This space is pretty cool, I worked on a similar logic based on large samples of pings to the ip so you don’t have to worry about clients having to ping out. Obv you are subject to the accuracy of the ip representing their location
Proof of location for online polls
11–20 of 89 posts
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#12> Latency-based geolocation can help protect poll integrity by: > Detecting when poll responses originate from outside the intended geographic region > Identifying attempts to manipulate polls through elevated VPN/proxy usage Unless the user also needs to complete a reaction-time test, couldn't this be defeated by using a remote desktop connection to a machine that is physically located in the other geography? It jus…
That is true, the location proof is only for the hardware whose IP is used for submitting the vote request. However if remote desktop provider / cloud provider / VPN / Tor IPs are already blocked by the voting platform. Then it would require significant effort to acquire hardware in the target geographic region and equip it with a residential IP.
Generally the whole setup only makes sense if IP's (or IP ranges) can only vote once per poll.
Then large scale manipulations should become impractical.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#13> Latency-based geolocation can help protect poll integrity by: > Detecting when poll responses originate from outside the intended geographic region > Identifying attempts to manipulate polls through elevated VPN/proxy usage Unless the user also needs to complete a reaction-time test, couldn't this be defeated by using a remote desktop connection to a machine that is physically located in the other geography? It jus…
I think this is covered on the page "Successfully manipulating a poll which employs this method would require following efforts and resources: Gaining control over a large number of devices in the target geographic region for submitting votes through those devices" So yes, it seems like it can be defeated via a remote desktop (or any proxy in the allowed area)
You don’t even need to gain control over a large number of devices in the region.
You just need _one_ device in the region, which can connect to the VPN or proxy service you were already using (the assumption seems to be that the attacker has a large number of IPs they can access through such a service). That device will get some added latency from going through the VPN/proxy, but because it’s physically close, the added latency will be small, probably not enough to reliably detect.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#14having worked on IP geolocation in the past, I don't think this works.
Though it can do a pretty good job of getting you in the right continent.
* Not all traffic goes through fiber - there are microwave links operating closer to the speed of light, though these are mostly reserved for high-speed trading. There's also satellite connections, but as long as they don't do satellite-staellite, they're slower.
* There are middleboxes messing with traffic, especially TCP, which add delay.
* If you rent servers in datacenters, you might not really know where they are. We had VMs relocated without our knowledge.
* Fibers links aren't direct, they tend to follow public right-of-ways. In much of the US, that's a rectangular grid along the highway system (look at a road map of the midwest sometime), increasing the delay by √2.
* Internet routing isn't shortest-path. It's get-this-crap-off-my-infrastructure, aka hot-potato.
* Anycast prefixes have IPs in multiple locations.
My experience was that with a lot of observation points, you could get within 10ms, 1000km in most places.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#15When i went to buy a SIM card I had to show ID. Is that the case in all America? Why not offload verification onto telecoms.
I think you can still buy prepaid SIMs in the US without ID.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#16> Key Advantages: [...] Can provide supportive evidence for VPN/proxy usage, when the latency is too high for all server locations I'm reading through the description, but I'm having trouble understanding the difference between a client having a higher overall latency due to bandwidth/connectivity concerns (e.g. a 3G phone) versus using a VPN. Both would have increased timings and the clock skew would be similar. Wou…
No you read it right. The proposal is idiotic and Will resulted in rural voters being detected as foreign residents
A bit aggressive. No, wouldn't connecting to a slow 3g tower affect ping times to all global servers proportionately?
The proposal has other flaws, but phone to tower latency isn't one.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#17> Latency-based geolocation can help protect poll integrity by: > Detecting when poll responses originate from outside the intended geographic region > Identifying attempts to manipulate polls through elevated VPN/proxy usage Unless the user also needs to complete a reaction-time test, couldn't this be defeated by using a remote desktop connection to a machine that is physically located in the other geography? It jus…
That is true, the location proof is only for the hardware whose IP is used for submitting the vote request. However if remote desktop provider / cloud provider / VPN / Tor IPs are already blocked by the voting platform. Then it would require significant effort to acquire hardware in the target geographic region and equip it with a residential IP. Generally the whole setup only makes sense if IP's (or IP ranges) can o…
You are describing an ideal use case for a botnet of compromised home computers. Should command a much higher premium than sending spam.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#18Has this been tested, or is it just an idea. I imagine it would have some very serious limitations. Perhaps it could tell if you are likely in the US or Europe, but I doubt could get much more granular than that. Starlink internet customers, and users of Apple's private relay (vpn-like service) would all be excluded?
The goal is to easily get a representative and un-manipulated sample of popular opinion. To achieve that, it might be ok to discriminate against certain users who use connections which cannot prove their location, as long as it's not heavily skewing the results.
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#19When i went to buy a SIM card I had to show ID. Is that the case in all America? Why not offload verification onto telecoms.
Fortunately it is not. https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/Registration_P...
Re: Proof of location for online polls
#20> Key Advantages: [...] Can provide supportive evidence for VPN/proxy usage, when the latency is too high for all server locations I'm reading through the description, but I'm having trouble understanding the difference between a client having a higher overall latency due to bandwidth/connectivity concerns (e.g. a 3G phone) versus using a VPN. Both would have increased timings and the clock skew would be similar. Wou…
No you read it right. The proposal is idiotic and Will resulted in rural voters being detected as foreign residents
If eliminating signal from malicious, remote actors is more valuable than preserving signal from rural areas, which may very well be the case depending on the application, then adopting this might solve a real problem for you.
I don't see anything terribly idiotic in that.
edit: to be clear I think this is likely one of those solutions that creates more problems than it solves. There's a gulf of sympathy separating that from "idiocy," however.