, so your
responses are correct.

Today, I received this:
Subject: NOTICE: Important notice from Bank of America Alert
with this link in the https://www.bankofamerica.com/logon/

and this message:
Security Alert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As part of our security measure, We regularly screen activity in the Bank
of
America system. You received this message due to an issue on your account.
Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have
reason to believe there might be security breach on your account.

First, I don't have a Bank of America so I was suspicious. I copied the
shortcut link and pasted it into notepad. Instead of
https://www.bankofamerica.com/, it was http://www.castechint.com/doc/

I checked the IP address and it traced to HaKovshim Street in Tel Aviv,
Israel.
IP country code: IL
IP address country: Israel
IP address state: Tel Aviv
IP address city: Tel Aviv-yafo
IP address latitude: 32.0678
IP address longitude: 34.7647
ISP of this IP [?]: Golden Lines Cable
Organization: Golden Lines Cable

Well, anyway, the point of my reply is that I never realized that I could
pin down the street, longitude and longitude of where a message
originates. Man, I learn something new every day!
(I sent the source on to Comcast Abuse.)
--------------------------------------------------

Susan
(not flyin' so much anymore)

Or longitude and LATTITUDE!
Susan

 

[VanguardLH]

Whenever web site pick up my location, they show me in a nearby town
instead of the town where I am. Is there a setting somewhere in
Windows that sets my location? I have been unable to locate anything
in control panel.

IP addresses are allocated in pools to ISPs. That means it is known
where an ISP reallocates the IP addresses from its pool. Even if ISPs
operate in multiple regions, it is known which IP addresses each uses.
It's called IP geolocation. There are databases that track where the IP
addresses are allocated.

Every host to which you connect knows what is your IP address; else, it
wouldn't know to where to send the data that you requested from it, like
a web page.

Here are some geolocation sites:

http://www.ip2location.com/
http://www.ip-address.org/lookup/ip-locator.php
http://www.liveipmap.com/

 

[Strobe]

Today, I received this:
Subject: NOTICE: Important notice from Bank of America Alert
with this link in the https://www.bankofamerica.com/logon/

and this message:
Security Alert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As part of our security measure, We regularly screen activity in the Bank of
America system. You received this message due to an issue on your account.
Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have
reason to believe there might be security breach on your account.

First, I don't have a Bank of America so I was suspicious. I copied the
shortcut link and pasted it into notepad. Instead of
https://www.bankofamerica.com/, it was http://www.castechint.com/doc/

I checked the IP address and it traced to HaKovshim Street in Tel Aviv,
Israel.
IP country code: IL
IP address country: Israel
IP address state: Tel Aviv
IP address city: Tel Aviv-yafo
IP address latitude: 32.0678
IP address longitude: 34.7647
ISP of this IP [?]: Golden Lines Cable
Organization: Golden Lines Cable

Well, anyway, the point of my reply is that I never realized that I could
pin down the street, longitude and longitude of where a message originates.
Man, I learn something new every day!

It gets even better - Google now has street views of Tel Aviv!

The co-ords above lead to a parking lot beside 62 Kovshim,
which is a graffiti daubed building with no business name visible.
Of course, sufficiently skilled hackers can fake message headers, and the
Lat/Long above might have had a digit transposed somewhere.

(I sent the source on to Comcast Abuse.)

Golden Lines Cable seems to have their own report line at (e-mail address removed),
they might do better tracking him on their network than Comcast. (They do speak
English!)

BTW, I'm not quite the sad git I might seem, I'd just been scanning the newly
released StreetView for nostalgic shots of the Yemenite Quarter when I read your
post.
My resulting prowl down Kovshim showed a lot of new building, but also
refreshed a couple of very warm memories - thanks.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, VanguardLH <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

IP addresses are allocated in pools to ISPs. That means it is known
where an ISP reallocates the IP addresses from its pool. Even if ISPs
operate in multiple regions, it is known which IP addresses each uses.
It's called IP geolocation. There are databases that track where the IP
addresses are allocated.

Every host to which you connect knows what is your IP address; else, it
wouldn't know to where to send the data that you requested from it, like
a web page.

