[arch-d] Re: IP Address Geolocation Considered Harmful

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

I think that a good Internet architecture would highlight and try to balance the competing requirements from companies, governments, and end-users at the network and application layers.

Rather than just saying geo-locating is bad I think that it would be better to understand:

  *
Why are organisations doing this
  *
Are the reasons that they want this information legitimate (for none, some, many, all use cases)
  *
Are the alternative ways of providing that information in a more privacy preserving way whilst still meeting most, if not all, of their needs.

Kind regards,
Rob


From: Martin Thomson <[e-mail]>
Date: Tuesday, 24 March 2026 at 05:03
To: Henning Schulzrinne <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: [arch-d] Re: IP Address Geolocation Considered Harmful

On Tue, Mar 24, 2026, at 04:49, Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
> Off-topic, but US cell phone area codes are the equivalent of "where
> did you go for high school"...

That's not really off-topic.  It highlights that phone numbers are bad for privacy.

But it's not just the area code, but the whole damned phone number.  You can't change phone numbers as readily as you can IP addresses.  That highlights an advantage that Internet technology has over the old system.  Email masking is a real thing for the same reason[1].  Another win for the Internet.

[1] I've found that some services insist on contacting data brokers and refuse to do business when they find nothing about the fresh email mask you provide at signup.

_______________________________________________
Architecture-discuss mailing list -- [e-mail]
To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]