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jeffdad2
join:2001-08-24
Naperville, IL

jeffdad2

Member

Can I get a Naperville IP address back?

A few weeks ago my longstanding IP address suddenly changed. I'm in Naperville IL but a lot of sites now think I'm in Columbus OH. The most annoying example is speed.nap.wideopenwest.com, which insists on doing a speed test to a server in Columbus, but there are a lot of other sites that start out by showing info that isn't local to me (GasBuddy, Google, etc.). Can this be fixed?
Body Count
join:2010-09-11
Columbus, OH

Body Count

Member

I'm in Columbus and have a Cleveland address. network speed tests always want me to use a Cleveland server now.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 recommendation

NormanS to jeffdad2

MVM

to jeffdad2
Not really. When an ISP renumbers their network, geolocation sites have to rebuild their databases. It is highly unlikely that you have a "Columbus, Ohio" IP address. There is no intrinsic location data in an IP address. I have been "geolocated" anywhere in the ~90 miles between Santa Rosa, California and San José, California; and Kansas and across the Pacific Ocean, as well.

Bill_MI
Bill In Michigan
MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI
TP-Link Archer C7
Linksys WRT54GS
Linksys WRT54G v4

1 recommendation

Bill_MI to jeffdad2

MVM

to jeffdad2
You can change the MAC address of your connection. Each unique MAC gets a semi-sticky IP but only experimentation will tell. This is just the most obvious work-around for WOW's network upgrading.

(Ironic... hacking for hackers hacking ads... )

Puremin0rez
join:2012-02-22

1 recommendation

Puremin0rez to jeffdad2

Member

to jeffdad2
I had the same issue and "fixed" it by changing my router's mac address until I was handed an IP that was geographically close to me. (Chicago)

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 recommendation

NormanS

MVM

said by Puremin0rez:

I had the same issue and "fixed" it by changing my router's mac address until I was handed an IP that was geographically close to me. (Chicago)

You never had an IP address which wasn't geographically close to you. When I had an IP address identified by some geolocator as being in Kansas, it was actually nowhere near Kansas. It was assigned from a pool of IP addresses on equipment physically located in Fremont, California, to a network adapter physically located in San José, California.
baess
join:2011-01-28

1 recommendation

baess

Member

said by NormanS:

You never had an IP address which wasn't geographically close to you.

I think we all know what the OP and others mean when they post about their IP and the fact that it 1) changed and 2) now "locates" them somewhere far from where they are physically located and where the previous IP "located" them.

WOW changed people's IPs and the result is not what many people want.

Luckily for me mine is now only a couple of towns away. I would not know how to reassign IPs etc. and I know I wouldn't like every site I go to think I'm hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Do you ever go to Target.com or Walmart.com or any similar site? They bring up a store near you based on your IP. It would get old fast if it constantly told me I was in Ohio instead of Illinois.

If its a matter of some system needing to be caught up with some other system like you imply than WOW should make sure it happens.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA

NormanS

MVM

You mean like Comcast.com putting me in the wrong zip code? Or Target.com in the wrong part of town? How is it Sonic.net's (my ISP) responsibility to tell Walmart.com where my IP address is located?
baess
join:2011-01-28

baess

Member

Your IP address is supposed to tell the sites where you are "located". Not vice versa.

Tired of fighting this battle. We all know how it is supposed to work.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

2 recommendations

NormanS

MVM

Your IP address does not have any intrinsic geolocation component. All your ISP is required to provide is a public IP address so your network adapter can be reached from the public Internet. Or do you know of some RFC, regulation, or Act of Congress requiring an IP address to do more than facilitate Internet connectivity?

Aoxxt
join:2010-12-13
Dearborn, MI

1 recommendation

Aoxxt to jeffdad2

Member

to jeffdad2
If your router allows it try changing your mac address. By doing so your cable modem will issue you a new IP address every time the mac address connected to the modem changes.
jeffdad2
join:2001-08-24
Naperville, IL

1 recommendation

jeffdad2

Member

OK, as a few have suggested I changed my router's WAN MAC address. In fact I changed it twice, with different permutations of resetting/power cycling the router and the cable modem (every change involves resetting the router). The same "Columbus" IP keeps being assigned to me. The annoyances continue, the most recent being a problem with Hotmail locking out my account because I was signing in "from a different location." WOW has caused this problem. I've tried to fix it and failed. Is there any recourse?

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA

NormanS

MVM

Hotmail "locks you out", and you blame it on WoW?

