Re: Geography of an IP Address

[Rick Smith <rick_smith () securecomputing com>]

> board operator asked:
> > I was wondering if there's any way to trace the geography (actual city or
> > state, province etc.) of a person's static IP address. I know that most
> > have dynamic (changing) IP's but if I were to somehow obtain their static
> > IP, could I then begin an amateur trace to their physical location?

There's no way to tie a location to a numerical IP address.

There's a weak way to tie location information to the domain name that
corresponds to the numerical IP address. But if you want accurate location
information (i.e. targeting the corresponding host with a missile) forget
it. The domain name provides some information, but its accuracy is at the
discretion of the organization that registered the domain. Static and
dynamic IP addresses from a given domain will probably be reported to have
the same geographic address even if some IP addresses actually belong to
remote sites.

Alex Noordergraaf wrote:
> Try:
>
>       http://cello.cs.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/slamm/ip2ll

As the Web site says, it relies on 'whois' data from the internic database.
The database's contents are at the discretion of the domain's owner, and
this limits the real accuracy of geographical data. For example, it
translates "securecomputing.com" and "sjc.securecomputing.com" and
"tor.securecomputing.com" all to Roseville, MN. In fact, the first domain
may actually be routed to Roseville, but the second is in San Jose, CA, and
the third in Toronto, Canada.

Rick.
smith () securecomputing com
"Internet Cryptography" at http://www.visi.com/crypto/