Slashdot Mirror
Quova Inc. Completes Trace of 4 billion IP Addresses
RatzMilk writes: "Quova Inc. claim they have completed a global scanning system [Note: first mentioned on Slashdot in July -- timothy] that pinpoints the geographic location of Internet users in real time. The information gathered is then sold as a tool called 'GeoPoint' that can be used by advertisers to better target their advertisments to people based on their location. It doesn't rely on cookies or voluntary submissions from users, instead, using a data base built by scanning every host on the Internet.
In gathering this information, they set off alarms all over the world, and yet, it seems that this is an accceptable practice in the eyes of the law. Individual people are having their computers impounded and in some cases are being incarcerated for doing the same. ...
Further details on this story can be found at Security Focus." (Sorry, but Security Focus is not designed for direct linking; click on the link that says "Scanning Mystery Solved.") [Updated 5:58 GMT by timothy] Scratch the comment about deep linking; I've restored the link RatzMilk provided, which originally brought me only "page not found" errors. Hope it works for everyone ...
From their website:
As someone living in British Columbia, Canada, I have been in dire need of this service. Hooray!
You can never put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
I'd like some evidence to back their claim. First of all, 27 million AOL users will appear to be in Virginia. Secondly, I'm sure a lot of people use a ppp account on one of their colo/ISP's servers.
Sooo, more evidence please!
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Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
This is not news. I've been able to track people's localles over the internet for years now. All truly skilled hackers can.
I know where you live, where you work, when you sleep and what you fear.
I have only one thing to say to you:
Damn you're boring - why don't you get a life?
--Shoeboy
This comment
If you have a box connected to the Internet, you should expect to get pinged. Heck, way back when I first discovered pings, I pinged random IP addys for kicks
hits the nail right on the head.
The Internet is a public network, and part of that public protocol includes tools for mapping (traceroute) routes, and measuring the time it takes to traverse that route (ping).
If you spend $20000 dollars on an pukka Firewall and a good IDS, then don't start compaining when Ping packets are recieved! The reason you spent all that cash was to block them, which you are now doing.
I'm not convinced of the value of the data, and I'm even less sure about the intention of why they are doing it (I hate marketeers as much as the "next man"), but as I stress: the Internet is a public network, and if you get annoyed with people "walking by your house", then disconnect your machine from the net, or configure your server/router/firewall to block ICMP (which I generally do).
The security Incidents mailing lists are full of people complaining that some 3l337 kid in Korea is pinging their server, and they don't like it. Frankly who gives a damn? It's the guy who stealth maps your machine for the latest vulnerability that should be worrying, not someone openly knocking on the front door!