Posted by esoterik on 09/10/07 14:29

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:52:36 -0400, Jerry Stuckle wrote:

> esoterik wrote:
>> On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 17:19:23 -0400, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>>
>>> esoterik wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:32:18 +0000, Rob wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Just wondering how sites capture a visitor's IP address and how this is
>>>>> done in PHP?
>>>>
>>>> any ideas how the ip address is resolved to a zipcode/location without
>>>> using one of the commercial lists?
>>>>
>>> Nope, and even then it is not accurate. For instance, all AOL users
>>> show as coming from Virginia. And when I'm on my dialup account from
>>> MD, it shows I'm coming from NY.
>>>
>>> You can get a state (or, as in the case of the Washington, DC area, a
>>> metro area) in maybe 70-90% of the cases. But the more accurate you try
>>> to narrow it down, the less accurate your location will be.
>>>
>>>
>> how exactly would you narrow it down to even the metro area of where the
>> IP is registered to? I know visual traceroutes exist, but I'm not sure how
>> I could write a script to resolve IP to an 'area' short of using cURL to
>> strip it off someone elses website.
>>
>
> Tracing the route does nothing. You need an ip address to location
> reference. The most accurate (still not very accurate) are available
> for a charge; the free ones I've found are not very accurate.
>
> Why do you need this, anyway?
>

Just hoping to create a crude map of users to map across the US. I was
hoping there was some way to resolve a WHOIS type database for IP
addresses etc. Im not worried about exact locations, just mapping general
regions for people.

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