I.P. address

littleboo

Maxmind seem to do a pretty job of geo-location, but that's their core business. Its not an exact science though particularly with dynamic IP's

GDB2222

littleboo said:

Maxmind seem to do a pretty job of geo-location, but that's their core business. Its not an exact science though particularly with dynamic IP's

They locate me in Reading RG1, which is simply incorrect.

littleboo

I don't think anybody claimed it was 100%

booneruk

littleboo said:

I don't think anybody claimed it was 100%

It's not really close to 100% in any way, ever. IP addresses will only ever point street-address wise to a location operated by your internet provider (ISP), VPN, proxy etc (well, I guess technically you could live next door to your ISP).

For example, I use Maxmind to "locate" me through my virgin media connection and it shows a town 2miles away from me. I connect my PC to my 4G router instead, go to Maxmind and suddenly it points at Victoria, London (about 8 miles away).

I activate a proxy in my web browser, and now it shows my location somewhere in Western Europe.

Which one is my location?

Geo-location by IP is only really reliable to country level, and that's easy enough to trick by using a VPN or proxy.

MouldyOldDough

https://www.ip2location.com/free/email-tracer

Gives the ISP server location !

littleboo

Geolocation is going to be more successful with a booneruk said:

littleboo said:

I don't think anybody claimed it was 100%

It's not really close to 100% in any way, ever. IP addresses will only ever point street-address wise to a location operated by your internet provider (ISP), VPN, proxy etc (well, I guess technically you could live next door to your ISP).

For example, I use Maxmind to "locate" me through my virgin media connection and it shows a town 2miles away from me. I connect my PC to my 4G router instead, go to Maxmind and suddenly it points at Victoria, London (about 8 miles away).

I activate a proxy in my web browser, and now it shows my location somewhere in Western Europe.

Which one is my location?

Geo-location by IP is only really reliable to country level, and that's easy enough to trick by using a VPN or proxy.

I've worked with a company who used Maxmind and the result can be very good, particularly down to a city. Its a commercial service and wouldn't exist if it didn't have some level of usefulness. A 4G connection is obviously not a good example, a static IP on a fixed line service is likely to be more successful. Online services sharing anonomised data about Public IP address activity starts to build a picture over time.

tghe-retford

Neil_Jones said:

Pipcas said:

Neil_Jones said:

Pipcas said:

Anyone use Surfshack?  IP Experiences?  

Considering Surfshack is a VPN, your IP can be anywhere in the world.

May I ask, why are you so concerned with what your IP address tells somebody?

It's just a personal issue, I don't want to be located if possible.   So, with a VPN, does it just give you a random worldwide IP that is visible?  

You do realise that if you were up to certain activities (and I'm not insinuating anything towards you in saying that) that involves the police they can come and knock on your door?  A VPN won't help you in that regard, in fact they aren't even that watertight in the first place.

You are not and never have been 100% anonymous on the internet.

VPNs could be under threat in the future. An amendment to the Online Safety Bill at the time proposed to outlaw the use of VPNs but was withdrawn. Things could change in the next year or two with a potential new Government and a ban on VPNs could be back on the table.

Intellectual property owners and streaming operators are keen to deal with the issue of people switching locations to avoid geoblocking which IP owners consider piracy on the basis that rights are sold per country to streaming services and that someone physically in one country viewing content for another country not paid for is considered infringement (obvious caveat emptor that I am not a legal expert).

We've been here before with satellite television back in the 90s where there was a grey market for foreign services that would show content not available or legal in the UK. Despite encryption to prevent unauthorised viewing, people still imported decoders and viewing cards but it was expensive, bureaucratic and rare. VPNs on the other hand are plentiful and affordable to many.

This is in addition to the other obvious ways that VPNs are used for nefarious reasons.

The Government also seems intent on the grounds of online safety to treat the Internet as a public place in the same realm as a supermarket, venue or airport. Privately owned but no expectation of privacy, anonymity or misbehaviour. VPNs threaten that and so it is only a matter of when, not if, they are outlawed (for residential use) as an increasing number of countries are considering or doing. There is even serious consideration of restricting the Internet to Government and businesses as a middle man for the public, locking down devices (particularly but not exclusively for under 16s) and introducing a national Intranet that is regulated and restrictive as other countries are considering or implementing. Digital borders as it were.

VPNs can prevent the average person from seeing your IP if they wanted to but even the identity of those on the dark web have been found out by law enforcement, never mind rights holders taking down infringing content behind VPNs. Anyone who wants to know who you are will find out who you are if they are determined, VPN or no VPN.

booneruk

I'm not sure how anyone's going to ban the use of VPNs. What about the home workers who connect to their office VPN in order to be able to work from home?

There's often noises made by governments or think tanks about restricting fundamentally impossible to restrict technology on the internet. Think about the age verification on pornography, how was that ever going to work internationally? Go to russian image search engine  -> search some naughty words -> view instant pornography. 

