Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

> On Apr 11, 2016, at 10:26 , Steve Atkins <steve () blighty com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 11, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Hugo Slabbert <hugo () slabnet com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mon 2016-Apr-11 13:02:14 -0400, Ken Chase <math () sizone org> wrote:
> >
> > > TL;DR: GeoIP put unknown IP location mappings to the 'center of the country'
> > > but then rounded off the lat long so it points at this farm.
> > >
> > > Cant believe law enforcement is using this kind of info to execute searches.
> > > Wouldnt that undermine the credibility of any evidence brought up in trials
> > > for any geoip locates?
> > >
> > > Seems to me locating unknowns somewhere in the middle of a big lake or park in
> > > the center of the country might be a better idea.
> >
> > ...how about actually marking an unknown as...oh, I dunno: "unknown"?  Is there no analogue in the GeoIP lookups for 
> > a 404?
>
> It's not unknown - it's (according to the DB, anyway, which has a bunch of flaws) "in the US somewhere".
>
> The problem with MaxMind (and other geoip databases I've seen that do Lat/Long as well as Country / State / Town) is 
> that the data doesn't include uncertainty, so it returns "38.0/-97.0" rather than "somewhere in a 3000 mile radius 
> circle centered on 38.0/-97.0".
>
> Someone should show them RFC 1876 as an example of better practice.
>
> Cheers,
>  Steve

So really, what is needed is two additional fields for the lat/lon of laterr/lonerr so that, for example, instead of 
just 38.0/-97.0, you would get 38.0±2/-97.0±10 or something like that.

This seems reasonable to me.

Owen