Apple Support Geolocation
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location. However, on-site support staff are claiming that Apple Support shows them in Boston in the US (our headquarters) without an option to pick the UK, and are demanding that we go back to PA space, which is both impractical and a bad technical option. I have attempted to get them to log a ticket with Apple in order to determine why they believe our London location is in the US, but am just getting back "you broke it, fix!" type responses. So, does anyone have experience with Apple's geolocation? Is accurate information on the network whois insufficient? Is it because the ASN shows the US (which would likely be incredibly inaccurate and somewhat difficult to change, I think)? I suggested maybe it was a cookie or related to the service contract or something, but those have been summarily rejected, so I am somewhat running out of ideas. Thanks, Stephen
Maybe they happen to be using ipapi? https://ipapi.co/ Only mentioning it because that looks like the only major geoop db that still lists that block as Boston. Steve 👋 On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 03:45 Stephen Griffin via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location.
However, on-site support staff are claiming that Apple Support shows them in Boston in the US (our headquarters) without an option to pick the UK, and are demanding that we go back to PA space, which is both impractical and a bad technical option.
I have attempted to get them to log a ticket with Apple in order to determine why they believe our London location is in the US, but am just getting back "you broke it, fix!" type responses.
So, does anyone have experience with Apple's geolocation? Is accurate information on the network whois insufficient? Is it because the ASN shows the US (which would likely be incredibly inaccurate and somewhat difficult to change, I think)?
I suggested maybe it was a cookie or related to the service contract or something, but those have been summarily rejected, so I am somewhat running out of ideas.
Thanks, Stephen _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/3ZXJUWRV...
Is odd that they still do, we SWIP'd a while ago, but I filled out the form. Will see what happens. Stephen On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 06:07 Steve Miller <stmille@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe they happen to be using ipapi?
Only mentioning it because that looks like the only major geoop db that still lists that block as Boston.
Steve 👋
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 03:45 Stephen Griffin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location.
However, on-site support staff are claiming that Apple Support shows them in Boston in the US (our headquarters) without an option to pick the UK, and are demanding that we go back to PA space, which is both impractical and a bad technical option.
I have attempted to get them to log a ticket with Apple in order to determine why they believe our London location is in the US, but am just getting back "you broke it, fix!" type responses.
So, does anyone have experience with Apple's geolocation? Is accurate information on the network whois insufficient? Is it because the ASN shows the US (which would likely be incredibly inaccurate and somewhat difficult to change, I think)?
I suggested maybe it was a cookie or related to the service contract or something, but those have been summarily rejected, so I am somewhat running out of ideas.
Thanks, Stephen _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/3ZXJUWRV...
I found "Maxstack" also was wrong. So, we SWIP'd back in August, is this typical for them to be so wrong for so long? I have folks complaining about being geoblocked to BBC as well... :( On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 6:37 AM Stephen Griffin <pktslngr@gmail.com> wrote:
Is odd that they still do, we SWIP'd a while ago, but I filled out the form. Will see what happens.
Stephen
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 06:07 Steve Miller <stmille@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe they happen to be using ipapi?
Only mentioning it because that looks like the only major geoop db that still lists that block as Boston.
Steve 👋
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 03:45 Stephen Griffin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location.
However, on-site support staff are claiming that Apple Support shows them in Boston in the US (our headquarters) without an option to pick the UK, and are demanding that we go back to PA space, which is both impractical and a bad technical option.
I have attempted to get them to log a ticket with Apple in order to determine why they believe our London location is in the US, but am just getting back "you broke it, fix!" type responses.
So, does anyone have experience with Apple's geolocation? Is accurate information on the network whois insufficient? Is it because the ASN shows the US (which would likely be incredibly inaccurate and somewhat difficult to change, I think)?
I suggested maybe it was a cookie or related to the service contract or something, but those have been summarily rejected, so I am somewhat running out of ideas.
Thanks, Stephen _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/3ZXJUWRV...
