Geographical Information from IP Address

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nigma
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Geographical Information from IP Address

Post by nigma »

Does anyone know how a program like Norton Firewall can correlate an IP address with a geological location? For example, say someone port scans my computer, Norton lets me know and gives me the option to see a map of where this person is coming from. Although i'm sure this can be fooled how do they (or anyone else for that matter) do it?
Last edited by nigma on Sat May 21, 2005 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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infolock
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Post by infolock »

one of the most common ways to "fool" a tracer is by spoofing an IP address. they could also have hacked into another computer/network and then attacked yoru pc from that account, making it look like they are coming from one place instead of where they really are...
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nigma
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Post by nigma »

I was just using that as an example to help better illustrate my question: how can you correlate a zip code and an ip address?
Roja
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Post by Roja »

nigma wrote:I was just using that as an example to help better illustrate my question: how can you correlate a zip code and an ip address?
You can't. You can however get surprisingly close, most of the time.

Here's how it works.. Imagine the world was split into two bits - 0 or 1. Everything to the left of the prime meridian is 0, and to the right is 1.

Splitting that further, we'll make a second bit. If its above the equator, its 1, and below is 0.

Using this example, the United States of America mostly fits in 0.0.

Imagine 20+ years of political arguing, playing favorites, and swapping of bit-locations, and you have an idea of how the different IP ranges actually dictate location.

While it may have started out that 1.1.1.1 was in Washington, D.C., USA, over time, it was moved, traded, reassigned, and now sits in New Mexico. (Thats actually not true, its just an example #).

So, if you could somehow get a list of the "directions" so to speak for the different locations (ie, 0.0 = above equator, left of Prime Meridian), then you could get *close* to the correct location. (As long as it hasnt been moved/reassigned since then)

Of course, it has, so to get around that, you can get the netblock information for the ip address, and find out where IT'S location is - which is usually more up to date. (Again, as long as that netblock hasn't done vlan's, or moved in the meantime).

Of course, THAT has too, which is why I say, its just a guess.

But its a pretty good guess, based on data that changes VERY quickly.
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nigma
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Post by nigma »

So, how/what determines who gets assigned what? Is there any logic behind the orientation of the addresses (i.e. why one half of the world gets assigned 1 as opposed to 0) or is it all arbitrary?

Thanks for the help.
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Post by Roja »

nigma wrote:So, how/what determines who gets assigned what?
http://www.iana.org/
nigma wrote:Is there any logic behind the orientation of the addresses
Yes, but the logic is a maze at this point. It gets less and less clear each day.. :)
nigma wrote: (i.e. why one half of the world gets assigned 1 as opposed to 0) or is it all arbitrary?
Some reasons for bit sequences:

- Geographical location (yay!)
- Political structure (not kidding - some countries got more IP's than others)
- Company locations (some large EU and US companies got whole netblocks)
- Ownership changes (large EU company buys small US company, or vice versa)
- Neatness (Numbers got cluttered, so they unified groups of numbers together)

The list goes on.. its a big decades-old kludge. :)

But hey, at least it still works great!
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