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Small paranoia flare

Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
Is it true that based on your IP, any internet user is allowed to locate exactly where you are (house & address)? I heard it can be done, based on the phone lines etc you use to connect... :eek:

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No, only ISP's know that bcoz they give you the IP address and they can't pass on the details. It needs a court order to get the details of an IP address off an ISP.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No, not true. They can get an esitimate area of where you live, but not your EXACT address. As said, to get your name/house/street etc, you need to get your direct info from your ISP.

    Like my IP shows me as being in St. Helens, when I'm not.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    What got me asking was someone showing me where we were on his iphone last night, and he said it's based on the IP we got from the public wifi. It was in a square, and the screen zoomed in on the map and showed that square exactly.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yes. it's true.

    For example, if you register a domain name with a certain (remains nameless) uk registrar, they can tell if the billing address and the address at which you are registering from do not match.
    This is in place to prevent fraud.

    As for ANY internet user doing it - I don't think so. Only regional.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What got me asking was someone showing me where we were on his iphone last night, and he said it's based on the IP we got from the public wifi. It was in a square, and the screen zoomed in on the map and showed that square exactly.

    Because most likely that its a public wifi spot.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Hm...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yes. it's true.

    For example, if you register a domain name with a certain (remains nameless) uk registrar, they can tell if the billing address and the address at which you are registering from do not match.
    This is in place to prevent fraud.

    As for ANY internet user doing it - I don't think so. Only regional.

    I don't see how with dynamically assigned IPs... since you will be given an IP 012.345.678.910 which will lookup to be something like choco-serv1-london-ispfunnies which obviously gives the location of the server thats tunnelling your connection to the internet.

    But it's impossible as far as I know to rip the home address information out of that without the ISP (who you are effectively connected to) giving you it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hm...

    For the purposes of using the internet through an ISP the answer is no. Your IP address and it's hostname belongs to your ISP. Some ISPs assign IP addresses by area (NTL used to do this so you'd have a hostname like bham-34-34-34.cable.ntl.com) which the most someone can assume is that you lived in birmingham.

    Your friend was probably freaking you out with the iphone's GPS function.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think you can also configure your net to go through a different server if your ISP allows so for example you could be in london but showing up that your IP is coming from the netherlands. I would think that would slow your connection down though.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That's because that is a iPhone, your normal home broadband, you can't find the info on as detailed to an iPhone. as said, public Wifi you can, because of GPRS.

    @shy, you can, a proxy server. Depending on your proxy server though, you'd either have a slow or fast. Like China has a slow connection to most, but in proxies their connections for the most are faster. Since of it's routing path.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    He did say it wasn't GPS, and I don't think he'd lie.

    So you're saying that if he brought the iphone to my house and connected it to my wifi, it wouldn't pinpoint the location?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nothing to do with GPRS or Wifi or anything.

    Basically some (clever) companies have started creating a database of wifi ssid's along with the GPS co-ords of where they've been located. basically people go around wardriving and submit their results to the database (I believe navizon are one of these companies)

    When the phone tries the location, it can narrow down the search to hotspots within the region of the cell tower the phone is on. then it can narrow it down to a few house radius because it knows the hotspot is in a paticular location! :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Pervs. The lot of you! ;)
  • Saeed MSaeed M Posts: 270 The Mix Regular
    I believe that iPhones also use the position of GSM transmitters along with what noog has already mentioned to triangulate the position.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    noog wrote: »
    When the phone tries the location, it can narrow down the search to hotspots within the region of the cell tower the phone is on. then it can narrow it down to a few house radius because it knows the hotspot is in a paticular location! :)

    :P
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yes. it's true.

    For example, if you register a domain name with a certain (remains nameless) uk registrar, they can tell if the billing address and the address at which you are registering from do not match.
    This is in place to prevent fraud.

    As for ANY internet user doing it - I don't think so. Only regional.

    What nonsense! How do you propose the companies who register domain names for clients manage to pull it off?

    Utter tosh.
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