In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
came to my attention, since web security is a bit of an issue I
have to deal with.
This site wont hurt, but it will tell you, possibly rather too
exactly (it certainly knew which exchange I was on ADSL wise, and
I'd still like to know how) where you are located.
Probably not the right Newsgroup in which to ask the "how" question.
You may be better off in something like uk.telecom.broadband.
However it'll at least be looking up records in the databases
maintained by several Network Information Centres (NICs). This
information is publically available.
For example, see the description of the Unix "whois" command:
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.c...86&format=html
http://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php
I would be very interested to know how many people here find the
same - that it is more accurate than it has any right to be.
It certainly suggests thatif you are on a fixed IP your town at
least is known. I'd be interested to hear also from those on a
dynamically allocated IP address how accurate it is.
....
So I'd like to know if it 'knows' where you are right now.
Dynamic IP address here. With a provider that's based in Sheffield.
Tells me I'm in the London area. Which is about 100 miles away.
And I'm also nowhere near Sheffield.
The implications are not pleasant. Especially in the context where
I discovered it being used. In essence any website that wants to
know where the person that said XYZ on their blog is located, to
possibly withina few miles, can do so.
And the site I chanced upon is one where the sort of people who run
it, would be quite capable of slinging a brick through your windows
slashing your tyres or worse.
Needless to say I got out very fast indeed.
Looks like a proxy server in a datacenter is the only way to go if
you want anonymity these days...
Alternatively you could use the Tor network:
http://www.torproject.org/
I believe I could set up the packet filter on my Unix boxes to use
this for *everything* if I so choosed. Haven't tried this.
But see:
http://www.xroxy.com/proxylist.php
for a list of open proxies.
--
Dennis Davis