IP Address Mapping

[Lewin]

Hello Everybody,
In a recent update to my homepage, I added a new feature to my website. It is a map of where people who visit my site come from. As with the petition, Poland seems to have the largest number again. :roll:
Here is the link:
http://lewin.namsys.com.au/IP/

It is powered by a free, community based IP to location database, called HostIP.info

If you'd like to make these results better, then visit the page and add/correct your location. (assuming it's not correct already)
Should you be worried that people know where you are from? Well, no I don't think so. This is a free database. There are lots of commercial ones that give a very high level of accuracy, and even tell who your ISP is!

Please post your thoughts on this.
Lewin.

[The Dark Lord]

Hmm, it would be cool if we could enter our nicknames and locations on a world map on which we can zoom in.

[harold]

This is nice, but, it doesn't really know where I live (it got the city right, but the street is WAY off)
Also, how does HostIP even know this?
And the map seems to show most people Belgium.. hm...

[Lewin]

Hmm, it would be cool if we could enter our nicknames and locations on a world map on which we can zoom in.

Lucbach made something like that on the Polish forum. But that's not the reason for my page. Also remember that it is ANY access to my site, not just KaM related ones. So not every dot means a KaM fan. But KaM IS by far the most popular thing on my website, probably because none of my other projects really worked.

This is nice, but, it doesn't really know where I live (it got the city right, but the street is WAY off)
Also, how does HostIP even know this?
And the map seems to show most people Belgium.. hm...

You don't really expect this to be able to tell which street you are in, do you? Remember that you are probably on an IP address that could be assigned to anybody in your city. (unless you are using a fixed address, like with ISDN)
The database doesn't even store street locations, just cities over all. Some of the comercial databases say that can get a 75% 25 mile radius accuracy, but keep in mind that HostIP is free.

How does it know? Well, someone else (possibly your ISP) from your town has entered your IP address in the database. You see, all the entries are generated from people submitting them, not a predefined list. Possibly your IP was previously assigned to someone who added it to the database.

Remember that yellow means 1 hit, orange means a few, and red means lots. So just because around Belguim and the Netherlands is bright yellow, doesn't mean that's where most people are from. If you look at the info below the map then you'll see that the most IPs are from Poland.
Lewin.

[harold]

So I guess that means that the Polish ISP's have only submitted "general area's" and not streets - otherwise their dot's wouldn't fall on the same place so often

[Lewin]

So I guess that means that the Polish ISP's have only submitted "general area's" and not streets - otherwise their dot's wouldn't fall on the same place so often

As I said before: This database does NOT contain street addresses. It only maps to cities, so it will almost always show the wrong street. If you click the correct button then it only allows you to set the city, not the street.

And also, it's not just the ISPs who submit addresses. A lot of people will set their location on the site, you don't need to be an ISP to correct it.
Lewin.

[Thunderwolf]

With me it says this:

You are from EUROPEAN UNION
However, your city is unknown. Please help improve these results. Add your location by clicking here.

So it doesn't know where I am.

[harold]

This database does not contain street addresses.

Fine, but then why does it try to tell what street I live in? There's no point if it will get it wrong anyway

[Lewin]

With me it says this:

You are from EUROPEAN UNION
However, your city is unknown. Please help improve these results. Add your location by clicking here.

So it doesn't know where I am.

That's right, it doesn't know where you are from. So you can add your location if you want to, or just forget about it.
As I said, it is far from perfect and not all that many IP addresses can be located. Remember that HostIP is a free, non-funded organisation so don't expect too much.

Fine, but then why does it try to tell what street I live in? There's no point if it will get it wrong anyway

The only reason why it does that is because of the way they use the Google Maps thing. They zoom in too far (IMO) making it appear as if they are marking a street. In reality all entries for that city will be marked there. It would be less confusing if they zoomed out a bit. Remember that the red dot is just marking the city, not your house. Also notice that it is generally around the centre or city centre of the city. (for me it is)
Lewin.
P.S. Have a look at this site: http://www.maxmind.com/app/locate_my_ip That's a commercial version of the same thing, which you must pay for in order to upload your logs. It should be very accurate, and it will even say who your ISP is.

[harold]

Even that was not very accurate..
Finding out the ISP is not hard though, just do a reverse DNS query on the IP address and 90% of the time the ISP rolls out (except when the IP is also used for a website with a non-default name or some other strange circumstances where it fails to resolve entirely)