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IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

sanjayparekh.com

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Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#21

Post by ggm »

toast0 wrote: post #17
ggm wrote: post #16

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-181/ October 1994. which is 28 years ago. Contains the inetnum: object as follows The information in the old inetnum object inetnum: 192.87.45.0 netname: RIPE-NCC descr: RIPE Network Coordination Centre descr: Amsterdam, Netherlands country: NL So.. I hesitate to be snitty, what exactly about IP geolocation did you invent given that by 1994 we already had a formalism to rep…

I had the same kind of thought, but I think the 'invention' is really figuring out an application of ip geolocation, and a market for that application. IMHO, it wasn't hard to figure out roughly where servers or peers were in the real world based on their IP address and network routes to them, but it was non obvious why someone would want to pay for a service...

"I worked out how to monetize it"

is very different to

"I invented it"

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#22

Post by kristopolous »

yosito wrote: post #18

25 years old and still constantly misused by tech companies to assume my language preferences while traveling even though my browser explicitly communicates my language and locale preferences. Spotify and Google are particularly notorious offenders.

Wrote about that 7 years ago over here https://kristopolous.medium.com/stop-guessing-languages-base...

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#23

Post by Fischgericht »

toast0 wrote: post #17
ggm wrote: post #16

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-181/ October 1994. which is 28 years ago. Contains the inetnum: object as follows The information in the old inetnum object inetnum: 192.87.45.0 netname: RIPE-NCC descr: RIPE Network Coordination Centre descr: Amsterdam, Netherlands country: NL So.. I hesitate to be snitty, what exactly about IP geolocation did you invent given that by 1994 we already had a formalism to rep…

I had the same kind of thought, but I think the 'invention' is really figuring out an application of ip geolocation, and a market for that application. IMHO, it wasn't hard to figure out roughly where servers or peers were in the real world based on their IP address and network routes to them, but it was non obvious why someone would want to pay for a service...

If you read the patent it's clear it's not even that. He filed a patent for an idea, where you would build a database based on geo information provided by the user.

And even before the existence of data privacy laws, this simply would not have worked.

Instead companies like Maxmind implemented the much better idea of sourcing location data from Whois databases and ISPs server-side.

That's what everybody understands when you use the term "IP Geolocation".

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#24

Post by [deleted] »

Fischgericht wrote: post #23
toast0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same kind of thought, but I think the 'invention' is really figuring out an application of ip geolocation, and a market for that application. IMHO, it wasn't hard to figure out roughly where servers or peers were in the real world based on their IP address and network routes to them, but it was non obvious why someone would want to pay for a service...

If you read the patent it's clear it's not even that. He filed a patent for an idea, where you would build a database based on geo information provided by the user . And even before the existence of data privacy laws, this simply would not have worked. Instead companies like Maxmind implemented the much better idea of sourcing location data from Whois databases and ISPs server-side. That's what everybody understands…

[deleted]

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#25

Post by convolvatron »

ggm wrote: post #16

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-181/ October 1994. which is 28 years ago. Contains the inetnum: object as follows The information in the old inetnum object inetnum: 192.87.45.0 netname: RIPE-NCC descr: RIPE Network Coordination Centre descr: Amsterdam, Netherlands country: NL So.. I hesitate to be snitty, what exactly about IP geolocation did you invent given that by 1994 we already had a formalism to rep…

we did some early geolocation work at CAIDA/stanford a little later, around 1996

https://graphics.stanford.edu/videos/mbone/

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#27

Post by ACow_Adonis »

ggm wrote: post #16

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-181/ October 1994. which is 28 years ago. Contains the inetnum: object as follows The information in the old inetnum object inetnum: 192.87.45.0 netname: RIPE-NCC descr: RIPE Network Coordination Centre descr: Amsterdam, Netherlands country: NL So.. I hesitate to be snitty, what exactly about IP geolocation did you invent given that by 1994 we already had a formalism to rep…

I can accept that he invented it in the same sense that I invented recursion. I called it the "ouroboros" function and was really quite pleased with myself for thinking of the pattern.

Now, the fact that I called it by an ancient reference should probably have been the first clue that I didn't get there first, and sure enough later I found out that actually no, it's a very old idea in computer programming.

For the record, I can place back reliably to about 2001 the first time I was introduced to someone showing me an actual free application of searching/displaying ip lookups and laying it out on a visual map because it was about the only thing of value I took away from my first year information systems course, and although I can't remember the name of the application or program used, i've never heard of the blog writers company or his competitor: free software that did it must have already been available and mature for doing it and was being passed around during that time because it was already freely available by the time lowly old me turned up.

And given that the theory of doing so probably worked out long before that I think "invented" might be a liiiiiiiitle bit of a stretch...

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#28

Post by sanjayparekh »

ggm wrote: post #21
toast0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same kind of thought, but I think the 'invention' is really figuring out an application of ip geolocation, and a market for that application. IMHO, it wasn't hard to figure out roughly where servers or peers were in the real world based on their IP address and network routes to them, but it was non obvious why someone would want to pay for a service...

"I worked out how to monetize it" is very different to "I invented it"

To clarify, yes whois registries have existed since the start of the Internet. However the location provided by those registries does not equate to the users' location. For example, back in the day, IBM (IIRC) ran a worldwide network of dial-ins and all of their IPs were registered back to their headquarters in Schenectady, NY. So yes, we figured out how to monetize it and maybe in the extreme "invented" is a stretch - maybe I should have said "invented a way for it to be accurate to a city level". In case you're wondering, 94% accurate to a city level, worldwide when I was there.

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#29

Post by sanjayparekh »

Fischgericht wrote: post #20

No, IP Geolocation is not Twenty-Five Years old, you did not invent it, and you do not have a patent for it. Let's see what your patent is about: A method, computer program product and electronic device are provided for providing hyper-local geo-targeting based on validated, user-supplied geographic information, wherein the user's anonymity may be maintained. In particular, user-supplied geographic information may be…

Maybe it wasn't clear, but I left my operating role at the company in 2005 and we exited the company (it was acquired) in 2007. I don't think I ever said anyone stole my idea - because they never did. Others were in the same space (Maxmind included) but came up way after us - and we never pursued anyone in court for patent infringement. Why? Because we always wanted to win in the marketplace and not in the courtroom.

Also, you probably don't know what data goes into Maxmind but that's okay. It doesn't matter to me since I exited a long time ago and have no dog in the fight anymore. But just because you don't know Digital Envoy doesn't mean you aren't using (and paying for) their data. ;-)

Re: IP Geolocation Is Twenty-Five Years Old

#30

Post by sanjayparekh »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #27
ggm wrote: post #16

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-181/ October 1994. which is 28 years ago. Contains the inetnum: object as follows The information in the old inetnum object inetnum: 192.87.45.0 netname: RIPE-NCC descr: RIPE Network Coordination Centre descr: Amsterdam, Netherlands country: NL So.. I hesitate to be snitty, what exactly about IP geolocation did you invent given that by 1994 we already had a formalism to rep…

I can accept that he invented it in the same sense that I invented recursion. I called it the "ouroboros" function and was really quite pleased with myself for thinking of the pattern. Now, the fact that I called it by an ancient reference should probably have been the first clue that I didn't get there first, and sure enough later I found out that actually no, it's a very old idea in computer programming. For the re…

All I can say is when I first met Vint Cerf, he was pretty enthusiastic about the invention. But maybe he didn't really understand the Internet either. You can see the fireside chat I had with him here (to be clear, we weren't sitting next to a fire either): https://vimeo.com/124048978
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