Technology: not quite as clever as it thinks.

[bunn]

I've been really dubious about the much talked up technology which pinpoints a user's location from an IP address for many years (it has got better, to be fair). I just don't see how it could work, without all sorts of information that isn't in the public domain being released by a load of independent private companies without the user's permission in a dubiously-legal kind of way.

So, I was pleased to see my suspicions confirmed by this : http://whatismyipaddress.com/

It thinks I'm between Cambridge and Ipswich. Now I am intrigued as to why. I'm not there, my ISP isn't there, and last time I spoke to them, the routing for my account was done from near Reading. So, what is it there in the East that it's picking up? I'd love to know.

It did get my country right, which is an improvement over my Claranet days when checkers of this kind always insisted that I must be in Germany.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The site thinks I'm somewhere north of Skipton, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. While conjuring up picturesque windswept images, it's about 200 miles away from where I am.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

How very odd. It seems unlikely there is some mighty network centre up there that you are somehow connected to. You must be surrounded by closer datacentres ...

[purplecat]

I'm just north of Skipton too...

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Me too. And I'm fairly certain I don't have the same ISP as parrot_knight, at least.