[Zope] IP address and US city name

[Michel Pelletier]

Hung Jung Lu wrote:
> 
> >From: Bill Anderson <bill@noreboots.com>
> >Hung Jung Lu wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I know that IP addresses in the USA follow a strict pattern of
> >geographical
> > > locations. (Most other countries don't do that.) Does anyone know where
> >I
> > > can get a copy of the table of IP addresses vs. city names?
> >
> >Whomever told you this was wrong.
> 
> No Bill. You are the one that is wrong. :)

Actually Hung, on this one he is right.  I owned and operated an
internet service provider for four years.  There is no 'strict' policy
of who gets what address block.  Random companies in random cities at
random times ask for, and recieve, random chunks of classless address
space based on their need.  It is true that this chunk of address space
is then _usually_ assigned to only one geographic location, but there is
no strict policy and no one keeps track of it in a  big-brother database
'table' that maps this information for you.  

The companies themselves may keep track of which addresses go where, but
they are not required to report this to anyone or to update some global
directory when they change their network setup or move stuff around. 
Also, at the highest level are large organizations, phone companies,
universities, government organizations, etc.  In the case of companies,
these organizations usually get a huge chunk of address space and them
sell it off to other people, like, for example, GTE (a phone company)
sells its addresses to Genuity (an ISP) which sells its addresses to
Nap.net (an ISP) which sells its addresses to Collective Intelligence
(the ISP I used to own) which sells its addresses to Dialogue, Inc. (an
ISP owned by my buddy Adam).  Adam was not require to report to me what
or where or who he sold his addresses to, similarly I was not required
to report that informtaion to Nap.net, who, in turn I presume, is not
required to report the information on upward and so on.  At the very
highest level, the only information know is "GTE owns 200.x.x.x to
220.x.x.x".  GTE is, geographicaly, the biggest phone company in the US,
serving almost all of the rural mid-west.

That said, there is a company that has intrusivly scanned the whole
internet (globally, not just the US) and claims to have, using
deduction, figured out where all the addresses are.  I'm assuming their
service is very expensive, not 100% accurate (because neworks move and
get rewired) and it is targeted towards advertisers:

http://slashdot.org/yro/00/11/06/0521235.shtml

-Michel