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I think this has more to do with GeoIP databases than anything else and registry CIDRs allocations across the world.

by k3oni 12y ago

danyork 12y ago
Exactly. It's the fact that many sites rely on GeoIP databases to try to offer the best localized services to people coming from various regions. GeoIP databases can also be used by firewalls, of course, to block all connections coming from a certain region.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
Yeah - but what's the point of GeoIP databases? Most if not all of the use cases are idiotic. The browser tells me that the user understands English and French, but since the GeoIP database tells me the client's address is "brazilian", I'll deliver portuguese text! WTF? Similarly, routing requests to servers in the same country is kinda stupid - you want to achieve responsiveness, and responsiveness comes from shortest paths in the network graph, not from being inside the borders of the same country, or even from shortest geographic distance. In that case some suboptimal routing at least should be of little consequence, so it might be a usable approximation. Limiting access to content because you are in the wrong place is about as counter to the idea of the internet as you can get, so it's idiotic simply because of that. There simply is no sane reason to even have a concept of a "location of an IP address", other than its location in the network graph for packet routing purposes. (edit: and the first one of those is causing lots of unnecessary pain, not only to travellers who suddenly have to deal with a "different internet" simply because they moved their body to a different place on the planet, but also for people in multi-lingual countries, who regularly have to deal with moronic websites forcing them into some particular language version that supposedly is the "language of their location", ignoring the fact that the user not only doesn't understand the language, but specifically tells the server via appropriate headers which languages the user understands.)
- junto 12y ago
  This is a pet hate of mine. Tech companies, especially US ones have a horrible habit of assuming language preference based on location. In Spain != Spanish. Or do say 14 million Catalan speakers anyway. Whenever I travel abroad I notice how sites ignore my Accept-Language HTTP header. It is just impolite.

I think this has more to do with GeoIP databases than anything else and registry CIDRs allocations across the world.

by k3oni 12y ago

I think this has more to do with GeoIP databases than anything else and registry CIDRs allocations across the world.

Exactly. It's the fact that many sites rely on GeoIP databases to try to offer the best localized services to people coming from various regions. GeoIP databases can also be used by firewalls, of course, to block all connections coming from a certain region.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago

Yeah - but what's the point of GeoIP databases? Most if not all of the use cases are idiotic. The browser tells me that the user understands English and French, but since the GeoIP database tells me the client's address is "brazilian", I'll deliver portuguese text! WTF? Similarly, routing requests to servers in the same country is kinda stupid - you want to achieve responsiveness, and responsiveness comes from shortest paths in the network graph, not from being inside the borders of the same country, or even from shortest geographic distance. In that case some suboptimal routing at least should be of little consequence, so it might be a usable approximation. Limiting access to content because you are in the wrong place is about as counter to the idea of the internet as you can get, so it's idiotic simply because of that. There simply is no sane reason to even have a concept of a "location of an IP address", other than its location in the network graph for packet routing purposes. (edit: and the first one of those is causing lots of unnecessary pain, not only to travellers who suddenly have to deal with a "different internet" simply because they moved their body to a different place on the planet, but also for people in multi-lingual countries, who regularly have to deal with moronic websites forcing them into some particular language version that supposedly is the "language of their location", ignoring the fact that the user not only doesn't understand the language, but specifically tells the server via appropriate headers which languages the user understands.)

junto 12y ago
This is a pet hate of mine. Tech companies, especially US ones have a horrible habit of assuming language preference based on location. In Spain != Spanish. Or do say 14 million Catalan speakers anyway. Whenever I travel abroad I notice how sites ignore my Accept-Language HTTP header. It is just impolite.