 Anyone who wants to know who you are will find out who you are if they are determined, VPN or no VPN.

That's not really accurate at all I'm afraid. There are some excellent interviews with ex-darkweb vendors and how they were eventually caught on the quite brilliant podcast series "Darknet Diaries" (it's on spotify and other platforms). It's quite often an FBI level investigation that led to their eventual identification - and only after mistakes were made by the perp too (such as bringing other humans into the crime who ended up being the weak point). 

Good luck to Netflix etc getting that level of investigation after a bit of geolocation trickery.

Also, if I'm on a bus and drive-by connect to someone's open Wifi in order to perform some illegal act - how is that going to end up coming back to me? (if I take reasonable steps to protect my identity that are within the grasp of anyone even remotely technical)

I really don't think the UK will introduce Chinese level state monitoring/restricting of the Internet. That would be quite a dark day!

cerebus

booneruk said:

I'm not sure how anyone's going to ban the use of VPNs. What about the home workers who connect to their office VPN in order to be able to work from home?

There's often noises made by governments or think tanks about restricting fundamentally impossible to restrict technology on the internet. Think about the age verification on pornography, how was that ever going to work internationally? Go to russian image search engine  -> search some naughty words -> view instant pornography. 

 Anyone who wants to know who you are will find out who you are if they are determined, VPN or no VPN.

That's not really accurate at all I'm afraid. There are some excellent interviews with ex-darkweb vendors and how they were eventually caught on the quite brilliant podcast series "Darknet Diaries" (it's on spotify and other platforms). It's quite often an FBI level investigation that led to their eventual identification - and only after mistakes were made by the perp too (such as bringing other humans into the crime who ended up being the weak point). 

Good luck to Netflix etc getting that level of investigation after a bit of geolocation trickery.

Also, if I'm on a bus and drive-by connect to someone's open Wifi in order to perform some illegal act - how is that going to end up coming back to me? (if I take reasonable steps to protect my identity that are within the grasp of anyone even remotely technical)

I really don't think the UK will introduce Chinese level state monitoring/restricting of the Internet. That would be quite a dark day!

Quite - and they wouldn't be allowed to by the people that voted them in....

cerebus

tghe-retford said:

Neil_Jones said:

Pipcas said:

Neil_Jones said:

Pipcas said:

Anyone use Surfshack?  IP Experiences?  

Considering Surfshack is a VPN, your IP can be anywhere in the world.

May I ask, why are you so concerned with what your IP address tells somebody?

It's just a personal issue, I don't want to be located if possible.   So, with a VPN, does it just give you a random worldwide IP that is visible?  

You do realise that if you were up to certain activities (and I'm not insinuating anything towards you in saying that) that involves the police they can come and knock on your door?  A VPN won't help you in that regard, in fact they aren't even that watertight in the first place.

You are not and never have been 100% anonymous on the internet.

VPNs could be under threat in the future. An amendment to the Online Safety Bill at the time proposed to outlaw the use of VPNs but was withdrawn. Things could change in the next year or two with a potential new Government and a ban on VPNs could be back on the table.

Intellectual property owners and streaming operators are keen to deal with the issue of people switching locations to avoid geoblocking which IP owners consider piracy on the basis that rights are sold per country to streaming services and that someone physically in one country viewing content for another country not paid for is considered infringement (obvious caveat emptor that I am not a legal expert).

We've been here before with satellite television back in the 90s where there was a grey market for foreign services that would show content not available or legal in the UK. Despite encryption to prevent unauthorised viewing, people still imported decoders and viewing cards but it was expensive, bureaucratic and rare. VPNs on the other hand are plentiful and affordable to many.

This is in addition to the other obvious ways that VPNs are used for nefarious reasons.

The Government also seems intent on the grounds of online safety to treat the Internet as a public place in the same realm as a supermarket, venue or airport. Privately owned but no expectation of privacy, anonymity or misbehaviour. VPNs threaten that and so it is only a matter of when, not if, they are outlawed (for residential use) as an increasing number of countries are considering or doing. There is even serious consideration of restricting the Internet to Government and businesses as a middle man for the public, locking down devices (particularly but not exclusively for under 16s) and introducing a national Intranet that is regulated and restrictive as other countries are considering or implementing. Digital borders as it were.

VPNs can prevent the average person from seeing your IP if they wanted to but even the identity of those on the dark web have been found out by law enforcement, never mind rights holders taking down infringing content behind VPNs. Anyone who wants to know who you are will find out who you are if they are determined, VPN or no VPN.

There's quite a lot of conspiracy theories in there...

Quite a lot of your own opinion in there too....

Remaining anonymous on the net is quite easy, purchase phone/laptop for cash, connect to any of the thousands of open public WiFi, don't use anything that could link back to you like credit/debit cards. Voila

Can you tell me how they could find me if I was to do that?