GeoIP2 Release Notes - 2015 Archive

libmaxminddb 1.1.2

MaxMind has released libmaxminddb 1.1.2, which includes a number of important security fixes. Among these fixes is improved validation of the database metadata. Unfortunately, MaxMind GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases created earlier than January 28, 2014, had an invalid data type for the record_size in the metadata. Previously these databases worked on little endian machines with libmaxminddb but did not work on big endian machines. Due to increased safety checks when reading the file, these databases will no longer work on any platform. If you are using one of these databases, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest GeoLite2 or GeoIP2 database.

GeoIP ISP update

We are updating the GeoIP ISP and Organization databases today to return AT&T Internet Services instead of BellSouth.net, due to a merger with AT&T. We are renaming Bouygues Telecom Division Mobile to Bouygues Mobile. There is also a bug fix to return Frontier Communications instead of AT&T Wireless for Frontier customers in Connecticut.

is_anonymous_proxy and is_satellite_provider Deprecation in GeoIP2

is_anonymous_proxy and is_satellite_provider are now deprecated in GeoIP2.

Use the GeoIP2 Anonymous IP Database to identify anonymous IPs and refer to the IP Risk Score to assess whether an IP address is high risk.

Due to the increased coverage by mobile carriers, very few satellite providers now serve multiple countries. As a result, the is_satellite_provider output does not provide sufficiently relevant data for us to maintain it.

Average Income and Population Density

GeoIP2 Insights web service now offers average_income and population_density fields within the location response. average_income represents the weighted average income in US dollars per person for the zip code(s) associated with the IP address. population_density represents the weighted population per square kilometer for the zip code(s) associated with the IP address. Note that these fields are returned for IP addresses located in the US only. These new fields are documented in the GeoIP2 web services API documentation.

GeoIP2 CSVs for Anonymous IP, ISP, Domain and Connection Type

We've released the GeoIP2 Anonymous IP, ISP, Domain and Connection Type databases in CSV format. All GeoIP2 databases are now available in this format.

Improvements to GeoIP2 City Plus and Insights

We've enhanced the GeoIP2 City Plus and GeoIP2 Insights web services to identify the organization associated with a business IP address in 10% more instances.

GeoIP Accuracy in Crimea

We are working on improving the accuracy in Crimea.

Approximately 60% of website visitors who are from Crimea are currently located by GeoIP as being in Crimea. We plan to increase this to 75% in the next couple of months.

Approximately 95% of the visitors who are located in Crimea by GeoIP are actually in Crimea.

We currently locate Crimea in Ukraine, as we use GeoNames data and they locate Crimea in Ukraine. If GeoNames locates Crimea in Russia in the future, we will follow their change and post an announcement here as well as on https://twitter.com/maxmind

In legacy GeoIP, we return a FIPS region code of 11 or 20. In GeoIP2, we return a iso code of 40 or 43 in the subdivision object.

Due to the nature of geolocation technology and other factors beyond our control, we cannot guarantee any specific future accuracy level. Further, accuracy figures are subject to change as IP networks are reallocated.