<html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">hi,<br> <br> this has become a problem for us recently. Customers reporting sites such as netflix and spotify declaring that they are in a different country.<br> <br> The least this does is change their web pages to the language making it near impossible to use, the worst is a complete denial of service due to being outside the service coverage area.<br> <br> We have had to ask customers of these services to pressure the content providers to resolve their location database issues as the likes of Maxmind are near impossible to gain any action out of from our experience.<br> <br> It seems if paying customers of the content providers growl at them then the problem gets fixed a lot faster than an ISP contacting Maxmind etc.. <br> <br> Surely it isn't hard for the likes of Maxmind to use the top level country data from RIPE at least, before bolting on their localising data?<br> <br> I am sure there are malicious entities out there feeding these databases with junk for the fun of it too..<br> <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- Bill Lewis Kijoma Broadband </pre> <br> <br> On 28/05/2014 11:16, Sinan Özşekerci wrote:<br> </div> <blockquote cite="mid:01a801cf7a5d$dc864d10$9592e730$@esertelekom.com" type="cite"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"> <style></style> <div class="WordSection1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I can’t understand why I have to spend time end effort to correct a private company’s database and helping them to earn more money where they don’t mind to harm buissness of other ones with distributing false information about them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">This comes to me like some kind of blackmailing, harming you in first place and forcing you to help them serve better and make more money.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">In our case , maximind is showing the location of our IP subnets in a “Village” which of the name is the same as our company just by coincidence, and is hundreds of km away from our HQ, in a totally different city.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">So all these algorithms and fancy ways they use to retrieve these “more specific” data is crap for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">As a LIR , I only know RIPE, and since RIPE is the Authority, I expect them to rely on their own database which has the information that I have control on, and not to some 3th party moneymakers.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Sinan ÖZŞEKERCİ<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <div> <div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm"> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net">members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net</a> [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net">mailto:members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Edward Dore<br> <b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, May 28, 2014 12:41 PM<br> <b>To:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:admin@intl-alliance.com">admin@intl-alliance.com</a><br> <b>Cc:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:members-discuss@ripe.net">members-discuss@ripe.net</a><br> <b>Subject:</b> Re: [members-discuss] My Question To All LIR Members<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The RIPE database is not primarily concerned with GeoIP data, it is a registry of who specific IP address blocks are allocated to and how they can be contacted.<o:p></o:p></p> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">MaxMind may draw some of their GeoIP data from the the RIR databases, but they also get a lot of it from elsewhere, which allows them to be more specific than just the country code contained in the RIPE database.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">Additionally, the RIPE database manual states the following for the “country” field in the “inetnum” object:<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt"> <p class="MsoNormal">"It has not been specified what this country means. It cannot therefore be used in any reliable way to map IP addresses to countries"<o:p></o:p></p> </blockquote> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">As a customer of MaxMind, I depend on them providing me with accurate, useful information about the location and use of IP addresses for fraud screening etc. If MaxMind were to draw that information only from the RIPE database, then not only would MaxMind be pointless (as I could just get the information directly from RIPE) but the accuracy would be significantly reduced (country level instead of city level) and it would be easy for people to game the system simply by changing their objects in the RIPE database to contain false information.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">MaxMind do not “make up” their information, they calculate it from multiple sources and this is what MaxMind customers are buying - data derived from multiple sources and processed by MaxMind’s algorithms.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">Obviously these algorithms are never going to be 100% accurate, which is why if people believe that the data contained in the MaxMind database is inaccurate then they can submit suggestions for corrections which MaxMind will then evaluate. MixMind are under no obligation to use any corrections submitted and are quite right to reject them if they believe that they are inaccurate or misleading for any reason.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">Accuracy of their database is important to MaxMinds’ customers and thus to MaxMind. If their database is largely inaccurate, then it is useless to their customers and MaxMind will lose business as a result. Obviously it is therefore in MaxMind’s best interest to keep their database as accurate and up to date as possible.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">As for the open proxy vs VPN, I can completely understand why MaxMind could detect VPNs as open proxy servers and as a user of their minFraud service I would expect to treat the two in exactly the same way because they are providing an identical function - to obscure the location and details of the end user.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <div> <div> <div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Edward Dore <br> Freethought Internet <o:p></o:p></p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">On 28 May 2014, at 10:02, <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:admin@intl-alliance.com">admin@intl-alliance.com</a> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <p class="MsoNormal"><br> <br> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I depend on Maxmind using data obtained from a central registry. If all <br> ip tracing websites created their own databases with information they <br> made up, we wouldn't bother with the RIPE database any more because it <br> would become obsolete. We depend on ip tracing websites to gather their <br> information from authority sites, not the garbage they produce on their <br> own. And I'm only interested, as well as my end-users, of seeing ip <br> information that I've registered in the appropriate places. Simply <br> stating that "we're only interested in end-user locations" rather than <br> ip registration data, sits badly in my mind. And it has also caught the <br> attention of the RIPE NCC itself, which just sent me the following email <br> regarding this situation:<br> <br> Dear Jared,<br> <br> Thank you for your email.<br> <br> We value your concern about correct registration details for internet <br> resources.<br> <br> However the RIPE NCC has no authority on how private companies compile <br> their data and how much they take information from the RIPE database in <br> account.<br> Did you contacted MaxMind directly and informed them about the <br> mismatching information they provide? Because finally if information are <br> incorrect then this is not only damaging companies like yours but also <br> the reputation of the providers of this data.<br> <br> And I will forward your observation to my colleagues from the <br> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://stat.ripe.net">stat.ripe.net</a> team as there for Geolocation we are using data from <br> MaxMind.<br> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://stat.ripe.net/193.0.20.0#tabId=geo">https://stat.ripe.net/193.0.20.0#tabId=geo</a><br> <br> Then my colleagues will check if there could be any conflicting <br> information in our own tools.<br> <br> -- <br> Thank you again for bring up this topic.<br> <br> Kind regards,<br> <br> Marco Schmidt<br> RIPE NCC<br> <br> <br> On 2014-05-28 09:52, Alfredo Sola wrote:<br> <br> <o:p></o:p></p> <blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt"> <p class="MsoNormal">That thought was kind of pointless after they refused to help. I've<br> spent hours on their site manually updating all of their inaccuracies<br> over the past few years. From one month to the next they can screw up<br> entire ranges with their monthly updates. My networks do not run <br> proxies<br> period. I run vpn services and remote desktops, but never proxies. And<br> vpn services cannot be classified the same as open proxies as they are<br> totally different.<o:p></o:p></p> </blockquote> <p class="MsoNormal"><br> <span class="apple-tab-span"> </span>I think your issue is more a business model problem than a registry<br> or IP problem.<br> <br> <span class="apple-tab-span"> </span>What you are saying is that you depend on Maxmind providing the<br> location of your VPN servers / remote desktop servers rather than the<br> location of users computers connected to them. Maxmind, on the other<br> hand, is saying that they provide the location of users if they can,<br> or will mark the location as unknown.<br> <br> <span class="apple-tab-span"> </span>So your business model depends on Maxmind agreeing to provide to<br> their customers something which is not what they pay to obtain. And<br> they refuse. I personally don't think they can be blamed for that, but<br> that's something between your company and Maxmind. And nothing in this<br> has to do with RIPE.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br> ----<br> If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss<br> mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the general page:<br> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/">https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/</a><br> <br> Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From here, you can add or remove addresses.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> </div> </div> </div> <br> <fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset> <br> <pre wrap="">---- If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the general page: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/">https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/</a> Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From here, you can add or remove addresses.</pre> </blockquote> <br> </body> </html>