Tracking IP addresses?

[BitOfFun]

Is there a geographical element to your IP address, does anybody know? If you have unplugged your router, for example, and get assigned a new one, will it be broadly similar, or completely different?

[Tortington]

its not like your phone number in that for instance 0161 is manchester and every manc is 0161.

however when your ISP has allocated your ip address you can type it into certain websites and it will tell ypou what area of the country you are in

however someone might have a similar number to yours and it be hunderds of miles away

whatismyipaddress.com

[Tortington]

so for instance, when someone visits my blog, and they register under a speudonym just to call me names.. the blog gives me an ip address and i can type it into a website such as the one above and find out where thye live

[BitOfFun]

Aha- thank you

[NetworkGuy]

It can be hundreds of miles out, though, Custardo, because in many cases the location depends on what your ISP has provided for the European registration service (RIPE).

Some ISPs like Virgin will have an address mapped to an area so for any big city there may be similar IP addresses. My ISP (Plusnet) seems to record London for many of their ranges of IP addresses. My IP is 'fixed', ie number always the same but different services like whatismyipaddress.com may give different levels of info.

In the past I have had some adverts display where it has been assumed I am in Sheffield (where ISP HQ is) but in most cases adverts assume I am in London, as do these 'show IP' services:

City: London
Country: United Kingdom reported by

whatismyipaddress.com www.ip2location.com www.tracemyip.org

I'm in N Wales by the way!



These just give IP without reporting any location details:
www.showmyip.co.uk
www.showmemyip.com also shows hostname .plus.com
www.showmyip.com.ar

If a connection is made via a "proxy server" (hint: check on Wikipedia for any technical terms just like I do!) then some web servers will accept the IP address as if the proxy IP is yours so most websites would record the IP of the Proxy service and not the real IP address of the user.

via hidemyass.com (IP 95.154.230.191) - whatismyipaddress.com reports me as being in the sea south of Ghana and west of Gabon, but does report a proxy server so anyone checking would know it is not my correct location. Some other services report connections from HideMyAss as being in Chicago (where some of their free servers are, I assume).


I also have a USB modem for the Three mobile network. Using that, I have had services consider me to be in Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester and a few other places such as Essex (cannot imagine why!)



PS Many thanks for the link, Custardo, as the blacklist checklist will prove handy if clients of mine have e-mail rejected. Some services like AOL seem very "fussy" and reject even valid mail, apparently for little or no reason, and anything which provides clues as to where an IP may have been blacklisted is a help.