They may use an internal tool. On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 12:29 PM Stephen Griffin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I found "Maxstack" also was wrong. So, we SWIP'd back in August, is this typical for them to be so wrong for so long? I have folks complaining about being geoblocked to BBC as well... :(
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 6:37 AM Stephen Griffin <pktslngr@gmail.com> wrote:
Is odd that they still do, we SWIP'd a while ago, but I filled out the form. Will see what happens.
Stephen
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 06:07 Steve Miller <stmille@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe they happen to be using ipapi?
Only mentioning it because that looks like the only major geoop db that still lists that block as Boston.
Steve 👋
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 03:45 Stephen Griffin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location.
However, on-site support staff are claiming that Apple Support shows them in Boston in the US (our headquarters) without an option to pick the UK, and are demanding that we go back to PA space, which is both impractical and a bad technical option.
I have attempted to get them to log a ticket with Apple in order to determine why they believe our London location is in the US, but am just getting back "you broke it, fix!" type responses.
So, does anyone have experience with Apple's geolocation? Is accurate information on the network whois insufficient? Is it because the ASN shows the US (which would likely be incredibly inaccurate and somewhat difficult to change, I think)?
I suggested maybe it was a cookie or related to the service contract or something, but those have been summarily rejected, so I am somewhat running out of ideas.
Thanks, Stephen _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/3ZXJUWRV...
NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/7JQB2YCO...
I'm not too sure how often scheduled updates generally occur, but I would hope in the order of days, not weeks or months. Good luck, Steve On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 10:29 Stephen Griffin <pktslngr@gmail.com> wrote:
I found "Maxstack" also was wrong. So, we SWIP'd back in August, is this typical for them to be so wrong for so long? I have folks complaining about being geoblocked to BBC as well... :(
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 6:37 AM Stephen Griffin <pktslngr@gmail.com> wrote:
Is odd that they still do, we SWIP'd a while ago, but I filled out the form. Will see what happens.
Stephen
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 06:07 Steve Miller <stmille@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe they happen to be using ipapi?
Only mentioning it because that looks like the only major geoop db that still lists that block as Boston.
Steve 👋
On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 03:45 Stephen Griffin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location.
However, on-site support staff are claiming that Apple Support shows them in Boston in the US (our headquarters) without an option to pick the UK, and are demanding that we go back to PA space, which is both impractical and a bad technical option.
I have attempted to get them to log a ticket with Apple in order to determine why they believe our London location is in the US, but am just getting back "you broke it, fix!" type responses.
So, does anyone have experience with Apple's geolocation? Is accurate information on the network whois insufficient? Is it because the ASN shows the US (which would likely be incredibly inaccurate and somewhat difficult to change, I think)?
I suggested maybe it was a cookie or related to the service contract or something, but those have been summarily rejected, so I am somewhat running out of ideas.
Thanks, Stephen _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/3ZXJUWRV...
On Wed, 8 Oct 2025, Stephen Griffin via NANOG wrote:
I found "Maxstack" also was wrong. So, we SWIP'd back in August, is this typical for them to be so wrong for so long? I have folks complaining about being geoblocked to BBC as well... :(
Are you kidding? "back in August" as in a month or two ago? We're still dealing with stale IP Geo data for IP space acquired and swipped years ago. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Blue Stream Fiber, Sr. Neteng | therefore you are _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
On Oct 8, 2025, at 2:44 AM, Stephen Griffin via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
So, I have a site in London. We recently changed from PA space to PI space. I SWIP'd the new space 155.33.8.0/23 to reflect our London location.
You might want to try adding an RFC 8805/9092 Geofeed to your ARIN WHOIS comments. If you're not sure what this means, see the example for Cloudflare at <https://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/172.64.0.0>, which contains: Comment: Geofeed: https://api.cloudflare.com/local-ip-ranges.csv In theory, geolocation providers can see that and use it to publish accurate info without guessing. (I have no idea whether Apple uses it.) -- Robert L Mathews
participants (5)
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Adam Blackington -
Jon Lewis -
Robert L Mathews -
Stephen Griffin -
Steve Miller