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Ask Slashdot: Getting Around Terrible Geolocation?
First time accepted submitter AvitarX writes W3C has the IP address where I work as showing up in Ireland (we are in the USA). This is a nuisance for a lot of reasons (many dates now display in European format, prices are listed in euros, search results redirect to google.ie). Some of these issues can be worked around, but it's frustrating. I have searched as best as I can, and only can find information on the geolocation API in HTML5. The office is on a static IP address from Comcast. When I visit whatismyipaddress.com all info is correct except for W3C's result. I have submitted that it is inaccurate; is there anything else I can do? Googling, I have only managed to find usage examples for web developers/designers.
First one was not being able to deliver e-mail, now Comcast has someone else in the wrong country. Is it a bad day to work for Comcast?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
You can't pick where the geolocation service says you are, yet it is used for everything including content delivery and advertisements.
...with a proxy run on some other place, like people do to get access to US only content and such. But that is generally a hassle.
Then you won't have any more problems !!
Putin in Charge !!
Nice pun in the title. Almost didn't catch it.
Table-ized A.I.
You could subscribe to a VPN or Proxy service that is based in the U.S. Bit galling to (I assume) pay for a service to fix the issue of course.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Hi,
I own https://wonderproxy.com/ and the primary thing we sell our customers is "a server where we say it is so you can test your localization", and we have problems _all the time_. So I've been where you are, with the added bonus of having customers yelling at me because Google thinks my Madrid server is in France.
There's no real good options here, different people use different databases of different ages with different procedures to update (if they have one at all). MaxMind (http://maxmind.com) is pretty good at updates, as are most of the free options (like ip2location http://www.ip2location.com/). Google (which powers a lot of ads, and their own country redirect) has a form (https://support.google.com/websearch/contact/ip) which seems to pipe directly into /dev/null.
Most GeoIP providers want to handle things in large blocks, not one IP at a time. If you can convince your ISP (generally by pointing them at a few forms) to send in corrections they'll be able to correct their entire IP space all at once, which may be handled faster, or at least cover you now and next time your IP changes. Once these are submitted expect a delay of 2weeks -> before anything starts to get better.
Beyond trying to correct people, buying a cheap server from Linode and VPNing through should be a decent work around. If you set up an OpenVPN server, several routers are capable of connecting and routing all their data through them automatically, so you wont need to configure each device individually. Linode is a decent option as their servers are fast, stable, and you'll effectively only pay for half your symmetric bandwidth as inbound is free.
good luck :(
paul reinheimer
Is this the same W3C that is responsible for HTML standards and reminding me how bad I am at proper syntax?
I didn't even know W3C did geolocation (like Maxmind). Is there any chance you're talking about a page that uses the W3C geolocation API? That is, you're talking about what result some Javascript gets when it asks your web browser "where am I?"
If I'm not mistaken and that's what you're talking about, then look up how your browser gets its location.
If I'm mistaken and W3C actually has a ip-to-geo thing, oops, never mind. No idea what you're going to do about their database being wrong.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Indeed.
Stop visiting crappy pages where you can't select your language or currency and where the content is filtered depending on where you are.
Yes. Just abandon the internet entirely.
"When I visit whatismyipaddress.com all info is correct except for W3C's result."
AFAIK, W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium. What do they have to do with producing your geolocation results, other than being the standards body by which the code to generate the geolocation on a web page is certified?
Basically, WTF are you asking for help with, exactly?
If it's a geolocation error based on IP address, that's between you and your ISP. Have fun with Comcast customer support and remember to record the conversation!
Do something to fix it, i.e., make a bunch of annoying phone calls and such, or continue to whine about it and make us all not care! Otherwise, yeah, that's all you can do.
Geolocation needs to die. Every site that uses it assumes that my location is a perfect indicator of my language preferences. Real helpful to have all websites in a language I don't understand whenever I'm traveling through Eastern Europe or Asia.
I sure wish someone had thought of a standardized way for people to automatically let websites know their language preferences. Oh wait, that already exists.
