Does anyone know of any location specific maps or lists of free wifi access point IP addresses?

IE, in a town, a listing of all business that offer free wifi and the associated access point IP addresses?

 

Most IP Addresses are private and NAT'd so you can go to 90 out of 100 public hot spots and they'll usually use the same if not similar IP address range of 192.168.x.x.


Are you asking if there's a map of free wifi access points? I'm curious as to the need for IP addresses as they may not provide value to you.

 

External IPs...

When I send an email from starbucks, it has the external IP address in the header. If I know a person was in north east Phoenix, AZ and I see the IP address they posted to the web from or logged into their gmail from to send a message, I would like to be able to check the IP against a database of known public access IPs to see if they were likely using a "free access point" or other.

I am wondering if there is any currently available listing or map of IP address used at public access wifi spots? I know they can change, but most business have static IPs.

 

IP Location Finder - Geolocation

 

Thanks, I was hoping to narrow it down a LOT further...

Also, hoping to be able o check a known IP against a listing to see if it's "known public access" or not.

 

I think that may require law enforcement.

 

AHH! Apologies for misinterpreting. That clarified things immensely.

So essentially you're trying to look for an equivalent to a whois entry for a specific IP address to see if its tied to a specific free wifi access point (i.e. starbucks) ?


Not sure if that's viable but I'm curious if someone can chime in that knows better.

 

Yup, exactly. I don't know if anyone has wardriven my area and associated free/open WAPs with external IPs, but I would love to see the results if they have.

 

Most of those places probably have dynamic IPs so that list would need to be constantly updated

 

Why would most business have dynamic IPs for their WAP? Last time I checked, most businesses DONT have dynamic IPs. Even my residential connection that is "dynamic" rarely changes unless I swap out the modem.

 

I believe the IP in email headers is the IP of the SMTP server, not the person's ISP's IP.

That being said, if you have something like a web form on your site that captures IPs, i'd use the resource above to narrow down the ISP, which would at least hint in the right direction. (e.g. starbucks uses AT&T almost everywhere I believe)

 

Static IP used to be the standard when your only option was T1 or greater type of connection from a telco. Comcast/FIOS business will give you a dynamic unless you pay extra for static. Most small businesses probably don't need the static. The days of small businesses wanting to run a web server or email server onsite are quickly going away.

 

Various wardriving databases likely have something like that, at least they used to.

 

yeah, was doing some research on this...

 

many of my small business clients don't have static IPs.

 

While technically true, how often do your dynamic IPs really change?

Back when we all dialied in to AOL it may have changed a lot, but now, not so often...

 

I think mine will change if I reboot my router, other than that I've never noticed that it changes. Part of the DHCP renewal process is that the client is supposed to ask the DHCP server for renewal lease of its current IP. 99% of the time the DHCP server will say ok.