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How to build a IP geolocation database from scratch?

ipapi.is

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Re: How to build a IP geolocation database from scratch?

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. Ignoring the somewhat strained metaphor, you seem to be suggesting that you don't have moral responsibility for aiding the creepiness of professional manipulators because you also enable other things. I don't think that's true. But even if it were, it would only be so if it were a minimal, possibly negligible part of your business. What percentage of revenue would you say comes from adtech?

I am happy to assist any business, organization or person to use our data. I enjoy talking with people and helping them with the technical and philosophical aspects of IP metadata. If you progressively remove the layers of metadata associated with internet-connected devices one by one from GPS data (user-permitted action) → IP geolocation (IPinfo.io)→ IP address (ISP), and come to a system that is completely anonymou…

Look, I have no stake in this. I don't really care what you do. But if only for your own personal development, you should recognize what you're doing here in this conversation.

Can IP geolocation be used for positive things? Yes. We agree on that.

But it can also be used for things that can reasonably be seen as creepy and/or bad. Hopefully you can agree on that.

If you're going to sell your services to all comers, then you are going to be supporting and profiting from both good and bad things. And rather than spewing paragraphs about the good bits when somebody points out the bad bits, you should own what you're doing.

Think of it like selling guns. Are there legitimate defensive uses for them? Sure, ask anybody in Ukraine. But if a gun deal just focuses on how they "enjoy talking with people and helping them with the technical [...] aspects" while being "happy to assist "any business, organization, or person" to buy a gun, then they end up morally responsible for all the other uses guns have, too.

Re: How to build a IP geolocation database from scratch?

#183
post #135

As someone that lives in a country where the national language is not my first language, I hate websites that use IP location to make assumptions about my choice of language and it being forced on me based on a lazy assumption, when my browser is sending language headers quite clearly, and they are ignored.

I work for an IP geolocations service, even I hate this thing. They call it "web experience personalization" in the industry, and it is annoying. I have never recommended anyone to do that. The best way to do website personalization through IP geolocation: - Taxes and stuff (if applicable) - Delivery costs (if applicable) - Putting the user's country first in those country selection drop-down menu And that's about it…

A fair number of popular internationalization frameworks also drive the idea that region and language are fixed pairs.

The example I often use to illustrate this problem is that there are roughly 4 million Norwegian speakers in the world, but 14 million speakers of Catalan. Visit an international website in Spain and you rarely get given the option to have it in Catalan.

Good example is Amazon.es https://www.amazon.es/customer-preferences/edit?from=mobile&...

Re: How to build a IP geolocation database from scratch?

#184
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gonna lie, this creeps the heck out of me.

You might want to unplug your router then. A conceit of being connected to a network is you're connected to the network. If you can see other nodes they can see you.

Is this an accepted usage of the word `conceit`? I love the construction, and it does feel like it belongs, but I'm not finding this usage. https://www.wordnik.com/words/conceit has a bunch of meanings collected from various sources.

I wonder if you meant `concession`.

Also, it's a false dichotomy. One can use VPN or proxies, to limit exposure or to encapsulate it. Of course, you can't get perfect location privacy.

Re: How to build a IP geolocation database from scratch?

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can your probes be identified and blocked?

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -j DROP

This doesn't help. Even if you apply this at your router, you are locatable up to your ISP. Which is generally close enough.

Maybe if you delay pings by some amount (20ms? 100ms?), or randomize the delay, you can do a lot better at masking location.

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