0

I have been checking this website that sells a product (health related) and trying to find out if it is a scam site.

The site is something.blogspot.in (and not something.blogspot.com, which happens to be a different site altogether). So is it an Indian site?

It has a CBox chat box where the owner communicates with customers (or potential ones) for information.

The owner shows that his product has worked for people by providing links from a forum (created by him at network54.com) where people have posted positively. One doesn't have to be registered to post on there, but the IP address of the poster gets shown along with the post. According to the owner, IP address is basis of authenticity.

I found that many people had different IP addresses on their different posts. The owner has declared the nationalities of the people who posted. When I traced the IP addresses of them with this site, I found that the nationalities provided by the owner were wrong. Is it possible that when a person disconnects himself from an ISP, another person from another country gets his old IP address?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

A lot of things to explain... First, yes, ISP usually use dynamic IPs mechanisms, meaning that a user has a lease over an IP for a predefined period of time, after which he will change that IP.

Secondly, no, ISPs usually try to keep so called IP pools (a delimited class of IPs, ex. /24, from where the dynamic IPs are chosen) for a given zone/region/etc. This has network management purposes, as well as security purposes. That's why usually, a dynamic IP address will always come for a well known zone, from the ISP's point of view.

Last but not least, the technique you are using to determine the country of an IP address is called geolocation. This is actually a database, linking countries to IP classes. The entries depend on a lot of factors and a lot of times they don't reflect the real location of an IP address. Why? Well for example if a company has its headquarters in US, its IP classes will be registered in the geolocation database as coming from US. But the company can use its IP addresses somewhere else, without prior notifications. Or resell a subclass to another company which resides outside of US. You get the idea.

EDIT: Not to mention proxies. There are lists of free proxies, which provide the ability for anyone to change its IP, therefore its current location.

EDIT2: To answer directly the question, from an ISP point of view it's not possible. If the IP is actually a proxy server and not a dynamic IP address of an ISP , it means that different people from different countries can connect to the same IP and use it, but their visible IP would be the one of the proxy server, which doesn't change their geolocation.

Improve this answer
4
  • I didn't understand the last part. I don't understand what "company can use its IP addresses somewhere else" means. Suppose the company is I. So,I can use my IP address somewhere else? That means I make use the same IP but make tracers show my location somewhere else(geolocation)? And I can sell it to someone who stays elsewhere?
    – learner
    Commented May 23, 2012 at 8:06
  • While physical location of an IP address can change, its entry in the geolocation database might not. So the geolocation used by a lot of websites could be wrong. For example companies which have a HQ in US and branches in other places in the world, their IP class most probably will be registered as being the US, while this fact is partially true for the whole IP class.
    – Silviu
    Commented May 23, 2012 at 8:13
  • @EDIT2,Is it possible to know if one used a proxy server or not? If so,can one even find out the original ip address of the person.
    – learner
    Commented May 26, 2012 at 13:12
  • It all depends on the proxy server (if it's transparent - proxy server will be detected and original IP address forwarded or anonymous - proxy server will not detected so no way to know the original IP).
    – Silviu
    Commented May 26, 2012 at 14:29
2

IP address blocks are purchased/leased by ISPs and service providers and large companies. As Silviu mentioned, they are also dispensed by region. Because ISPs and service providers are usually geographically limited, their blocks of IP addresses are only available to the regions they service.

So when my IP address lease expires and the public IP of my home internet connection is assigned to the next person, that person is going to be in the same country. And actually, he's probably going to be in the same city, if not in the same neighborhood as I am.

IP addresses differing from the stated location is a sign of spoofing or other forms of fraud.

You're clever for using this method to check the veracity of the site.

Blogspot.in appears to be a valid domain, owned by Google, same as blogspot.com. However, the other aspect you describe (testimonials without names, the owner runs all the sites himself, he uses free services to host, etc) seem to indicate he is operating a scam.

Improve this answer
4
  • But is it an Indian site? I don't understand why it would be hosted at blogspot.in if it isn't. That is how it works,right? An Indian will have to host his blog on blogspot.in and not blogspot.com?
    – learner
    Commented May 23, 2012 at 7:57
  • It seems that Google is redirecting Indian visitors to blogspot.in You can read here
    – Silviu
    Commented May 23, 2012 at 8:21
  • 1
    "IP addresses differing from the stated location is a sign of spoofing or other forms of fraud." This is just wrong, my IP address locates me in the UK, but I am actually in Ireland. This is not spoofing/fraud it's to do with how our corporate traffic is routed.
    – liamog
    Commented Oct 12, 2012 at 15:20
  • In the average home users environment, their IP will generally be correctly situated to their location. Corporate networks usually rely on tunnels and distributed networks (WANs) to enable interaction among far-flung offices and staff, and so are more likely to have IPs, such as yours, that indicate a location different than the one they are actually at. To be more technically accurate, I could have used the phrase "IP addresses... COULD be a sign of spoofing or other forms of fraud."
    – music2myear
    Commented Oct 12, 2012 at 16:12

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .