[139538] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: internet probe can track you within 690 m
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marshall Eubanks)
Mon Apr 11 17:30:30 2011
From: Marshall Eubanks <tme@americafree.tv>
In-Reply-To: <4DA36025.8070709@mompl.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:29:30 -0400
To: Jeroen van Aart <jeroen@mompl.net>
Cc: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Apr 11, 2011, at 4:10 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote:
> =
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20336-internet-probe-can-track-you-d=
own-to-within-690-metres.html
> "The new method zooms in through three stages to locate a target =
computer. The first stage measures the time it takes to send a data =
packet to the target and converts it into a distance =96 a common =
geolocation technique that narrows the target's possible location to a =
radius of around 200 kilometres.
> (..)
> Finally, they repeat the landmark search at this more fine-grained =
level: comparing delay times once more, they establish which landmark =
server is closest to the target. The result can never be entirely =
accurate, but it's much better than trying to determine a location by =
converting the initial delay into a distance or the next best IP-based =
method. On average their method gets to within 690 metres of the target =
and can be as close as 100 metres =96 good enough to identify the target =
computer's location to within a few streets."
>=20
> It seems to me to be a rather flaky way of finding out your estimated =
location. But I guess it could be helpful when the objective is just to =
create some global database of demographics for marketing and privacy =
invasion purposes, where specifics of an individual's exact location =
don't really matter.
The idea is to have finer and finer grained locations based on RTTs and =
a dense mesh of "landmark routers."=20
Of course, if you were using a tunnel or proxy that took N msec of =
delay, the best they could say is that you were N msec from the tunnel =
endpoint.=20
It would also be easy to institute something like the old GPS selective =
availability, with a software tunnel randomly adding a variable=20
delay (say, varying by up to 50 msec every 100 seconds).
Regards
Marshall
>=20
> Besides the latter can always be subpoenaed. ;-)
>=20
> One more reason to use VPN and other such techniques to hide your =
location.
>=20
> Greetings,
> Jeroen
>=20
> --=20
> http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/
> http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html
>=20
>=20
