I need help with an IP address question?

Question

I looked up someones IP address. It says they are in Califonia. They told me they were in Arizona. Did they lie to me? Does the IP address tell where that person is CURRENTLY located or does it tell where they purchased their computer? Maybe they purchased their computer in California, but are no in Arizona. So would their IP address SHOW California if that's where they purchased the computer?

Answer 1

Location of your IP address depend on the website that you use for tracking because almost any of

the website's usually show you another city.



IP address have nothing to do where you or someone bought computer but with your ISP and the website that you use for tracking. ISP is only one who assign external or WAN IP address to your computer and it is number that may identify your computer on the internet.



I have good experience with IP trackers from:

http://www.ip-address.org

http://www.ipaddresslocation.org

http://www.find-ip-address.org



Hope this helps!

Answer 2

I will try to explain this as easy as possible. An IP address can be compared to a home address in a certain way. When you browse the internet, watch a movie online, et cetera, data is send over the internet. This data is divided into so called packages. When you browse to the Google website for example, then you should see the Google website on your screen and not me. For this to work, every device connected to the internet needs an unique address. The "delivery man" needs to know where to deliver your packages to. If there would be two people with the same IP address, the "delivery man" would not know where to deliver the packages to. So you have an unique IP address when you are on the internet. This IP address has nothing to do with your computer and where you have bought it. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP), the company you pay to be able to access the internet, has an amount of IP addresses. They give each of their clients an IP address when they require it. These IP addresses are handed out dynamically for most home users. This means that the IP address which you have now, might be different than the one you had a week ago. By giving out IP addresses dynamically, your ISP only requires 100 IP addresses for example for 150 clients, since not every one is online at the same time always. When you trace an IP address, what you see is to which ISP this IP address it belongs, or the company to which it belongs for example. If this is an ISP in California which only services clients in California, then this person is lying when he or she states that he is in Arizona. When it is an ISP which services clients in various states, then tracing such an IP address will nine out of ten times point to a location close to the person in question, but sometimes it might trace back to a more important internet "cross section" sort of speak. IP addresses do not trace back to a real address, so it is always difficult to say where someone is. For example, if I trace back any of my IP addresses at work, I end up in a city about an hour of driving away from where I work. When I am at home, my IP address traces back to a city about half an hour of driving away from where I live. I hope this clears things up for you a bit.

Answer 3

An External IP Is given by an.. ISP(Internet service Provider)



An Internal IP Addess is given to computers on the same network.

(So the router can identify seperate compters on the network)



Your Referring to an External IP Which is usually Dynamic.



An External IP -When looked up- should show the area the internet is in.

(So it shold show the area where your friend is using the internet)



These Are not always accurate and NEVER Pin point anything.



So.. Either they did lie about where they was going or...

When you looked up the IP the results was not very accurate at all.



My votes on the.. They lied to you option.



And as stated.. IP's are not always accurate and it could just select..

The nearest City to you (Somewhre clear on the map)



Hope it helps :)

Answer 4

IP address tells where the computer is located based on the internet service.

Mostly sites tell the nearest location of your Computer,

not the exact location...

Answer 5

No, geolocation data provides only an intelligent guess at best, it may not always be accurate.