In computing, Internet geolocation is software capable of deducing the geographic position of a device connected to the Internet. For example, the device's IP address can be used to determine the country, city, or ZIP code, determining its geographical location. Other methods include examination of Wi-Fi hotspots,
Data sources
An IP address is assigned to each device (e.g. computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication., ''DOD Standard Internet Protocol'' (January 1980) The protocol specifies that each IP packet must have a header which contains, among other things, the IP address of the sender.
There are a number of free and paid subscription geolocation databases, ranging from country level to state or city—including ZIP/ post code level—each with varying claims of accuracy (generally higher at the country level). These databases typically contain IP address data which may be used in firewalls, ad servers, routing, mail systems, web sites, and other automated systems where a geolocation may be useful. An alternative to hosting and querying a database is to obtain the country code for a given IP address through a DNSBL-style lookup from a remote server.
Some commercial databases have augmented geolocation software with demographic data to enable demographic-type targeting using IP address data.
The primary source for IP address data is the
regional Internet registries
A regional Internet registry (RIR) is an organization that manages the allocation and registration of Internet number resources within a region of the world. Internet number resources include IP addresses and autonomous system (AS) numbers.
T ...
RFC
RFC may refer to:
Computing
* Request for Comments, a memorandum on Internet standards
* Request for change, change management
* Remote Function Call, in SAP computer systems
* Rhye's and Fall of Civilization, a modification for Sid Meier's Civ ...
9092 allows assignees to specify location of any IP
subnetwork
A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. Updated by RFC 6918. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.
Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identical ...
they own.
Secondary sources include:
* Data mining or user-submitted geographic location data:
** Website-submitted, e.g. a weather website asking visitors for a city name to find their local forecast or pairing a user's IP address with the address information in their account profile.
** Wi-Fi positioning system through the examination of neighborhood Wi-Fi BSSID. E.g. Mozilla Location Service.
** Examination of neighborhood Bluetooth devices.
** Pairing a user's IP address with the
GPS location
Geodetic coordinates are a type of curvilinear orthogonal coordinate system used in geodesy based on a ''reference ellipsoid''.
They include geodetic latitude (north/south) , '' longitude'' (east/west) , and ellipsoidal height (also known as geo ...
Guesstimate
''Guesstimate'' is an informal English portmanteau of ''guess'' and ''estimate'', first used by American statisticians in 1934 or 1935.Class C range and/or gleaned from network
hops
Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...
.
* Network routing information collected to the end point of the IP address.
* Analysis of linguistic data from the device, using pretrained models that show that some term is frequently mentioned in a certain location (e.g. "the T" vs "the El" vs. "the subway").
Accuracy is improved by:
* Data scrubbing to filter out or identify anomalies.
*
Statistical analysis
Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers propertie ...
of user submitted data.
* Utilizing third-party tests conducted by reputable organizations.
Errors
If geolocation software maps IP addresses associated with an entire county or territory to a particular location, such as the geographic center of the territory, this can cause considerable problems for the people who happen to live there, as law enforcement authorities and others may mistakenly assume any crimes or other misconduct associated with the IP address to originate from that particular location.
For example, a farmstead northeast of Potwin, Kansas became the default site of 600 million IP addresses when the Massachusetts-based digital mapping company MaxMind changed the putative geographic center of the contiguous United States from 39.8333333,-98.585522 to 38.0000,-97.0000. Since 2012, a family in Pretoria, South Africa, has been regularly visited by police or angry private citizens who believed their stolen phones were to be found in the family's backyard. This was also the result of geolocation by MaxMind. The company used the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's coordinates for Pretoria, which pointed to the family's house, to represent IP addresses associated with Pretoria.
Privacy
A distinction can be made between ''co-operative'' and ''oppositional'' geolocation. In some cases, it is in the interest of users to be accurately located, for example, so that they can be offered information relevant to their location. In other cases, users prefer not to disclose their location for privacy or other reasons.
Technical measures for ensuring
anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
, such as proxy servers, can be used to circumvent restrictions imposed by geolocation software. Some sites detect the use of proxies and anonymizers, and may either block service or provide non-localized content in response.
online fraud
Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Inte ...
pricing
Pricing is the process whereby a business sets the price at which it will sell its products and services, and may be part of the business's marketing plan. In setting prices, the business will take into account the price at which it could acqui ...
. Additionally, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed that geolocation software might be leveraged to support
9-1-1
, usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...
location determination.
An IP address or the related unique
URL
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
may also be investigated with basic functions, typing from the
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
two instructions: ping and traceroute. In Unix-like systems, they are available as a command line tool. In the same way,
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
has the prompt of DOS working with those instructions.
Office of Foreign Assets Control
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy ob ...
and other regulatory entities in the US and Europe from the early twenty-first century. These laws are intended to prevent money laundering, trafficking with terrorist organizations, and trading with banned nations. When it is possible to identify the true location of online visitors, geolocation can protect banks from participating in the transfer of funds for illicit purposes. More and more prosecuting bodies are bringing cases involving cyber-crimes such as cyber-stalking and identity theft. Prosecutors often have the capability of determining the IP address data necessary to link a computer to a crime.
Fraud detection
Online retailers and payment processors use geolocation to detect possible
credit card fraud
Credit card fraud is an inclusive term for fraud committed using a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card. The purpose may be to obtain goods or services or to make payment to another account, which is controlled by a criminal. The P ...
by comparing the user's location to the billing address on the account or the shipping address provided. A mismatch – an order placed from the US on an account number from Tokyo, for example – is a strong indicator of potential fraud. IP address geolocation can be also used in fraud detection to match billing address postal code or area code. Banks can prevent " phishing" attacks,
money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
and other security breaches by determining the user's location as part of the authentication process. Whois databases can also help verify IP addresses and registrants.
Government, law enforcement and corporate security teams use geolocation as an investigatory tool, tracking the Internet routes of online attackers to find the perpetrators and prevent future attacks from the same location.
Geomarketing
Since geolocation software can get the information of user location, companies using geomarketing may provide web content or products that are famous or useful in that specific location. Advertisements and content on a website that uses geolocation software in the form of an API (also referred to as "IP API" or "IP address geolocation API") may be tailored to provide the information that a certain user wants.Internet Retailer “Personalized web site content gives retailers an edge’, June 25, 2010 /ref>
Regional licensing
Internet movie vendors, online broadcasters who serve live streaming video of sporting events, or certain TV and music video sites that are licensed to broadcast their videos of episodes/music videos are permitted to serve viewers only in their licensed territories. By geolocating viewers, they can be certain of obeying licensing regulations. Online gambling websites must also know where their customers violate gambling laws, or risk doing so.
Jim Ramo, chief executive of movie distributor Movielink, said studios were aware of the shortcomings going in and have grown more confident now that the system has been shown to work.
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
MAC address anonymization
MAC address anonymization performs a one-way function on a MAC address so that the result may be used in tracking systems for reporting and the general public, while making it nearly impossible to obtain the original MAC address from the result ...
Personalization
Personalization (broadly known as customization) consists of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals. A wide variety of organizations use personalization to improv ...