[tor-relays] Please help us find a working alternative to using MaxMind's GeoLite2 databases

[Pascal Terjan]

On Tue, 7 Jul 2020 at 10:20, Karsten Loesing <karsten at torproject.org> wrote:
>
> On 2020-02-12 16:05, Karsten Loesing wrote:
> > Hi relay operators,
> >
> > as you might have heard, MaxMind has changed access and use of their
> > GeoLite2 databases:
> >
> > https://blog.maxmind.com/2019/12/18/significant-changes-to-accessing-and-using-geolite2-databases/
> >
> > This affects Onionoo and tor, and I'm trying to find a working
> > alternative on the following ticket:
> >
> > https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32978
> >
> > Today I think I found a possible alternative by using data from another
> > provider. But before I name it here, I'd first want to find out how
> > accurate it is.
> >
> > I tried resolving relay IP addresses of relays that have been running in
> > the past week and compared that to our existing lookups using MaxMind's
> > October database.
> >
> > The result is that 7669 relays (93%) had the same country code and ASN.
> >
> > I put the remaining 7% on the following wiki page:
> >
> > https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/MetricsGeoipComparison
> >
> > I'd like to hear from you which data source is right and which is wrong
> > (or if both are wrong).
> >
> > If you'd like to help, please leave comments on the ticket or in the
> > "Comment" column on that wiki page by February 19, 2020.
> >
> > Thanks for helping!
>
> Hello again,
>
> I'm bumping this thread, because there's (finally) news on finding an
> alternative to MaxMind:
>
> https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/metrics/trac/-/issues/32978
>
> (Yes, you'll have to scroll down quite a bit to find the news, it's a
> long ticket.)
>
> Can relay operators please take a look at that ticket and see if they
> find their relay in the table with different country results?
>
> It would be neat to identify patterns there and possibly improve the
> accuracy of the new database.
>
> Thanks for your help!

I run 3 relays with Scaleway, one in Paris and 2 in Amsterdam, the new
alternative places them all in France.

whois correctly describes the range as being in Amsterdam:

% Information related to '51.15.0.0/17AS12876'

route:          51.15.0.0/17
descr:          SCALEWAY
descr:          Amsterdam, Netherlands
origin:         AS12876
mnt-by:         MNT-TISCALIFR
created:        2019-10-03T15:11:06Z
last-modified:  2019-10-03T15:11:06Z
source:         RIPE

% This query was served by the RIPE Database Query Service version
1.97.2 (WAGYU)