New netblock Geolocate wrong (Google)

Tue Jan 19 02:11:08 UTC 2010

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 8:38 PM, Steven Bellovin <smb at cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
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> On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:22 PM, Warren Kumari wrote:
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>> Something that I have often wondered is how folks would feel about publishing some sort of geo information in reverse DNS (something like LOC records, with whatever precision you like) -- this would allow the folks that geo stuff to automagically provide the best answer, and because you control the record, you can specify whatever resolution / precision you like. Based upon the sorry state of existing reverse, I'm suspecting that there is no point....
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> I don't think that that works.  Apart from the problem that you allude to -- people not bothering to
> set it up in the first place -- IP geolocation is often used for certain forms of access control and
> policy enforcement.  For example: "Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All live, regular season

Sure, but I don't think that warren meant s sole signal here... having
a hint is nice :)

> games available via MLB.TV, MLB.com At Bat 2009 and certain other MLB.com subscription
> services are subject to local blackouts. Such live games will be blacked out in each applicable
> Club's home television territory, regardless of whether that Club is playing at home or away."
> (http://www.mlb.com/mediacenter/).  EBay has apparently used IP geolocation (poorly) to control
> access to certain auctions for items that are illegal in certain jurisdictions or that cannot be
> exported.

this describes any use of geo-location for ips though, in most cases
it's probably not half bad, but with determined 'attackers' there's
very little that can protect your spotify-music from non-swedish
folks, for instance.

Speaking of geoloc fail:
<http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=5682>
(vpn your boxee traffic to a location more suitable to your watching desires)

(I think the users of geoloc in these cases understand they have a
95-98% success rate, and are willing to take the hit on the folks who
take an effort to avoid them.)

-Chris

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>                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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