I have never heard of Hotmail locking users out over location. The whole point of Hotmail is to be able to access the account from anywhere.
jeffdad2
join:2001-08-24
Naperville, IL

1 edit

1 recommendation

jeffdad2 to NormanS

Member

to NormanS
NormanS, you may be correct that no standard requires correlation of IP addresses with location. In fact, going back to the halcyon days of the IETF (80s and 90s), the opposite was the case. IP addresses were supposed to be location-independent, every host was supposed to be able to connect to any other host, NATs and middleboxes were evil, RFCs were based on rough concensus and running code, etc. Internet reality intruded sometime in the mid-90s, and the IETF has been playing a poor game of catch-up ever since. The Internet has become what businesses are doing with it, and IP geolocation is one of those things.
jeffdad2

jeffdad2 to NormanS

Member

to NormanS
said by NormanS:

Hotmail "locks you out", and you blame it on WoW?

I have never heard of Hotmail locking users out over location. The whole point of Hotmail is to be able to access the account from anywhere.

Well, you have heard of it now.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 recommendation

NormanS to jeffdad2

MVM

to jeffdad2
said by jeffdad2:

The Internet has become what businesses are doing with it, and IP geolocation is one of those things.

Then business is doing it wrong. My current ISP gives no clue at all in the host name:
11/23/14 23:02:37 dns 173.228.7.217
nslookup 173.228.7.217
Canonical name: 173-228-7-217.dsl.static.fusionbroadband.com
Addresses:
  173.228.7.217
 

My former ISP named their hosts according to the city where the POP was located:
11/23/14 23:09:06 dns 71.131.208.57
nslookup 71.131.208.57
Canonical name: adsl-71-131-208-57.dsl.sntc01.pacbell.net
Addresses:
  71.131.208.57
 

But the POP was often tens of miles from the actual customer. In this example, "sntc" was the POP city, but not the customer city.

Geolocators use multiple, often unreliable, sources to form a WAG. Gelocation is not a burden the ISP should bear; and some at DSLR would prefer that their ISP not give up a location.

If some business is getting your location wrong, you should bug that business, not your ISP. Why don't businesses just ask web visitors to provide the postal code of their location? What if I am visiting my sister in Pennsylvania, but want to know what is in stock in the California store?
NormanS

NormanS to jeffdad2

MVM

to jeffdad2
So, basically, if I log in from my California home all year long, then log in from my sister's home in Pennsylvania, Hotmail will lock me out. Good to know. That makes my Hotmail account utterly useless.
jeffdad2
join:2001-08-24
Naperville, IL

jeffdad2

Member

said by NormanS:

So, basically, if I log in from my California home all year long, then log in from my sister's home in Pennsylvania, Hotmail will lock me out. Good to know. That makes my Hotmail account utterly useless.

Hotmail didn't act for a week or so, and then there was a clumsy way for me to have them send me a code to a different email address (ironically, my wowway.com address) which I could then use to regain access to Hotmail. I experienced delayed receipt of emails and had to jump through hoops. This was not a consequence of any action that I took, it was a consequence of an action that WOW took. This isn't a matter of blaming, it's a matter of WOW taking responsibilty for their actions by, at a minimum, getting me back an IP address that doesn't cause these problems!

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

said by jeffdad2:

This was not a consequence of any action that I took, it was a consequence of an action that WOW took.

What the ...???? Hotmail did not react to something WOW did, they reacted to some attempt some third party took, trying to compromise your account. It was just a coincidence that this attempt occurred after WOW changed IP addresses.

I have a relative whose MSN (parent company of Hotmail, and dial-up service provider) account was stolen by an Indian, accessing from someplace in the Bangalore time zone, and changing the localization to his language. Hotmail accounts are popular targets for such shenanigans.

I have accessed my Hotmail accounts from both my ISP, and from a different ISP and another location in this region (different IP addresses), and not been locked out. But unsuccessful login attempts from brute force attempts at password guessing will trigger a Hotmail lock.

Bill_MI
Bill In Michigan
MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI
TP-Link Archer C7
Linksys WRT54GS
Linksys WRT54G v4

1 edit

Bill_MI to jeffdad2

MVM

to jeffdad2
said by jeffdad2:

OK, as a few have suggested I changed my router's WAN MAC address. In fact I changed it twice, with different permutations of resetting/power cycling the router and the cable modem (every change involves resetting the router). The same "Columbus" IP keeps being assigned to me

I assume it's a new IP each time but still rDNS of *.col.wideopenwest.com? Router does get public IP and not a private address, right? I'm trying to get a sense of upcoming changes.

The router might vary but the cable modem, at least this bridged one, used to be able to pull 3 public IPs before it needed a reset. You could run 3 IPs sharing the same bandwidth. I suspect that's going away.
Bill_MI

3 edits

Bill_MI to NormanS

MVM

to NormanS
said by »askleo.com/how-do-i-prev ··· verseas/ :
Hotmail has gotten so “sensitive” over security it now locks an account if you merely travel a distance WITHIN a country, as in between states in the US.
Well doggone.

