
Why lost phones keep pointing at Atlanta couple’s home - nonprofiteer
http://fusion.net/story/261629/find-my-phone-apps-mistakenly-lead-to-atlanta-home/
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pwg
> Without figuring that part of the mystery out, the only solution would be
> for Maxmind to change the default location for the IP address for that zip
> code—but that would mean some other house would have strangers seeking
> smartphones knocking on their door.

There is an easy solution there. Change the "default location" for that zip-
code to the lat/long of the nearest Police station. At least that way, the
folks 'searching' for their lost phone can arrive at the right location to
file a report of a lost/stolen phone.

~~~
mikecb
Or return the area of the zip code rather than the last/long.

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nextweek2
The problem is the reporting doesn't give a probability of confidence.

If there is only one base station in range then you cannot triangulate. In
this instance the phone was last seen within 1000 feet of this house.

The problem is in the reporting to the user not the method of capture.

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dibbsonline
Like us on facebook _close_ sorry didn't read it, treat your visitors better.

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DiabloD3
You are probably going to get downvoted, but I agree. The moment that popped
up, I quit reading.

What garbage.

~~~
pwg
Using Noscript with default deny there was no 'popup' asking to 'like us on
facebook'.

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hackbinary
I thought this technology would use the MAC address and SSID, but not the IP
address because surely most access points have WPA enabled by default now? And
that these find-my-phone apps use data from the phones GPS and 802.11 wireless
to build up a cross reference database. Then again, maybe most Americans do
not have WPA security enabled?

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Theodores
At least they are using the 'hi-res' version of the MaxMind product!!! There
is the 'free' version that does GeoIP to country level only, so you don't even
get the local cable-head-end/ISP/TelCo box level resolution (which is what the
'paid for' version of MaxMind gives you. (Rather than centre of postcode/zip
which it never resolves to in my experience).

I have had this problem building a store locator before now, where, due to the
'lite' database every customer in the UK was shown some store in Birmingham as
their 'nearest'...

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germanier
Previous discussion on an older article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10947023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10947023)

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zingermc
I see a couple workarounds to their problem.

1\. They could stop broadcasting their network's SSID.

2\. They could change their SSID and spoof a different MAC address every day.
Their ISP sent them a new router, but I imagine that will be sucked up into
the databases quickly and the same problem will happen.

3\. They could put routers in the surrounding homes so their home is never the
one selected.

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brudgers
The audio podcast upon which the article is based is very good, which is not
to knock the article: [https://soundcloud.com/replyall/53-in-the-
desert](https://soundcloud.com/replyall/53-in-the-desert)

