GeoIP2 for retrieving city and region ?

[Lele Gaifax]

Νικόλας <nikos at superhost.gr> writes:

> But it works for me, How can it be impossible and worked for me at the
> same time?

Read the answers you got. What is *impossible* is *exactly and
precisely* find the geographical location of your machine, just using an
IP database like what you are doing, i.e. without your local machine
cooperating in the process (for example, by providing the numbers taken
from your local machine's GPS device).

What you are using is just some kind of heuristic, it's not an exact
science: each ISP is generally assigned a bunch of IPs which it manages
in some way, reserving some of them as *static IP* (that is, the same IP
is assigned to the same contractor, always), and assigning the other on
demand, like a DHCP server would do in a intranet. Think to the latter:
do you think it is possible to exactly locate in which room every
wireless notebook that travels inside your big house is at any given
time? Hint: no, you cannot, the best you can say is that each notebook
may be within a “sphere” of radius 50mt (just making up a number, it
obviously depend on the wireless signal power, and eventually on the
presence of wireless repeaters...).

Maybe you did provide your exact street address when signed the contract
with your ISP, but now ask yourself: would you be happy if your ISP
gives that kind of information to whomever may ask for it (in the
specific case, a geolocation service like maxmind.com)?

ciao, lele.
--
nickname: Lele Gaifax | Quando vivrò di quello che ho pensato ieri
real: Emanuele Gaifas | comincerò ad aver paura di chi mi copia.
lele at metapensiero.it  |                 -- Fortunato Depero, 1929.