To be fair, I wouldn't expect someone not in a WOW region to know that Naperville, IL is quite a distance from Columbus, OH. Illinois and Ohio don't even share a border.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 edit

NormanS

MVM

This is pretty recent. In less than two months, in 2012, I accessed my Hotmail account from a Menlo Park, California connection, then from a Lodi, California connection, then from two different San José, California connections. Several different IP addresses, including two different providers. Never got locked out.
11/24/14 09:23:55 dns 75.36.147.212
nslookup 75.36.147.212
Canonical name: adsl-75-36-147-212.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net
Addresses:
  75.36.147.212
 
And also:
11/24/14 09:25:14 dns 173.228.19.254
nslookup 173.228.19.254
Canonical name: 173-228-19-254.dsl.static.fusionbroadband.com
Addresses:
  173.228.19.254
 
said by Bill_MI:

To be fair, I wouldn't expect someone not in a WOW region to know that Naperville, IL is quite a distance from Columbus, OH. Illinois and Ohio don't even share a border. :-)

I actually consulted with Google Earth early on in this thread.

Bill_MI
Bill In Michigan
MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI
TP-Link Archer C7
Linksys WRT54GS
Linksys WRT54G v4

Bill_MI

MVM

said by NormanS:

...Menlo Park, California connection, then from a Lodi, California connection, then from two different San José, California connections.

This, of course, only supports it may be state boundaries and not distance in the algorithm which we know little about. But data like this gives a tiny insight.
jeffdad2
join:2001-08-24
Naperville, IL

jeffdad2 to Bill_MI

Member

to Bill_MI
said by Bill_MI:

I assume it's a new IP each time but still rDNS of *.col.wideopenwest.com? Router does get public IP and not a private address, right? I'm trying to get a sense of upcoming changes.

The router has been given exactly the same IP address each time. Yes, it's a public IP address (65.60.170.132).
jeffdad2

jeffdad2

Member

said by jeffdad2:

said by Bill_MI:

I assume it's a new IP each time but still rDNS of *.col.wideopenwest.com? Router does get public IP and not a private address, right? I'm trying to get a sense of upcoming changes.

The router has been given exactly the same IP address each time. Yes, it's a public IP address (65.60.170.132).

Correction: The above public IP address is the one displayed when I go to one of the "what is my IP" web sites. Looking more closely at my router's settings, it is being given a local IP address (192.168.0.3) and a local address for the default gateway (192.168.0.1). My cable modem is an "ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 / Touchstone Wideband Gateway, HW_REV: 3"

Bill_MI
Bill In Michigan
MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI
TP-Link Archer C7
Linksys WRT54GS
Linksys WRT54G v4

1 recommendation

Bill_MI

MVM

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. The modem may not be capable of bridge mode to allow your router to get the public IP. Bottom line is router MAC changing can't do it since it's not your router getting the public IP.

You sound a little network knowledgeable and WOW has been providing equipment isolating your router by NAT. Best I can tell it seems to come with the Ultra package in particular. We were discussing this over here: »Setting up static IP's

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS to Bill_MI

MVM

to Bill_MI
said by Bill_MI:

said by NormanS:

...Menlo Park, California connection, then from a Lodi, California connection, then from two different San José, California connections.

This, of course, only supports it may be state boundaries and not distance in the algorithm which we know little about. But data like this gives a tiny insight.

It is not just distance; but distinctly different IP addresses. One of which has a location-neutral host name in a different ISP domain.

Bill_MI
Bill In Michigan
MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI

Bill_MI

MVM

Nothing's changed. "Your IP address does not have any intrinsic geolocation component." How someone's algorithm tied to fraud detection remains pure speculation without more info.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 recommendation

NormanS

MVM

I give up. The GD MSN, and GD geolocators infer location from data other than the GD IP address. My GD point was that different GD IP addresses from different GD providers were not used to lock me out when I accessed MSN Hotmail!

The fact that MSN now (in contrast with then) uses a presumed, if incorrect, location based on some WAGs that they make is what has broken stuff. The breakage is due to MSN's error; nothing that WOW can, or should fix.
jeffdad2
join:2001-08-24
Naperville, IL

jeffdad2

Member

said by NormanS:

The fact that MSN now (in contrast with then) uses a presumed, if incorrect, location based on some WAGs that they make is what has broken stuff. The breakage is due to MSN's error; nothing that WOW can, or should fix.

The esteemed NormanS has spoken (multiple times with the same opinion). I guess that settles it.