ping
Security and privacy
geolocation
SHOW HN2016
How HN took it
3 positive, 3 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 23 critical, out of 32 comments about the project. Thread score -0.51.
Performance: 2 for, 21 againstIdea: 0 for, 1 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Visual feedback while it pings locations is nice
From 1 comment
It is close. Really nice effect and visual feedback while it is hitting each location.
darekdk on HN
Worked well for some users, including VPN tests
From 2 comments
I tried with my real IP, and then again tunneled through a VPN 3 times each to different continents and it got all four 100% correct. The VPN tests did have lower confidence, IE…
colinbartlett on HNIt worked pretty well for me. The center of the circle was about a 45 minute drive to NYC.
tmaly on HN
Objections
Results are often wildly wrong, placing users on other continents
From 5 comments
Ran this about 10 times, it never once entered the correct hemisphere. Hint: I don't live in the northern one.
grawlinson on HNKeeps putting me in the middle of the indian ocean with high confidence. I'm in eastern Australia.
daurnimator on HNApparently Japan is smack in the middle of the Atlantic. Who knew?
donw on HNI ran it 3 times from my iPhone in Tokyo. Results were Iran/Afghanistan, China/Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia.
level3 on HNNot even the right continent for me.
iand675 on HN
Circle size is too small to contain the actual location
From 2 comments
Feels a bit overconfident - it was much better than the previous approach, and it got better over the iterations, getting very close - but however, 100% of the time my actual…
PeterisP on HNSame here, I ended up ~2000kms away (at best) from the circle (from Bangkok)
tbronchain on HN
Latency does not indicate geographic location reliably
From 2 comments
Latency is not an indicator for geographic anything. If this is just a fun hobby project, by all means go for it but don't expect it to be very truthful ever.
anc84 on HNThe ping class likely needs to be scrapped to make this any sort of reliable. Making a fake image request to these servers introduces a lot of very random sources of latency over…
runin2k1 on HN
Sparse server coverage, especially in Australia
From 2 comments
Throw more ping servers in Australia and it'll work :)
sheerun on HNFor me it often comes close, but seems to be unable to converge on my actual location. It always ends up stuck south east of it. I am in San Francisco. The other passive geo…
codezero on HN
Requests
Add more ping servers in regions like Australia
From 1 comment
Throw more ping servers in Australia and it'll work :)
sheerun on HN
Include TTL from IP header
From 1 comment
Why not also include TTL field from IP header.
est on HN
Questions
Does it measure the actual TCP/IP RTT rather than HTTP request time?
From 1 comment
Hi, the author of original submission here. I like your idea, especially the number of servers you used. I'm only concerned that using a full HTTP GET to measure the latency…
pjf on HN
Alternatives named
NLNOG RING triangulation service
From 1 comment
The creator of the NLNOG RING did a very good job of this using all ~400 servers around the world, as an experiment. Was pretty accurate. http://map.ring.nlnog.net/ (That…
virtuallynathan on HN
Another passive geolocation site posted to HN
From 2 comments
The other website posted on HN yesterday was much more accurate in that it had very large error circle and I was within the circle. This one tries to be way to specific which you…
destitude on HNFor me it often comes close, but seems to be unable to converge on my actual location. It always ends up stuck south east of it. I am in San Francisco. The other passive geo…
codezero on HN