Strange: the two of the locator sites you give that work seem to think
my IP - which I assume is from a pool allocated by my ISP - is in Truro,
which is in the West country (Cornwall I think); I'm in Kent, and my ISP
usually claims to be in Yorkshire!

Here are some geolocation sites:

http://www.ip2location.com/

That one, as far as I can see, just gives the location of the IP you
visit it from - there doesn't seem to be a box to enter another one in.
Unless, possibly, you buy.

http://www.ip-address.org/lookup/ip-locator.php

That one I keep getting "Server not found".

http://www.liveipmap.com/

That one worked as the first, but _does_ have a box to type in a further
IP (I didn't try it). Thanks for the link.

 

[VanguardLH]

Strange: the two of the locator sites you give that work seem to think
my IP - which I assume is from a pool allocated by my ISP - is in
Truro, which is in the West country (Cornwall I think); I'm in Kent,
and my ISP usually claims to be in Yorkshire!

The provide geolocation based on allocation and databases of usage.
Doesn't really matter where YOU are. Matters where is the ISP's
distribution of IP addresses from its pool. They aren't designed to
find you down to a house number on a particular street. They're
designed to get down to a city but a "city" may be a metropolis or
collection of townships. I live in a suburb that is 15 miles away
(well, it's 7 miles away but I'm at the far end of that suburb) but our
7-county metropolitan area, even with 2 major cities side by side on
other sides of a river, gets listed under the one big city. You live in
some town but that might not be considered the center of your county or
region.

Do a traceroute. You might find your ISP is located in or very near the
cities listed in an IP geolocation lookup.

That one, as far as I can see, just gives the location of the IP you
visit it from - there doesn't seem to be a box to enter another one in.
Unless, possibly, you buy.

Look at the top right corner of the web page.

That one I keep getting "Server not found".

They come and go. Sometimes being free to us is too expensive for the
operator/owner of a site. You can go find lots of such lookup sites by
just Googling for them, as in:

http://www.google.com/search?q=ip+geolocation

That one worked as the first, but _does_ have a box to type in a
further IP (I didn't try it). Thanks for the link.

Yes it does. It's right above the "Latest Complaints" section.

 

[Susan & Bill]

Today, I received this:
Subject: NOTICE: Important notice from Bank of America Alert
with this link in the https://www.bankofamerica.com/logon/

and this message:
Security Alert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As part of our security measure, We regularly screen activity in the Bank
of
America system. You received this message due to an issue on your account.
Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have
reason to believe there might be security breach on your account.

First, I don't have a Bank of America so I was suspicious. I copied the
shortcut link and pasted it into notepad. Instead of
https://www.bankofamerica.com/, it was http://www.castechint.com/doc/

I checked the IP address and it traced to HaKovshim Street in Tel Aviv,
Israel.
IP country code: IL
IP address country: Israel
IP address state: Tel Aviv
IP address city: Tel Aviv-yafo
IP address latitude: 32.0678
IP address longitude: 34.7647
ISP of this IP [?]: Golden Lines Cable
Organization: Golden Lines Cable

Well, anyway, the point of my reply is that I never realized that I could
pin down the street, longitude and longitude of where a message
originates.
Man, I learn something new every day!

It gets even better - Google now has street views of Tel Aviv!

The co-ords above lead to a parking lot beside 62 Kovshim,
which is a graffiti daubed building with no business name visible.
Of course, sufficiently skilled hackers can fake message headers, and the
Lat/Long above might have had a digit transposed somewhere.

(I sent the source on to Comcast Abuse.)

Golden Lines Cable seems to have their own report line at
(e-mail address removed),
they might do better tracking him on their network than Comcast. (They do
speak
English!)

BTW, I'm not quite the sad git I might seem, I'd just been scanning the
newly
released StreetView for nostalgic shots of the Yemenite Quarter when I
read your
post.
My resulting prowl down Kovshim showed a lot of new building, but also
refreshed a couple of very warm memories - thanks.

Thanks for the hint about Golden Lines Cable abuse, and it's neat that you
know the street and that it has those nice memories for you.
Susan