First Look:

FINDbase "Geocation" tool can detect any Web user location

By Bernard Cole
iApplianceWeb
(02/05/05, 12:46:52 PM PT)

Twain Harte, Ca. – FINDbase has just introduced Geocation, a software tool for detecting and authenticating the geographic location of Internet users, that is either good news or bad news, depending on your point of view. 

According to Ian Nandhra, President of FINDbase LLC., Geocation is the action of using two FINDbase technologies, Geocate and GNT, to detect the physical location of an Internet user in real-time.

He said that the combination of the two techniques overcomes major shortcomings of other widely used geolocation programs such as triangulation and IP mapping. 

"Providing accurate information regarding the physical location of Internet users is critical in fraud control systems," said Nandhra. 

"Utilizing Geocate and GNT together during an online transaction is the most reliable way to find out if a website visitor really is who they claim to be." 

Geocate, he said is a non-IP mapping, non-time-to-distance network location technology. “IP addresses are unique numeric identifiers for each computer or device on a network,” said Nandhra. “The increasing number of IP address combinations in use has grown too large for current or imminent technologies to map to a physical location.  

“Unlike other geolocation technologies, the Geocation applications do not map IP addresses, but track, learn and predict a user's future networking activities with an adaptive Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine." 

GNT is an adaptive triangulation technique (ATT), which detects time-to- distance information both TO and FROM the end user. Similar to global positioning systems (GPS), GNT uses this time-latency information to determine the probability of a user's location. 

"Knowing who and where a website viewer is located means you can personalize marketing messages, locate spammers, track online gamers, identify people downloading copyrighted music, directly combat phishing and much more," said Nandhra.  

Knowing where the account is being accessed is an essential part of profiling the user's login behavior that in turn can be used to identify potential security violations, he said. 

To learn more, go to www.geocate.com or www.findbase.com.