Contact your ISP and ensure your IP range is set to the correct country.
Use the tool at the very top right of http://whois.arin.net/ to lookup the rwhois information pertaining to your IP. If the country code is incorrect, contact your ISP to get them to update this information. Once updated, various geolocation providers will -eventually- pick up the change and will update the location of your IP accordingly.
It's a selling point. I'm sure some company with an Irish HQ, some Irish Pride organization, or just an Irish expat who would consider the quirks you point out as benefits would be willing to pay some money for it, enough to buy you back a couple with correct geo information. I'm also fairly certain it would be a lot faster than dealing with all the red tape to try to get it corrected by the proper authorities.
like hola.org
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Tell your company to stop using Ireland as a tax haven.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
First off, please don't post links to crappy sites that make you force-quit your browser and make nonsense statements like this:
> The W3C Geolocation service determins location by the browser providing GPS location (if available) and signal strengths of visible WiFi annoucements.
W3C Geolocation is a standard for some Javascript functions that browsers can implement to allow sites to get geolocation information. It is up to each browser's author to decide to implement it or not, and what method(s) they will use to determine location. That is also dependent on hardware - does the computer/device have GPS? Wifi?
It is YOUR BROWSER supplying the bogus information. First thing, try another browser. Try turning GPS if you have it on your computer/device) on/off. Try turning Wifi on/off.
WiFi geolocation works from databases of router IDs that are collected by Google, other "drive by" operations, self-reporting, correlation with other knowledge, etc. which is stored in a database. There are several such databases that a browser might use. Google/whoever drives down your street, notices WiFi signals, and logs the ID and location. Device geolocation sees that you pick up one or more WiFi signals that are present in the database.
One of my customers is located in Southern California, but Sun's (now Oracle's) servers refused to give them Java updates because they were geolocated as being in Iran.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I've encountered two kinds of gelocation
One type uses your IP address and does a lookup in a database. This is pretty obvious and common but as I understand it has some limitations
The other type, belive it or not, is DNS based. Some services will glean your location based off what DNS servers you use. (The ones you point your computer at for resolving IP addresses) - These are the kind to watch out for. I've often seen this method used in geolocation-caching schemes and sometimes you'll end up getting shit service because you're shuffled on to a shitty/overloaded cache farm.
To thwart the first type, use a VPN server. These are getting popular because corrupt US ISPs fancy themselves rent-seeking middle men and are degrading the service of competitors. In addition to a VPN service, make sure you're using a different DNS server than your usual if you're having problems. Try google's free ones, setup your own, or maybe try the ones provided by the VPN service if you trust them (or google for that matter). (Remember DNS lookups can leak information too)
If not, you just stay right where you are . . . tovarishch.
Short Answer:
Signup for a VPN or Proxy service with an exit point in the region you want.
Longer Answer:
IP-based geography detection (GeoIP for short) depends on the databases and services that various providers are leveraging. It's inherently inaccurate. Good luck getting these fixed as there are a bunch of different services (including the W3C) that you would need to get updated. Are you sure your routing exit point isn't actually in Ireland? My company's IP address maps to an exit point in San Francisco, even though I'm located in Los Angeles.
HTML5 location detection is pretty accurate, insofar as it relies on your browser to tell the site/service where you are. You should be able to force that setting in your browser.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Would this work? It's free:
https://tunnelbroker.net/
You might have to use only v6 services, though.
Google thought my entire office was located in Mexico a couple months ago, so all my Google services were in Spanish. The situation seemed to resolve itself just as mysteriously as it started. I was speculating that someone was doing a BGP attack to reroute our usual traffic through Mexico so they could phish all our passwords or something.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Whenever I use geolocation the internet thinks I'm from a planet that cares about timothy's posts and doesn't filter them. I hope the W3C can fix it!
Yes. Just abandon the internet entirely.
