How it works?
IP addresses localization works through the combination of analysis of the following sources:
Whois database
The highest authority in the Internet is The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Divides the range of IP addresses to large intervals,
which allocates to Regional Internet Registries (RIR), who manage the various major areas of the world.
Parts of the databases of Regional Internet Registries are publicly accessible through the Whois servers.
It includes details such as the assigned range of IP addresses, the name and exact address of the entity
and accurate contact information of administrative and technical support.
By analysis of these records it's possible to estimate the location of IP addresses.
Hostname (domain name)
Network applications that provide communications between computers over the Internet are identied by 32-bit numbers - IP addresses. This numerical information is for humans difficult memorable, so the domain name (hostname) is often used instead of IP addresses (for example, instead of 147.175.1.12 is used stuba.sk).
The suffix of the domain name (from the last dot right) is called first-level domain (in the case of Slovakia .sk). First-level domain can be in many cases used to determine the country of IP addresses localization. Furthermore, the domain name very often contain also the name of city, or its abbreviation.
DNS records
DNS (Domain Name System) is a globally distributed database containing information about domain names, parts of which are located on different name servers. Information about domain names and their respective IP addresses, as well as any other information distributed via DNS are stored in the memory of DNS servers in the form of Resource Records (RR). Some types of DNS records can help us and to estimate the localization of IP addresses:
LOC DNS record
contains coordinates of the network device's localization.
TXT DNS record
contains text description of the network device. This description may include for example the name or abbreviation of a town, in which the network device is located.
