Re: Geofeeds are adversarial — was Re: Geofeeds are good

[Abdullah DevRel of IPinfo via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

Hi Kevin,

> I can confirm that streaming companies don't like it any more than users  or ISPs. It's all on the contractual 
> requirements forced by the media  content providers, and they even specify which geoIP companies the  distribution 
> company may use.

Yep, it is part of DRM. However, we are as frustrated as end-users are here. Our data is the best product in the IP 
geolocation industry (ref: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3676869) and we do get a lot of flak for being so public. But 
the reality is that many major streaming companies actually do not use our data. The ones that do use our data, you 
never actually hear any complaints from them, to be honest. 

The process:
- We should not be wrong in the first place.
- If we are wrong, let us help you before you go to your streaming server support.

Like you rarely see us have those conversations in public forums (we check Reddit, Twitter, Facebook several times a 
day, along with our customer forums)

> Given the generally self-destructive state of that industry, it wouldn't  surprise me, if geoIP companies ceased 
> existing, media content providers  would ban streaming altogether, lose all their viewers and go bankrupt  themselves.

Our primary user base is cybersecurity and network architecture applications (CDNs). Even streaming companies use our 
data, adopting us based on our presence in the cybersecurity industry first, and then adopting us into DRM data 
services.

> It'll be a small percentage of IPs, netblocks or ASNs, but it'll be the most important ones.

To us all IP addresses are equal.

> Nobody cares if Verizon users are correctly placed 99% of the time, if  any of those users can sign up to NordVPN and 
> use it for the 1% of the  time they want to get around any geoblocks. Correct location is  all-or-nothing. If you 
> don't get the adversarial cases right, you may as  well get none of it right.

We offer VPN detection services. It is up to the streaming companies if they want to use it or not. We operate 1,300+ 
servers worldwide. The network is diverse, we can pinpoint each specific data center endpoint for VPN exit nodes. Our 
privacy detection service is our second most important product.

> Right now, it's the residential proxy industry, but it's very expensive. How will you detect a Verizon user is 
> proxying traffic at the TCP layer for someone in Saudi Arabia? That's very difficult, as they won't proxy your ping 
> packets. You'd need to be an MITM to measure layer-7 latency.

We offer residential proxy detection service as well. We connect through these services and/or use enhanced detection 
methods to verify active exit nodes. The dataset includes provider name, last seen date, and percentage of days seen. 
We attend a lot of research and industry conferences, so our technical team would be quite happy to talk to you in 
person about our exact methods.

We can observe the "exit node" for the residential proxy. But please look into the residential proxy business 
monetization plans. Residential proxies charge by GB transfers. It is prohibitively expensive to be applied in average 
users streaming shows.

> If residential proxy prices were to fall, the entire GeoIP industry would be exposed as snake oil.
> Though I think it's more likely that media companies would team up with ISPs to hunt down proxies with a vengeance. 
> This is already what happens in places like Spain where the same company owns the football games that are getting 
> pirated and the biggest ISPs, and they block half the internet during live football, just in case.

Resproxy data transmission costs $0.5-$8 / GB (https://proxyway.com/best/residential-proxies). Resproxy services do not 
allow unlimited data transmission, unlike VPN services.

Our goal is to work with the greater community and stakeholders. If a nation is frustrated by government actions, we 
maintain an open-door policy for networks and governments to talk to us. It is not commercial discussions, but we are 
happy to advise and share our insights based on what we have learned observing the internet from a data point of view.

Please understand, the points I am making are about IPinfo, not the IP geolocation industry at large. If IP geolocation 
went away, we hope people/companies will move to us and whatever industry we represent. The IP geolocation industry has 
left such a bad taste for ISPs, end users, and services, we are trying to distance ourselves from the stereotypes of 
the industry.

— Abdullah | DevRel, IPinfo
_______________________________________________
NANOG mailing list 
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog () lists nanog org/message/WASMD3Z2P6GEKIERL2BUO4ZAYLLFZJCZ/