Re: New netblock Geolocate wrong (Google)

[Steven Bellovin <smb () cs columbia edu>]

On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:22 PM, Warren Kumari wrote:

> Something that I have often wondered is how folks would feel about publishing some sort of geo information in reverse 
> DNS (something like LOC records, with whatever precision you like) -- this would allow the folks that geo stuff to 
> automagically provide the best answer, and because you control the record, you can specify whatever resolution / 
> precision you like. Based upon the sorry state of existing reverse, I'm suspecting that there is no point....

I don't think that that works.  Apart from the problem that you allude to -- people not bothering to set it up in the 
first place -- IP geolocation is often used for certain forms of access control and policy enforcement.  For example: 
"Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All live, regular season games available via MLB.TV, MLB.com At Bat 2009 and 
certain other MLB.com subscription services are subject to local blackouts. Such live games will be blacked out in each 
applicable Club's home television territory, regardless of whether that Club is playing at home or away." 
(http://www.mlb.com/mediacenter/).  EBay has apparently used IP geolocation (poorly) to control access to certain 
auctions for items that are illegal in certain jurisdictions or that cannot be exported.

                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb