7 ms·

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the MaxMind folks are doing the "right thing" and relocating the default coordinates to the middle of bodies of water. It'

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the MaxMind folks are doing the "right thing" and relocating the default coordinates to the middle of bodies of water. It'd also be nice if they returned (-inf, -inf) or something so people know it's not a "real" location, lest folks start looking for the house closest to the lake.

Sniffnoy 11y ago
I would say the right thing would be to explicitly return a region rather than default coordinates at all. In the article it claims accuracy to about the ZIP code level, but when it's a default for the whole US, it's clearly not. If the uncertainty can vary, you have to explicitly indicate it. If returning an irregularly shaped region is too hard, you can at least return a center and a radius. ...or is that what they were already doing, and the problem comes from people ignoring the radius? In that case, yeah, I guess they were doing what they could, and good on them I guess for moving the center to somewhere that won't cause problems when people ignore the radius. But it doesn't sound like that's what they were doing in the first place?
- mikeash 11y ago
  I wonder if it would be better for services to express uncertain coordinates as the min and max of latitude and longitude, rather than center and radius. The information conveyed is equivalent, but it would be a (small) barrier against lazy or clueless people ignoring the radius.
- ar0 11y ago
  According to their API documentation[1] this is what they are doing: There is an "accuracy_radius" element being returned right next to latitude and longitude. And according to the Internet Archive, this element existed already in 2015, so they do not seem to have added it in response to this article. What they did seem to have added in response to this article, however (as it is new), is a more explicit warning for their customers: "Latitude and Longitude are often near the center of population. These values are not precise and should not be used to identify a particular address or household." To be honest, I think it is very hard for an API provider to ensure that their customers will use all the right disclaimers when providing their data onwards to their customers... I think the new approach with pointing the general coordinates into uninhabitated spaces and adding that warning seems probably the best they can do without completely changing their API design (which would make many customers very angry, I would guess). [1] http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/web-services/ http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/web-services/
pwg 11y ago
Actually, what would be better, if the companies can't change their data to return an "area", would be for them to relocate these "default" values not to the middle of bodies of water (for the reason you mention, someone assuming the nearest "house" must be "it") but instead to find the lat/long of the nearest Police station and use that value. That way, when random strangers show up, they won't cause trouble and could even file a proper report if they wished. And when actual law enforcement arrives, with battering rams and all, they also won't cause undue stress, given that where they will have arrived is a Police station.
- dalke 11y ago
  The story talks about the point used as the default location for "the US". How is the small town police station in Kansas going to be able to file a useful police report for the entire country? Similarly, if the default location for the state of New York is the Oriskany Falls, NY police station, then how are they going to file a useful police report for something that happened in New York City?
  - msandford 11y ago
    I think the idea is that people are more likely to think for a second if they see that a police station is the supposed epicenter for a hotbed of criminal activity instead of just some random house.
    - dalke 11y ago
      Agreed. My comment asks why it's better to use a police station as the point rather than the chosen solution (mentioned at the top-level of this thread) of pointing to the middle of a large body of water. The reasons given by the g'parent, for pointing to a police station, don't look like they would actually work in practice.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    For the whole country it would make a certain amount of sense to use the address of the White House.
cbd1984 11y ago
It would be especially slick to return (0, 0), which is a valid latitude/longitude pair but happens to be in the ocean off the west coast of Africa: It wouldn't crash naïve software, but it's obviously nowhere most people would consider going, even if they were ignorant enough to think there was an island there. (There isn't.)
- ldjb 11y ago
  If you got (0,0), how would you know which country the IP address is from? I think it makes perfect sense for a country's default location to be somewhere within that country. (0,0) would only be a useful default if you knew the IP address is located somewhere on planet Earth, but not more than that. And at time of writing, the vast majority (all?) of IP addresses are located on Earth anyway, so it's not especially helpful.
  - nissehulth 11y ago
    > If you got (0,0), how would you know which country You could read the "country" field that is returned together with the location.
jrs235 11y ago
How about making the default location for the U.S. be 38.8898,-77.009? Maybe that would get things fixed a bit quicker? EDIT: added 'for the U.S.' ADD: Here's a link to help: https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B053'23.3%22N+77%C2%B000'32.4%22W/@38.8898042,-77.0111887,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0 https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B053'23.3%22N+77%C2%...
nkrisc 11y ago
Well now we'll be reading about people drowning in the lake searching for their lost iPhones in the nefarious villain's underwater lair.

Sniffnoy 11y ago

I would say the right thing would be to explicitly return a region rather than default coordinates at all. In the article it claims accuracy to about the ZIP code level, but when it's a default for the whole US, it's clearly not. If the uncertainty can vary, you have to explicitly indicate it. If returning an irregularly shaped region is too hard, you can at least return a center and a radius. ...or is that what they were already doing, and the problem comes from people ignoring the radius? In that case, yeah, I guess they were doing what they could, and good on them I guess for moving the center to somewhere that won't cause problems when people ignore the radius. But it doesn't sound like that's what they were doing in the first place?

mikeash 11y ago
I wonder if it would be better for services to express uncertain coordinates as the min and max of latitude and longitude, rather than center and radius. The information conveyed is equivalent, but it would be a (small) barrier against lazy or clueless people ignoring the radius.
ar0 11y ago
According to their API documentation[1] this is what they are doing: There is an "accuracy_radius" element being returned right next to latitude and longitude. And according to the Internet Archive, this element existed already in 2015, so they do not seem to have added it in response to this article. What they did seem to have added in response to this article, however (as it is new), is a more explicit warning for their customers: "Latitude and Longitude are often near the center of population. These values are not precise and should not be used to identify a particular address or household." To be honest, I think it is very hard for an API provider to ensure that their customers will use all the right disclaimers when providing their data onwards to their customers... I think the new approach with pointing the general coordinates into uninhabitated spaces and adding that warning seems probably the best they can do without completely changing their API design (which would make many customers very angry, I would guess). [1] http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/web-services/ http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/web-services/

pwg 11y ago

Actually, what would be better, if the companies can't change their data to return an "area", would be for them to relocate these "default" values not to the middle of bodies of water (for the reason you mention, someone assuming the nearest "house" must be "it") but instead to find the lat/long of the nearest Police station and use that value. That way, when random strangers show up, they won't cause trouble and could even file a proper report if they wished. And when actual law enforcement arrives, with battering rams and all, they also won't cause undue stress, given that where they will have arrived is a Police station.

dalke 11y ago
The story talks about the point used as the default location for "the US". How is the small town police station in Kansas going to be able to file a useful police report for the entire country? Similarly, if the default location for the state of New York is the Oriskany Falls, NY police station, then how are they going to file a useful police report for something that happened in New York City?
- msandford 11y ago
  I think the idea is that people are more likely to think for a second if they see that a police station is the supposed epicenter for a hotbed of criminal activity instead of just some random house.
  - dalke 11y ago
    Agreed. My comment asks why it's better to use a police station as the point rather than the chosen solution (mentioned at the top-level of this thread) of pointing to the middle of a large body of water. The reasons given by the g'parent, for pointing to a police station, don't look like they would actually work in practice.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  For the whole country it would make a certain amount of sense to use the address of the White House.

cbd1984 11y ago

It would be especially slick to return (0, 0), which is a valid latitude/longitude pair but happens to be in the ocean off the west coast of Africa: It wouldn't crash naïve software, but it's obviously nowhere most people would consider going, even if they were ignorant enough to think there was an island there. (There isn't.)

ldjb 11y ago
If you got (0,0), how would you know which country the IP address is from? I think it makes perfect sense for a country's default location to be somewhere within that country. (0,0) would only be a useful default if you knew the IP address is located somewhere on planet Earth, but not more than that. And at time of writing, the vast majority (all?) of IP addresses are located on Earth anyway, so it's not especially helpful.
- nissehulth 11y ago
  > If you got (0,0), how would you know which country You could read the "country" field that is returned together with the location.

jrs235 11y ago

How about making the default location for the U.S. be 38.8898,-77.009? Maybe that would get things fixed a bit quicker? EDIT: added 'for the U.S.' ADD: Here's a link to help: https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B053'23.3%22N+77%C2%B000'32.4%22W/@38.8898042,-77.0111887,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0 https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B053'23.3%22N+77%C2%...

nkrisc 11y ago

Well now we'll be reading about people drowning in the lake searching for their lost iPhones in the nefarious villain's underwater lair.