how to fix incorrect GeoIP data?
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases? Thanks.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases?
Wouldn't a SWIP for a sub-allocation work? I was under the impression that most of the GeoIP services fed off of WHOIS registration data points. Than again, maybe I have no idea. ;-) - - ferg -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Desktop 9.5.3 (Build 5003) wj8DBQFJ+kxwq1pz9mNUZTMRAlPWAKCy9oGUN7W0+7VKmIU0r9xHFbRxbQCg6LYk rsAbW3zuKzYn6pu50KBhA8I= =APDr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawgster(at)gmail.com ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
On Apr 30, 2009, at 9:12 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases?
Wouldn't a SWIP for a sub-allocation work?
I was under the impression that most of the GeoIP services fed off of WHOIS registration data points.
Than again, maybe I have no idea. ;-)
I don't know how Google does GeoIP, but not all of them work off SWIP. Perhaps Chuck should ask Google instead of NANOG? -- TTFN, patrick
What's the allocation? On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases?
Thanks.
-- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:57:23PM -0400, Martin Hannigan wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases?
What's the allocation?
74.112.8.0/21 Google has been contacted and they said it will take a month for stuff to update. The customer has also updated hostip.info.
We've had this happen with many new IP allocations. There's a Google FAQ for it at... http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=873 Take care, Matt -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Anderson [mailto:cra@WPI.EDU] Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 9:26 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: how to fix incorrect GeoIP data? On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:57:23PM -0400, Martin Hannigan wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases?
What's the allocation?
74.112.8.0/21 Google has been contacted and they said it will take a month for stuff to update. The customer has also updated hostip.info.
Thanks for that link, it must be relatively new, cause I couldn't find that around Christmas time last year. What we need is a "master update" form where Akamai, Google, Maxmind, hostip.info, Geobytes, ip2location, ipgeo, etc can be notified about changes. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Calhoun, Matthew [mailto:mcalhoun@iodatacenters.com] Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 3:01 AM To: Chuck Anderson; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: how to fix incorrect GeoIP data? We've had this happen with many new IP allocations. There's a Google FAQ for it at... http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=873 Take care, Matt -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Anderson [mailto:cra@WPI.EDU] Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 9:26 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: how to fix incorrect GeoIP data? On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:57:23PM -0400, Martin Hannigan wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
I have a customer who received a new assignment from ARIN, but the GeoIP data is returning Canada rather than the US as the location of the IP prefix. Google redirects to www.google.ca and some other sites aren't working correctly because they expect a US IP. Does anyone have any advice on how to update the GeoIP and other similar databases?
What's the allocation?
74.112.8.0/21 Google has been contacted and they said it will take a month for stuff to update. The customer has also updated hostip.info.
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Frank Bulk wrote:
What we need is a "master update" form where Akamai, Google, Maxmind, hostip.info, Geobytes, ip2location, ipgeo, etc can be notified about changes.
Perhaps we as the ISP community need to realise that we need to somehow publish this data (town or something alike) via some kind of standardized API? Right now I guess they use tracking cookies together with e-commerce account registration to deduct where an IP is from? -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
I bet each company uses a variety of methods to build their data set, not least of which is the one you mentioned. I don't think the larger (and by larger, I meant the ones with the most users) ISP community is so concerned about the accuracy of geoIP info, or even need to follow the routes we do, but there would be benefit to everyone else. And I don't think the interested members here on NANOG have the collective ability (in this virtual world) to interest any of the mentioned geoIP sites to work with us (NANOG). The most successful strategy would be for a NANOG member to work through their corporate (physical) channels to establish the relationships, and then bring the rest of NANOG on board. Sorry to rain on the parade, but face-to-face seems to be what it takes to make things like this happen. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Mikael Abrahamsson [mailto:swmike@swm.pp.se] Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 1:06 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: how to fix incorrect GeoIP data? On Fri, 1 May 2009, Frank Bulk wrote:
What we need is a "master update" form where Akamai, Google, Maxmind, hostip.info, Geobytes, ip2location, ipgeo, etc can be notified about changes.
Perhaps we as the ISP community need to realise that we need to somehow publish this data (town or something alike) via some kind of standardized API? Right now I guess they use tracking cookies together with e-commerce account registration to deduct where an IP is from? -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Frank Bulk wrote:
What we need is a "master update" form where Akamai, Google, Maxmind, hostip.info, Geobytes, ip2location, ipgeo, etc can be notified about changes.
