phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences

Wed Apr 13 23:06:47 UTC 2016

On 4/13/2016 14:45, John R. Levine wrote:
>>> NANP geographical numbers can be located to a switch (give
>>> or take number portability within a LATA), but non-geographic numbers
>>> can really go anywhere.  On the third hand, it's still true that the
>>> large majority of them are in the U.S.
>>
>> Would you agree that 408-921 is a geographic number?
>
> No.  It's a prefix, assigned to the at&t switch in west San Jose.
>
>> I guarantee you that there are phones within that prefix within
>> US/Calif/LATA-1 and also some well outside of that, probably not even
>> in the same country.
>
> Who said anything about phones?  Could you describe what "geographic
> numbers can be located to a switch" means to you?

Lemmee see, the issue is, whose barn do we burn down, based on the 
telephone number associated with it--the one the with the switch or the 
one with the telephone?

There right answer is predicated on the the facts that the number (IP or 
telephone or serial number plate) is of NO use what ever in locating 
anything, certainly not as a cause for action.  Anybody who acts 
different;y should have painful things done to them.

I don't care what expert tells you different.

A case in point--the other day I had need for the ZIP code for the house 
I lived in at age 10.  So I Binged the address for a ZIP code and got 
one.  Along with a Googlish picture that goes with the address.

When I was 10, the address was for one of four tiny houses on a small 
city lot.  (Which, I discovered in later years was in a barrio, and 
populated by people at of below the poverty line, if anybody had used 
that terminology then.)

The picture was of a KITCHEN! that appeared to be bigger than the house 
I lived in--the Zillow entry for the property now was 3/4 of a million 
dollars.

Knowing the address of a place is not definitive of the place.  Period.

-- 
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)