Geo Comply software? For online sports betting.
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So since online sports betting went live in IL.. I have had issues with getting it to validate my location on my windows 10 pc.. Got fed up with their support and their stupid suggestions, and just used my phone - which never had any problems.
Well this morning figured give it a few minutes again.. I cleared all my cached cookies and site info. Validated OS settings allowed for location access, etc. When I go to google maps it pretty much finds my exact address when letting it find my location..
Still was failing - so in their little popup when it fails it mentions using google dns.. so did that - now got a different error about about wifi.. Well I don't use wifi on this pc, but seems like it wants to look for wifi networks that it sees.. So just enable my wifi interface, didn't connect to any network.. And bam seems to work.
Well I sure am not going to use google dns on my pc, since can't resolve any of my local resources... So changed it back to my local dns and was working for awhile - but then it had an issue (guess it rechecks your location ever so often).. So I setup a redirection to my local dns if trying to go to 8.8.8.8 and set machine to use google dns. And back to location being verified - even though really use my local dns.
Well shit - now its failing again.. Turned off my redirection, and passed.. wtf..
Guess will just continue to use my phone or tablet.. I did find this statement
"*Ethernet (wireline connection) will not pass the location check, you must be connected using a Wi-Fi connection."What kind of nonsense is that?
So my question really is - does anyone have any info or insight into what exactly this software does to validate location - I can't seem to find real details on the checks it does. I take it this might be to make it harder to circumvent and cheat on your location, etc.
But I just want to use my PC vs grabbing my phone - jumping through such hoops is crazy.. And having to use google dns is total BS.. My phone sure isn't using it, but then again it has gps sure they are pulling info from.
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Did a little Google research here as this really piqued my curiosity. How could they know?
What I found is surprising, rather cool from a technology perspective, and frightening in the end when you stop and give it some thought from the surveillance/spying point of view! All this at the same time, in fact.
Here is a Reddit thread I found: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/dvbwr0/wifi_ssid_world_map_how_an_app_can_geolocate_you/.
Here is a link (currently not working as I get HTTP error 500, so I'll provide a Google cache link below to the same page) from 2011 about a Google practice that supposedly has since been discontinued. It was the Google Maps cars recording Wi-Fi network SSIDs and other metadata while driving around mapping streets, and putting the SSIDs into a database with the location coordinates.
Original Link: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-google-and-everyone-else-gets-wi-fi-location-data/
A variation of the above method is having your phone (Android devices in particular) periodically "call home" to the Google mothership to report the wireless SSIDs it is seeing and the current GPS location of your phone.
So the outcome of all this surreptitious wifi snooping is databases that can correlate SSIDs to geographic coordinates. I think they also pulled additional metadata into the database, such as MAC identifiers, to better handle the case of an SSID named something common such as "bobs_wifi".
So in your case, perhaps a wifi location database entry somewhere on the web for "John Poz's home wifi" is being checked to validate your location. That's why your phone works, and why your PC needs to report wifi status/info. Not sure exactly how using Google DNS ties in, though.
OMG! It seems the "Eagle Eye", "Conspiracy Theory", and "Enemy of the State" movies were real after all!
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@bmeeks Well the wifi db are very real that is for sure.. Not something didn't know about..
Just check out https://www.wigle.net/
Some threads were users posting what their ssid is - quite possible from just that to get location.. If their ssid is very unique, etc.
I don't have a problem with turning on my wifi interface, to let them see ssid in the area.. But why if I don't use google dns does if fail is driving me nuts.. Might have to do do some looky see on what sort of queries they are doing when it tries to validate..
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IIRC Google got sued for the drive-by, I want to say because they captured unencrypted wireless packets.
I wonder what they do for desktop PCs that don't have wireless?
Can't speak to them using Google DNS, but I did recently find that if I blocked DoH at my home the "on demand" channels of my Dish service wouldn't connect. I had to allow it from that IP. Apparently that software in the system doesn't fall back to DNS (which is shown in the settings).
I also found login.yahoo.com is unreachable through Hurricane Electric IPv6. Maybe they consider that a VPN?
PS: hi from Naperville.
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