Perhaps we as the ISP community need to realise that we need to somehow publish this data (town or something alike) via some kind of standardized API?
hey lookie! dns TXT records!! :)
Right now I guess they use tracking cookies together with e-commerce account registration to deduct where an IP is from?
there are probably many ways to do this, sure... but if there were a standard API that was updated and accurate it might make things simpler for all involved, eh?
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Frank Bulk wrote:
What we need is a "master update" form where Akamai, Google, Maxmind, hostip.info, Geobytes, ip2location, ipgeo, etc can be notified about changes.
Perhaps we as the ISP community need to realise that we need to somehow publish this data (town or something alike) via some kind of standardized API?
hey lookie! dns TXT records!! :)
LOC records too. :-) dig @prisoner.iana.org hostname.as112.net any ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;hostname.as112.net. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: hostname.as112.net. 604800 IN SOA as112.gigafed.net. dns.ryouko.imsb.nrc.ca. 1 604800 60 604800 604800 hostname.as112.net. 604800 IN LOC 45 25 0.000 N 75 42 0.000 W 80.00m 1m 10000m 10m Helpful for folks like CAIDA too. wfms
On Fri, 1 May 2009, William F. Maton Sotomayor wrote:
LOC records too. :-)
dig @prisoner.iana.org hostname.as112.net any
Have this seen any widespread use? I mean, there needs to be tens of percent of users having these before they'll get used by the GeoIP people. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009, William F. Maton Sotomayor wrote:
LOC records too. :-)
dig @prisoner.iana.org hostname.as112.net any
Have this seen any widespread use? I mean, there needs to be tens of percent of users having these before they'll get used by the GeoIP people.
People who are evil (or people seeking privacy) will intentionally put bad data, thus ruining the whole thing. I don't think self-reporting is the answer. You MIGHT be able to determine location based on a traceroute, though anycast would surely derail such attempts. I suspect most people rely on 3rd party GeoIP databases, and that those companies aren't interested in hearing from you about your location change, mostly because they are worried that if they do, the evildoers will overrun them with bad requests, or bait and switch, making their data less accurate than it is now without your block being correct. Which I can understand. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 1 May 2009, William F. Maton Sotomayor wrote:
LOC records too. :-)
dig @prisoner.iana.org hostname.as112.net any
Have this seen any widespread use? I mean, there needs to be tens of
I wouldn't mind create LOC records for our IP address ranges, but doesn't make much sense if the "GeoIP people" don't look at it or care. Hence the need for someone who is relevant to them to open the dialog. I've never received a negative comment when submitting a correction request to "GeoIP people". Of course, they don't make it really easy to do so and it seems that half the time it needs to be done via back-channels. Of course the "GeoIP people" are going to vet the submissions, but if existing entry is Spain or Germany and the traceroute shows that the previous hop was somewhere in the US midwest, I think they can figure it out. =) I'm sure they have mechanisms to track changes and new allocations, but some things will slip through the cracks or in the case of use sales data, be delayed. The process that I'm suggesting is for corrective action, not to be the basis for the "GeoIP people" to build their database. That's why I'm suggesting a comprehensive form that gets sent to all the "GeoIP people". It's a way they can receive requests in a systematic way that can help them improve the accuracy of their database. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Peter Beckman [mailto:beckman@angryox.com] Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 4:23 PM To: Mikael Abrahamsson Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: how to fix incorrect GeoIP data? On Fri, 1 May 2009, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote: percent
of users having these before they'll get used by the GeoIP people.
