On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 8:38 PM, Steven Bellovin <[email protected]> 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
Sure, but I don't think that warren meant s sole signal here... having a hint is nice :) > 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. this describes any use of geo-location for ips though, in most cases it's probably not half bad, but with determined 'attackers' there's very little that can protect your spotify-music from non-swedish folks, for instance. Speaking of geoloc fail: <http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=5682> (vpn your boxee traffic to a location more suitable to your watching desires) (I think the users of geoloc in these cases understand they have a 95-98% success rate, and are willing to take the hit on the folks who take an effort to avoid them.) -Chris > > --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb > > > > > > >
