On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:38 PM, Steven Bellovin wrote: > On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:22 PM, Warren Kumari wrote: > >> Something that I have often wondered is how folks would feel about >> publishing some sort of geo information in reverse DNS (something like LOC >> records, with whatever precision you like) -- this would allow the folks >> that geo stuff to automagically provide the best answer, and because you >> control the record, you can specify whatever resolution / precision you >> like. Based upon the sorry state of existing reverse, I'm suspecting that >> there is no point.... > > I don't think that that works. Apart from the problem that you allude to -- > people not bothering to set it up in the first place -- IP geolocation is > often used for certain forms of access control and policy enforcement. For > example: "Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All live, regular season games > available via MLB.TV, MLB.com At Bat 2009 and certain other MLB.com > subscription services are subject to local blackouts. Such live games will be > blacked out in each applicable Club's home television territory, regardless > of whether that Club is playing at home or away." > (http://www.mlb.com/mediacenter/). EBay has apparently used IP geolocation > (poorly) to control access to certain auctions for items that are illegal in > certain jurisdictions or that cannot be exported.
These are just ways of satisfying lawyers & courts that you at least tried to live up to your end of the bargain (licensing, laws, etc.). Since many geo-location DBs work off SWIP records, which are obviously controlled by the user, and some even use in-addrs already for info, I don't see why it wouldn't work. Also, this is not a silver-bullet kinda problem. Every little bit helps. If even a few % of people put LOC records into the DNS, it would help some people. The danger is not of poor uptake, it's of kruft. But that is a huge danger. Just no larger than SWIP or current in-addr. -- TTFN, patrick
