[121420] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: New netblock Geolocate wrong (Google)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Patrick W. Gilmore)
Mon Jan 18 21:11:29 2010
From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>
In-Reply-To: <F1BB4428-FDF9-49C8-BCF4-AC53495679FF@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:10:49 -0500
To: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:38 PM, Steven Bellovin wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:22 PM, Warren Kumari wrote:
>=20
>> Something that I have often wondered is how folks would feel about =
publishing some sort of geo information in reverse DNS (something like =
LOC records, with whatever precision you like) -- this would allow the =
folks that geo stuff to automagically provide the best answer, and =
because you control the record, you can specify whatever resolution / =
precision you like. Based upon the sorry state of existing reverse, I'm =
suspecting that there is no point....
>=20
> I don't think that that works. Apart from the problem that you allude =
to -- people not bothering to set it up in the first place -- IP =
geolocation is often used for certain forms of access control and policy =
enforcement. For example: "Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All =
live, regular season games available via MLB.TV, MLB.com At Bat 2009 and =
certain other MLB.com subscription services are subject to local =
blackouts. Such live games will be blacked out in each applicable Club's =
home television territory, regardless of whether that Club is playing at =
home or away." (http://www.mlb.com/mediacenter/). EBay has apparently =
used IP geolocation (poorly) to control access to certain auctions for =
items that are illegal in certain jurisdictions or that cannot be =
exported.
These are just ways of satisfying lawyers & courts that you at least =
tried to live up to your end of the bargain (licensing, laws, etc.). =
Since many geo-location DBs work off SWIP records, which are obviously =
controlled by the user, and some even use in-addrs already for info, I =
don't see why it wouldn't work.
Also, this is not a silver-bullet kinda problem. Every little bit =
helps. If even a few % of people put LOC records into the DNS, it would =
help some people. The danger is not of poor uptake, it's of kruft. But =
that is a huge danger. Just no larger than SWIP or current in-addr.
--=20
TTFN,
patrick
