Changing BSSID?

[Scott Kaforey]

I'm not even sure if my title is correct.

I have had my same router (RT-AC88U) for years, and I have not moved for 12 years.

All of a sudden, in the last week, devices that are connected to wi-fi in my house think I'm in Las Vegas (I am in San Diego).

In Firefox and Edge, if I'm connected to either my 2.4 or 5Ghz connections, the error will turn up. If I connect through ethernet, the location is accurate. Looking up my IP on various websites lists it as being a San Diego IP address. Chrome seems to work ok, but from what I understand, that's only because if you're signed into your google account it uses different methods to know where you are.

After searching, it seems like some sort of database that's tied to my router's MAC address (???) has a bad entry and when geolocation is looked up, it provides them with a Vegas location.

I have no idea how accurate this is, but that's where I'm at.

I don't believe I can change the WAN Mac Address because I'm using a bypass method with ATT Fiber to have my router do everything instead of their provided gateway (I'm spoofing the gateway's MAC in my setup).

Not sure if any of this makes any sense, but if someone has an idea for how I can fix my issue, I am all ears.

Google Gemini is telling me to basically have several phones connected to my wifi, open Google Maps with high location accuracy on and eventually the database will fix itself.

 

[ColinTaylor]

It seems unlikely that it's related to your wifi's BSSID, but I guess anything is possible.

What exactly is it that's telling you you're in Las Vegas? (so we can try recreating the problem)

Are you using any VPN clients? Obviously that will effect any geo-location.

 

[Scott Kaforey]

I noticed it when I would search for something, it would give me results local to Las Vegas. If I go to Google Maps, it shows I'm in Las Vegas.

There are various other websites that get your location and they all show Las Vegas.

I use a VPN client for work, but that's on a separate machine. That VPN connects to Los Angeles anyways. I have no idea where Las Vegas came from.

 

[bennor]

I have no idea where Las Vegas came from.

Who is your ISP provider? It is likely (assuming no VPN) your public IP address is from a IP address pool in the Las Vegas area if that is where it's resolving to. Its common occurrence to have a public IP address on a home ISP line resolve in a different town (or even different state). For me, my IP resolves to a town 20 miles way.

 

[Scott Kaforey]

My ISP is ATT and my IP has not changed since I had fiber installed many years ago. As I stated, if you look up my IP address on various websites, they all show the location as being correct (in San Diego).

 

[adrenalize]

Well I guess it is related to one of 2 things, lots of people want to give an IP a geolocation attribute, although it doesn't really have one, so there are a number of databases that try and guesstimate a location to an IP, like the Maxmind database. They'll do this based on aggregating a number sources and based on that they may decide they think the IP is somewhere else if some element changes.

Secondly there are a number of databases, Apple, Google etc that catalogue BSSID to location to aid location services. The first iPhone had no GPS and a lot of the determination for location was on several BSSID the phone could hear and a call made to the database to see if it was known.

This database was "seeded" by Apple wardriving in cars and Google street view cars doing the same (in the UK they did packet capture too but got found out and told off by the authorities ). In a lot of urban areas a device can often hear multiple networks, so can self heal, usually in a couple of weeks when a router is new or moved, as multiple other networks in the database haven't moved.

So I guess maybe either one database for IP has changed for some reason or maybe a new router/network nearby has skewed WiFi location services. Maybe see if it changes in a week or so.

There are databases of cell towers too, just think your phone may know IP, GPS, multiple BSSID and cell towers and may use this data. Just look at the bottom of Google search page.

 

[adrenalize]

Obviously I can't read replies properly , as you've just said IP lookups give San Diego, but maybe option 2.

 

[scootertramp]

This may be a stretch but check my saga with using speedtest on the router.
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/internet-speed-test-servers-not-correct-for-my-location.95558/

For me it turned out my geo location data was removed from MaxMind database due to a privacy request.
Check out: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-web-services-demo

If you find the geo location data is wrong, they do have a place on the web site to request a correction.
That cleared up my issue.

 

[sfx2000]

WiGLE is upstream for many of the wireless geolocation services...

WiGLE: Wireless Network Mapping

Maps and database of 802.11 wireless networks, with statistics, submitted by wardrivers, netstumblers, and net huggers.

wigle.net

They index by BSSID's, not IP addresses