5 ms·

> This website demonstrates IP address geo-location by passively measuring TCP/IP round-trip times of web requests made to a few servers spread around the world

by aw3c2 10y ago

> This website demonstrates IP address geo-location by passively measuring TCP/IP round-trip times of web requests made to a few servers spread around the world. I don't get how that could be called passive. This is making your browser issue requests or am I missing something?

HowardStark 10y ago
I believe the author's point was you could determine the location by monitoring other applications and their network calls. That being said, I highly doubt there are many requests being made to Bangalore, India and this appears to require requests to a wide array of locations all over the world.
- SomewhatLikely 10y ago
  On the contrary, it appears the most accurate servers are ones nearby, which you'd contact a lot if CDNs are doing their job right.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  Aside from the disproportional amount of traffic going to America (I'm from Europe), there was still a significant portion of traffic that went all over the world when I last checked for my private traffic. Additionally I once made a map of destinations from our school's "security lab" network. This is 30 minutes of traffic: https://snag.gy/aJqrg2.jpg https://snag.gy/aJqrg2.jpg The map is a modified version of the one generated by Wireshark (circles are proportional to the amount of data going from/to that IP address). It seems to use Maxmind's GeoIP database.
- Arnt 10y ago
  It requires precisely what services such as Cedexis provide. You visit a website that uses one or more CDNs for its big resources, and uses Cedexis to choose CDN node. When you first visit, Cedexis instructs your browser to retrieve small resources from some/all CDN nodes. Based on timings and throughput, it then chooses a CDN node to use for big resources. If Cedexis does its job well and obtains the right data for Cedexis' purposes, then the passive observer also gets optimally usable data.
planetix 10y ago
Not passive at all, as it loads content from different sources. Plus the circles are all over the place without any logic.
gcommer 10y ago
I agree passive is a bit odd phrasing. Though, with how many 3rd party assets websites load nowadays, I suspect this could be done without introducing any additional requests by passively monitoring the already-existing 3rd party requests.
chinathrow 10y ago
I think the author means passive in a way that no known geoip DB is used.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  That would be the opposite of passive: using a geoIP database is passive; probing from/to various locations is active. Another comment mentioned someone monitoring your traffic and noting your RTT (roundtrip time) for various IP addresses around the world. That seems much more likely.

by aw3c2 10y ago

HowardStark 10y ago

I believe the author's point was you could determine the location by monitoring other applications and their network calls. That being said, I highly doubt there are many requests being made to Bangalore, India and this appears to require requests to a wide array of locations all over the world.

SomewhatLikely 10y ago
On the contrary, it appears the most accurate servers are ones nearby, which you'd contact a lot if CDNs are doing their job right.
lucb1e 10y ago
Aside from the disproportional amount of traffic going to America (I'm from Europe), there was still a significant portion of traffic that went all over the world when I last checked for my private traffic. Additionally I once made a map of destinations from our school's "security lab" network. This is 30 minutes of traffic: https://snag.gy/aJqrg2.jpg https://snag.gy/aJqrg2.jpg The map is a modified version of the one generated by Wireshark (circles are proportional to the amount of data going from/to that IP address). It seems to use Maxmind's GeoIP database.
Arnt 10y ago
It requires precisely what services such as Cedexis provide. You visit a website that uses one or more CDNs for its big resources, and uses Cedexis to choose CDN node. When you first visit, Cedexis instructs your browser to retrieve small resources from some/all CDN nodes. Based on timings and throughput, it then chooses a CDN node to use for big resources. If Cedexis does its job well and obtains the right data for Cedexis' purposes, then the passive observer also gets optimally usable data.

planetix 10y ago

Not passive at all, as it loads content from different sources. Plus the circles are all over the place without any logic.

gcommer 10y ago

I agree passive is a bit odd phrasing. Though, with how many 3rd party assets websites load nowadays, I suspect this could be done without introducing any additional requests by passively monitoring the already-existing 3rd party requests.

chinathrow 10y ago

I think the author means passive in a way that no known geoip DB is used.

lucb1e 10y ago
That would be the opposite of passive: using a geoIP database is passive; probing from/to various locations is active. Another comment mentioned someone monitoring your traffic and noting your RTT (roundtrip time) for various IP addresses around the world. That seems much more likely.