Geolocation of Internet Hosts Using Smartphones and Crowdsourcing

Knowing the position of an Internet host enables location-aware applications and services, such as restriction of content based on user´s position or customized advertising. Active IP geolocation techniques estimate the position of an Internet host using measurements of the end-to-end delay between the target and a number of landmarks (hosts whose positions are known in advance). We present an IP geolocation method that operates in a crowd sourcing perspective and uses mobile devices as landmarks, since their position can be easily computed using the GPS unit. A specific calibration has been included to take into account the particular operating environment which, differently from the past, includes the presence of wireless links.