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Do ISPs like Xfinity gather geographical information about the users of their public hotspots? If so how is it done and how accurate is it?

schroeder
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thatsmynickityname
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  • All ISPs collect all kinds of data about their users. Especially geographical data. –  May 10 '21 at 15:37

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The network provider knows which node the user connected to. So from that, they can determine the geographic area that would be accessible by that node. All traffic from the user, then, can be correlated to that node.

schroeder
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  • Thank you! And what if the person is using tor? – thatsmynickityname Aug 13 '20 at 09:00
  • I think you have added an extra dimension to the problem and added some assumptions. They know where the user is. It doesn't matter what they do on the network, they know the user device is online. You appear to be asking if they can trace the end-to-end traffic from website to user. That's a very different problem on a different layer. – schroeder Aug 13 '20 at 09:24
  • Oh no I'm sorry for the confusion, I see now. I don't know why I thought tor would play a role in confusing their nodes, clearly I would be connected to the one in that geo location, thanks for the info! – thatsmynickityname Aug 13 '20 at 09:36