I knows it's him but it's the technology issue that I'm trying to understand. How does this work? The domain name is in Canada and the IP address is in the Deep South? That is what I am trying to learn about.
Hey guys, you are hitting on one of my 'geek' areas...so put on your reading glasss, get your notepad ready...I'm gonna throw down an info-posting!
TX, sounds as if you're reading into the IP as two separate things. You are partly right. The IP tracked should be the IP of the user. The ISP is the company who most likely is providing access to the internet. Their location (headquarters most likely) is up north but that does not mean they cannot be providing access to someone elsewhere on the planet. Some IP trackers show the city for the ISP as that's definite, where pegging the city location for the actual IP being tracked is sketchy at times.
When an IP tracker gives you a location for an IP signal, it is not telling you where the user is exactly. If it is giving you the provider location, that has nothing to do with user location. If it is representing a user location, it can be innacurate. Follow me here....the IP tracker might be using a traceroute command. The tracker is basically sending information out onto the net towards the given IP. The information sent out can be followed based on places it stops and eventually provide a general location related to the IP address. This can be innacurate as some firewalls will prevent traceroutes from taking a straight path and 'skips' in the route can give bad info eventually.
Now, keep in mind that the IP address commonly represents a junction box, not the user actual location. Right now you are snugged in your room at your desk on the comp...that is connected to the net. The wires that run form your comp or your modem/router go outside your building to a locoation nearby...sometimes underground, sometimes through cables up in the air (ie telephone poles)..and everyones wires come together at a junction...maybe a box on the telephone pole for example. That little box is often what the IP tracker info is representing. Sometimes IP tracers pick up the signal from a box a little further down the route away from the user...which is why sometimes the location info can be a city or a few cities away from the actual user.
When trying to trace an IP or identify the likely owner of an IP, there are a few good techniques to utilize what info you can get from an IP tracer. I recommend using more than one service and comparing the results. Maxmind and DNSstuff are both pretty good sources.
http://www.maxmind.com/app/locate_ip?http://member.dnsstuff.com/pages/tools.php?ptype=freeMaxmind provides more information regarding location than DNS, but DNS can provide the ISP info (using the whois option from the results page). Maxmind gives latitude and longitude coordinates of the 'junction box' it found which can also be very useful. That lat/long data can be plugged into another great resource for even more location information. I use this site for that step
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.htmlConfused yet? Good, lets run through a test trial. That might help clear this up! The data I list can be replaced with the data you get from your tracker, so this could be a 'plug and play' example if followed properly.
Let's use the IP 66.215.224.148 No idea who this is but they used to regularly visit my private dummy profile and they weren't a friend so I dunno what they thought they were gonna see lol.
Take that number to maxmind and paste it into the open field for IP addy, and hit the button 'lookup IP address'
you should get data similar to this......
MaxMind GeoIP City/ISP/Organization Edition Results
Hostname Country Code Country Name Region Region Name City Postal Code
Latitude Longitude ISP Organization Metro Code Area Code
66.215.224.148 US United States CA California Riverside
33.9404 -117.3959 CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS 803 909
I highlighted the geographical coordinates in matching color for ease of identification. We're going to use those numbers next.
Now go to
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html and scroll down about 2/3 of the page. You're going to enter our coordinates in the field titled 'Show Point from Latitude and Longitude'
Take the lat number (33.9404) and enter it in the latitude box
Take the long number (-117.3959) and enter it in the longitude box. BE SURE to use a '-" (negative sign) in front of the number if you see it on maxmind. otherwise you'll get a location on the other side of the planet lol. Click on 'show point'
You will see a map with the lat/lon location flagged. This map is similar to a google map and can be used in the same fashion. YOu can change to just a map view, just a satellite view, or a hybrid. Often, I will back away distace wise to see more info about the location. For instance, backing away four 'clicks' on the map lets me see that the town near this location is Riverside, CA.
Does that IP belong to someone sitting in Riverside presently? Maybe, maybe not. This is the 'estimated' location of the junction box that maxmind found. Is it possible that the owner of the IP is close by? Yes, possibly.
Now, try the same steps with your own IP and see how close you get to where you are actually sitting. Another neat function of the location site is at the very top. You can input an actual address and get the lat/long of the address. So.....if you run this query on an IP and you THINK it is your stalker...or even someone you know...AND you know their likely address (home, work school...the cafe they go to when cyberstaking) you can input that address and compare the two locations. Sometimes the map acts funny and will delete the lat/long when you ask it to give you the address coordinates, sometimes not. just fidget with it a bit if you encounter that...ie reenter the info that it removed and it SHOULD eventually give you both. One flag will be blue, the other red.
NOW....here is what you are NOT getting from this info
You are NOT getting the actual location of the user. You are getting an ESTIMATE of where the tracker could trace the IP address to. This MIGHT be the box located nearest the user...it might be down the road, across town, or across a few towns. Us end users have no way of knowing how accurate the traceroute was from the results we see.
you are NOT getting information that can personally identify someone. This information CAN BE useful in giving you a better idea who is looking at your page (ie what the IP represents) IF you have a lot of information about the user...ie their address, you know their computer info (some tracers give user agent info...and there is a good thread on that here at she geeks). IF you think the IP user is in texas but the above steps send you to NOrth Dakota...chances are the user isn't who you thought it was. If the steps give you a location that's within 10-20 miles of where u think the user is, MAYBE it is....MAYBE.
THe more knowledge you have about GPS satellite technology, and how the internet works and how IP addresses are configured and generated, the better this tool will help you in your searches. The less you know the more it might confuse you or lead you to a wrong conclusion.
That being said...if you run these steps but have questions about the result, drop them into this thread and I'll see how I can help. If the situation warrants, I may have you PM me the IP addy and I'll run a test and tell you what I find and what it could mean. I am very trustworthy, won't share the info you tell me with anyone, and am only doing this for 'entertainment' purposes only.
OK, give it a whirl and lets see whatcha think. And lastly....here's a fun curveball to consider...if someone is viewing your page through a proxy (check out the site
www.hidemyass.com to learn more) you may never really know who the user is as the IP tracked won't even be the actual User's IP
Have fun she-geekers
