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Locating the User through IP

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Feb 19.2007

A search engine salesman told me that his company can determine the location of a user by their IP address. Is this true? The only way I know of is by writing code (such as in PHP) that captures the IP address and then runs a trace, but as far as I know, it will only take you to the ISP, not to the actual computer.

I was also told that writing text, such as in this forum could be traced to the actual computer that entered it. Is this possible?

Thanks

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@Stephen_PhilbinFeb 19.2007 — You can connect directly to a computer using its current IP address, but as far as I know, you can't determine its geographical location. You can run a whois on the IP, but that will indeed give you the provider of the IP address rather than the geographical location of the computer using it. There's not even any guarantee that the computer using that IP has a fixed geographical location anyway, so trying to give one could well be pointless.

And yes, it's perfectly possible to trace a computer that was used to make a post on a forum. Otherwise we'd never be able to get rid of all the stupid kids on the internet that are under the mistaken impression that the internet guarantees their anonymity.

Why? You been a naughty boy?
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@WebSteveauthorFeb 19.2007 — No :p It was a question I was asked about from a customer, but following up on your answer about tracing from a forum (that was also my customer's question), I would think the same policy goes - they can go as far as the only the geographical location, if it even gets that far. Or am I missing something here?
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@Stephen_PhilbinFeb 19.2007 — As far as I know, a third party can only pinpoint your location as far as your nearest major exchange. I just ran a [url=http://www.geektools.com/whois.php]whois[/url] on myself, but it only went as far as stating I was located in "GB". Though the last time I ran one on myself before the one I did just now (which was quite a long time ago), it used to say I was located about 40 miles from where I actually am. It just located me to the location of my closest major exchange.
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@WebSteveauthorFeb 19.2007 — Ok, thanks. You confirmed what I thought. There is no way (except maybe through law enforcement and a warrant to the ISP) that a user (or a system) can pinpoint exactly where any computer is located or who owns that particular machine.

  • - Steve
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    @Stephen_PhilbinFeb 20.2007 — Pretty much. Well — through the obvious channels anyway. That's not to say someone couldn't connect to the IP, crack the OS, access the filesystem and browse files containing personal details such as home addresses, banking details and the like.
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    @WebGeek182Mar 14.2007 — As far as I know, a third party can only pinpoint your location as far as your nearest major exchange. I just ran a whois on myself, but it only went as far as stating I was located in "GB". Though the last time I ran one on myself before the one I did just now (which was quite a long time ago), it used to say I was located about 40 miles from where I actually am. It just located me to the location of my closest major exchange.[/quote]

    They can locate you down to the city but that's it. Other than that you'd need a warrant to get that info from the ISP.
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