People who are evil (or people seeking privacy) will intentionally put bad data, thus ruining the whole thing. I don't think self-reporting is the answer. You MIGHT be able to determine location based on a traceroute, though anycast would surely derail such attempts. I suspect most people rely on 3rd party GeoIP databases, and that those companies aren't interested in hearing from you about your location change, mostly because they are worried that if they do, the evildoers will overrun them with bad requests, or bait and switch, making their data less accurate than it is now without your block being correct. Which I can understand. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course the "GeoIP people" are going to vet the submissions, but if existing entry is Spain or Germany and the traceroute shows that the previous hop was somewhere in the US midwest, I think they can figure it out. =)
The "hop before it" is not necessarily a good indication these days with MPLS tunnels. There is this thing called the Speed Of Light. It's very annoying most of the time, but it can be useful for geo location if you have multiple vantage points to ping / trace to a destination. The return packet can be delayed infinitely, but it cannot be sped up past c. Really about 0.666c if you believe the path is in fiber, which I personally believe is a useful assumption for every path on the 'Net to several decimal places (since things like satellite hops, while not in fiber, will give your far higher latency, and microwave just is not used enough to matter). If you ping something from San Jose and get a response in under 50 ms, the machine which sent the reply packet _cannot_ be in Germany or China. Those pesky Laws of Physics get in the way.[*] What's more, if you ping the same destination from, say, Los Angeles and Boston, and each test returns in 40 ms, you now have narrowed the possible locations down quite a bit. There are always exceptions, but sometimes they are obvious. Pinging the same destination from LAX & BOS and getting 5 ms each... well, that's obviously anycast (or a broken test). Fortunately, most destinations are unicast and stationary, so there are ways to narrow down the location using tools like this. -- TTFN, patrick [*] Technically it's the Theory of Relativity which gets in the way. This means some people will argue I am wrong because it is "only a theory" and not proven fact. Hopefully no NANOG reader has ever used lines like "it is only a theory" against "theories" which are better proven than some "laws" (e.g. the Law of Gravity, which, as it turns out, is wrong). On May 1, 2009, at 5:39 PM, Frank Bulk wrote:
I wouldn't mind create LOC records for our IP address ranges, but doesn't make much sense if the "GeoIP people" don't look at it or care. Hence the need for someone who is relevant to them to open the dialog.
I've never received a negative comment when submitting a correction request to "GeoIP people". Of course, they don't make it really easy to do so and it seems that half the time it needs to be done via back-channels.
Of course the "GeoIP people" are going to vet the submissions, but if existing entry is Spain or Germany and the traceroute shows that the previous hop was somewhere in the US midwest, I think they can figure it out. =) I'm sure they have mechanisms to track changes and new allocations, but some things will slip through the cracks or in the case of use sales data, be delayed.
The process that I'm suggesting is for corrective action, not to be the basis for the "GeoIP people" to build their database. That's why I'm suggesting a comprehensive form that gets sent to all the "GeoIP people". It's a way they can receive requests in a systematic way that can help them improve the accuracy of their database.
Frank
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Beckman [mailto:beckman@angryox.com] Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 4:23 PM To: Mikael Abrahamsson Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: how to fix incorrect GeoIP data?
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009, William F. Maton Sotomayor wrote:
LOC records too. :-)
dig @prisoner.iana.org hostname.as112.net any
Have this seen any widespread use? I mean, there needs to be tens of percent of users having these before they'll get used by the GeoIP people.
People who are evil (or people seeking privacy) will intentionally put bad data, thus ruining the whole thing.
I don't think self-reporting is the answer.
You MIGHT be able to determine location based on a traceroute, though anycast would surely derail such attempts. I suspect most people rely on 3rd party GeoIP databases, and that those companies aren't interested in hearing from you about your location change, mostly because they are worried that if they do, the evildoers will overrun them with bad requests, or bait and switch, making their data less accurate than it is now without your block being correct.
Which I can understand.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think self-reporting is the answer.
You MIGHT be able to determine location based on a traceroute, though anycast would surely derail such attempts. I suspect most people rely on 3rd party GeoIP databases, and that those companies aren't interested in hearing from you about your location change, mostly because they are worried that if they do, the evildoers will overrun them with bad requests, or bait and switch, making their data less accurate than it is now without your block being correct.
Having recently leapt through a few GeoIP hoops to see about getting records fixed[1], perhaps the NANOG wiki could feature 'known ways to fix GeoIP' and be used as a reference? Seems to be something that's going to be more, not less, significant to customers and network operators alike going forward. Mark. [1] http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg13895.html
participants (13)
-
Calhoun, Matthew -
Christopher Morrow -
Chuck Anderson -
Frank Bulk -
Jeff Woolsey -
Mark Foster -
Martin Hannigan -
Mikael Abrahamsson -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Paul Ferguson -
Peter Beckman -
Randy Bush -
William F. Maton Sotomayor