In five years the "I gave up cable TV ... and my life is so great" meme that appears in /. every time a discussion even touches on how bad cable TV providers are will have morphed into "I gave up the internet ... and my life is so great".
Yes, you can subscribe to my newsletter.
and learn to like Guinness.
I use a browser extension called Secret Agent from https://www.dephormation.org.u.... This works with Gecko-based browsers (e.g., Firefox, SeaMonkey) on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. It sends fake HTTP headers to confuse Web servers that are trying to track my browsing activities. This causes many geolocation routines to give wrong results. I have Secret Agent set to change its faked headers on every HTTP request sent from my browser.
While composing this comment, I tested a few sites. One had me on the coast of Argentina and then (same Web site) in eastern Michigan. GeoIP thinks I am in Indonesia. Although I am indeed in southern California, JustMyIP thinks I am two counties further south. Appspot thinks I am in Palo Alto, about 350 miles north of my home. IP Address Geolocation was the closest, thinking I am in Los Angeles. I am about a five-minute walk from the Los Angeles County line but about 8 miles from the Los Angeles City limits.
Between Secret Agent and setting my cookies file to "read only", I have some limited protection from tracking.
Your connection is not private
Attackers might be trying to steal your information from wonderproxy.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards).
Back to safety
NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID
Getting a better date format is a plus. I don't what you are complaining about. I would be cheering if I never saw another mangled USAnian date ever again.
It can be frustrating. While at the "Lockn Festival" in Virginia, my phone kept thinking it was in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather reports were bad enough, but the worst part was the time on my phone kept coming up in Mountain time, so I was always 2 hours behind. I think that issue was because they brought in mobile towers, since that rural part of Virginia doesn't normally have any mobile coverage, and I guess someone forgot to set the location on the towers.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Welcome to IP geolocation. Most of the world deals with these sorts of problems as IP ranges are allocated and reallocated across countries. I dealt with sites thinking I was in the US for about 6 months before someone finally 'flipped the switch' on the new range of IPs my ISP had purchased.
I vacationed in the UK recently and because I was using an IP from a different country than usual, both Google and Yahoo decided to lock up my accounts with their services in ways that potentially could only be resolved in ways that may not have been available because I was abroad (text/call to phone and/or logging in from a previous logged location). Fortunately, I was not relying on either of these services for anything critical such as booking confirmation numbers and did happen to have ways to re-enable the accounts but it could potentially have caused a lot of trouble.
actually no absolute correctness in internet
don't ask for it
stat and re-analyse and then TRY to reason it
many dates now display in European format
If you mean the ISO 8601 date format (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601) that actually makes sense, unlike the retarded middle significant/least significant/most significant crazy-ass system you 'mericans use, I don't see the issue.
MM/DD/YY is a crappy way to represent the date. DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD are far better. Or DD-MMM-YYYY. Stuff you can't mistake.
Switch to metric while you are at it, ya boneheads. The "Imperial System" isn't even a system.
I am getting a W3C result annonced in a less than 50 meter radius and sure, I am inside that circle.
This is horrible, I guess than for privacy you have to stop using the internet altogether.
moving to Ireland?
The good: You usually can find where you are. Even with GPS turned off, my tablet knows within a few hundred feet or less where it is most of the time when location services are turned on. Also good that I can turn off location services.
The bad: Others know where you are at any given time, even with location services turned off. In other words your privacy can be violated by you being tracked by virtually anyone who wants to do so. At any time you have a cell phone with you. It can be activated to report your location via GPS or other means, and even to spy on you via its built in micophone and camera, all without any way for you to tell that these things are being done. Turning off your phone won't help, the only way to make sure that you are not being spyed upon by your own phone or tablet is to leave it at home,or remove its battery.
In Chrome you can use the Manual Geolocation extension, in Firefox use Geolocator. With both you can enter the location you want (your actual location or somewhere else) and it will then tell any website that queries that location instead of the default. I use both and they do work, and are much simpler than using a proxy or VPN or other measures.
That sounds like a bug fix to me, to be honest.
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe