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Re: Have you ever been at...

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Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> wrote:

>When I switched ISPs in 2008, my new provider had just installed a new
>router farm.  It took a fairly long time for the various location
>service providers to figure out where my IP address was coming from.
>
>Most websites thought I lived at the telco's head office, on the
>Vancouver Burnaby border.  The Home Depot coupon that finally pushed
>me into looking at what was going on was only good in BC, and I don't
>live in BC.
>
>I found seven companies on the web promising to provide location
>services to other web sites.  When I tested them, three of them put me
>at the telco corporate headquarters a couple of hundred feet outside
>Vancouver.  One put me in Sacramento, one gave inconsistent responses
>all over North America, one put me into graveyard in north central
>Calgary (about 7 miles from my actual address) and one put me inside
>the college grounds at SAIT about 11 miles from my actual address.  I
>find it plausible that the telco might put a router farm inside a
>technical college, but never figured out the graveyard.  The
>transition from fiber to ADSL happens in a roadside telco box on the
>other side of a park near my home about an eighth of a mile from my
>home.
>
>Calgary stretches much further southwards than northwards, so the
>graveyard is neither a geographical center nor a population-weighted
>center.
>
>WalMart keeps trying to give me a Toronto list of stores.  I lived in
>Toronto for sixteen months in (and after) 2004, but I've gone through
>seven or eight computers since then and even switched browsers.  (I
>think I was still on Safari back then.  When was Chrome invented?)

Google Maps gives me accurate directions starting from the actual
roadway nearest my bedroom, though that's not quite right according to
where my townhouse complex feeds into the official roads.

I'm not sure what permissions I've given Google over the years.  They
may be working from my userid, or Streetview probably memorized my
router.  I have two routers in series.  The "outer" one is fairly new
provided by my telco, and the second one (private against my
roommates) has been in service since 2005.

quick retest:

Google localizes me at the gate to my townhouse complex - looks like
the street address of my mailing address, which google knows as my
"home address".

whereamirightnow pops up a request from Chrome to allow it to know my
location.  When I say "OK", it puts me at the nearest road position to
my actual address.  This is NOT quite where google maps places me.

I decided to disallow where-am-i.net from knowing my location from
Chrome.  So they put me in Siberia.  It's telling what happens to
people who don't go along with the computer elite.  (grin).

ctrlq.org temporarily parks me in the White House until I allow Chrome
to tell it where I am.

The actual attempt of the test goes dramatically different from how it
went in 2008.  Back then, they actually tried.  Now they all just want
to ask my browser.


-- 
We are geeks.  Resistance is voltage over current.

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Thread

Have you ever been at... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-01-30 12:22 -0800
  Re: Have you ever been at... boB <boB@theresnoplacelikehome.com> - 2016-01-30 13:11 -0800
    Re: Have you ever been at... djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2016-01-30 21:36 +0000
      Re: Have you ever been at... wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2016-01-30 19:24 -0500
      Re: Have you ever been at... HVAC <mr.hvac@gmail.com> - 2016-01-30 16:49 -0800
      Re: Have you ever been at... "Michael R N Dolbear" <me@privacy.net> - 2016-01-31 21:09 +0000
        Re: Have you ever been at... David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2016-01-31 15:40 -0600
  Re: Have you ever been at... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-01-31 10:20 -0800
    Re: Have you ever been at... Sergio <invalid@invalid.com> - 2016-01-31 21:40 -0600
  Re: Have you ever been at... Sergio <invalid@invalid.com> - 2016-01-31 21:39 -0600
    Re: Have you ever been at... Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2016-01-31 20:57 -0700
      Re: Have you ever been at... Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2016-01-31 21:11 -0700
        Re: Have you ever been at... Sergio <invalid@invalid.com> - 2016-01-31 23:10 -0600
          Re: Have you ever been at... Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2016-01-31 23:53 -0700
        Re: Have you ever been at... Sjouke Burry <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnll> - 2016-02-01 07:49 +0100
      Re: Have you ever been at... wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2016-02-04 23:34 -0500

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