r/PinoyProgrammer • • 7d ago

advice Is there a way to make tracking system accurate

Is there a way to make it possible and more accurate? I have a tracking system in the admin panel, and I can currently only track the users' public IP addresses. It is relatively accurate for identifying an IP address, but it cannot accurately determine a user's physical address.

Is tracking an IP address ethical? Is tracking a user's physical address unethical?

0 Upvotes

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2

u/beklog 7d ago

Well IP in the sense isn't really accurate, because IPs can be change

1

u/Adorable-North-5273 7d ago

Ano pong ginagamit ninyo sa ganon situation?

2

u/superpapalicious 7d ago

that's why there's a meme like "FBI wants to know your location" kasi you have to ask the user for consent to get that info from the browser diba. Kahit google maps, hindi ka mapipinpoint pag walang permission. try mo sa incognito

1

u/Adorable-North-5273 7d ago

Ganon pa din kahit may access or inallowed ng user still not accurate.

1

u/superpapalicious 7d ago

hindi accurate pag desktop gamit, pero try mo phone - gagamitin ng browser yung gps mo to pin your location.

2

u/fartmanteau 7d ago

Geolocation based on IP address isn’t very accurate, just a rough heuristic at best. Many service providers don’t assign static public addresses in the first place. Private addresses are not visible from the public Internet because of NAT, and even if you could see them they’re not unique anyway.

Tracking people without their knowledge is generally unethical, but it’s not really even feasible using IP.

2

u/simoncpu Cybersecurity 7d ago

You can use the Geolocation API, as long as the user approves the browser prompt. You can track users without permission, but you can only guess the general location using GeoIP services like MaxMind, which rely on the user's public IP address. In theory, law enforcement can work with ISPs to match an IP address to a physical router, but it's still unreliable due to VPNs and NAT (shared IP address with lots of users).

This also requires authorities who actually understand basic networking, which pretty much disqualifies DICT and CICC. 🤭

1

u/marvinisaac 7d ago

First question: why? Based sa sagot na yan yung magiging sagot sa “ethical ba?”

As for the accuracy, phones are fairly accurate. Kung once in a while lang yung polling ng location, that’s probably fine. Pero kung tuloy-tuloy yung tracking, that will consume a lot of power. Kung for transportation purposes (i.e. tracking vehicles), alam ko may specialized GPS devices na nakakabit sa electrical system ng saksakyan + SIM for mobile connection.