[Cialug] geoip vs geoip

[Matthew Nuzum]

The tail of two location services

Tom Pohl updated a software package this weekend that takes a picture when
his Mac is turned on or resumes from suspend. (see
http://tompohl.com/2010/01/23/howto-track-your-mac/ ) At the time I didn't
know that he had code that grabs the location of the laptop as well, so I
suggested he attach it as exif data to the image.

Coincidentally, at the same time, I got a tweet from @commandlinefu about
how to post a message to twitter with location data from the command line. I
looked at the example [1] and played with it a little.

The quality of this result is no where near as good as what is done by my
Android phone or my ipod touch (both using the Google maps application). In
both cases GPS is off and it's using information about wifi to locate me.

It's accurate to within 15 feet! (I'm not kidding!)

The api.hostip.info service has located me in Denver CO. Off by about 674
miles. (but, it at least put me in the right country, which is really OK for
a free service).

I really had no idea that wifi could be used to calculate a location. How is
this possible, and is there a way to use this information in a script or
service?

[1]
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/4643/a-command-to-post-a-message-to-twitter-that-includes-your-geo-location-and-a-short-url
.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter
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