IP says i'm from a different state.

[codi passaro]

Hello forum :~) I'm currently at my girlfriends house, using her computer.

I was signing into my google account, when my phone said a new device logged in blah blah blah, but the thing is, i'm in california, but the login said Birmingham, AL... So I googled "What is my location" and it says that her location is in birmingham. She's never once been in birmingham, so what gives? Why does her ip say she is from a completely different state?

 

[rgd1101]

because the isp used an ip from that location

 

[gangrel]

In my case, I think it's because that's where my ISP's main office is. It says same state, but about 200 miles away. When I'm online at MANY stores, too...Home Depot and Walmart are 2 examples...their store locator services always return a zip code from that area, not mine. I would suspect the same thing here. Would it make sense that her ISP is based out of Birmingham?

 

[codi passaro]

because the isp used an ip from that location

Her ISP is based out of Texas, since it's at&t.

 

[codi passaro]

because the isp used an ip from that location

Would this cause any problems in the future though? Since the IP location is across the US.

 

[gangrel]

Maybe somewhat higher latency, and MAYBE a bit of a loss in speed, but probably not particularly noticeable.

 

[rgd1101]

Is a IP address. it not like a land line. What sure what kind of issue you are worrying about.

 

[codi passaro]

Is a IP address. it not like a land line. What sure what kind of issue you are worrying about.

Well, at my girlfriends house, she doesnt have the fastest internet speeds, since she is using the wifi, she gets about 2-5 Mbp/s download and maybe 1 Mbp/s upload.

If she contacted her ISP, and had them fix this issue (if thats even how you would fix it) would that increase her wifi speeds?

And I know using a ethernet cable would help a lot, but she cannot use one atm.

 

[codi passaro]

Maybe somewhat higher latency, and MAYBE a bit of a loss in speed, but probably not particularly noticeable.

Well, I might have her call her ISP, if she wants too.

 

[jsmithepa]

Google texts you for security purposes, but otherwise there maybe nothing for you to do. Are you having actual problems that you know of? Do you know what's the existing performance of your GF's place before today?

 

[bill001g]

You have to remember the location service has nothing at all to do with where the actual IP is assigned. These services are basing the location on some registration data for ip like ARIN. The company I work for all the addresses are registered to the main office even though we use them all over the world. Google even has its own silly thing, we have our employess changing this ( no way to stop them) and google comes up in the wrong language because they set it to another country.

When traffic is flowing in the internet it is not using some silly registration database. This is all done with a routing protocol called BGP. The routers tell each other using this protocol what is connected to them and in theory at least they find the shortest path. The routers could care less where things are actually located all they only know what other routers they connect to and which BGP tell them is the best.

Now that is not to say that sometimes ISP connect things very strangely but in most cases you will connect to the internet in a city very close to you.

 

[Kewlx25]

I think he's concerned about stuff like regional DNS handing out the wrong IP addresses because of the incorrectly reported location.

I do no think this is an issue. Many systems use anycast or other route based detection and are not based on where the IP is registered from, except possibly which country.