The very first time I had a look at IP address mapping, I could see how useless it was ... and there are people and agencies who haven't noticed?
I remember script kiddies on IRC back in the 90's who kept claiming they could "trace" my location based on my IP address. Even when I was in school I realised how ridiculous that idea was.
Naturally I invited them to go ahead and when their "trace" turned up nothing, they proceeded to flood my poor dial-up modem with data until my connection timed out. I guess that was their version of refusing to admit they were wrong. Of course back then, a new IP address was as simple as hanging up and re-dialing.
I will give some credit where it's due; Back when the internet was just starting to become popular, most people connected to an ISP in their neighbourhood to avoid long distance calls (also known as STD calls in Australia). You could generally make the assumption that based on someones IP address, they were connecting from a suburb not too far away from the point of presence. But even based on that, the area covered by my former telephone area code was still some 800 square kilometers.
I remember an IRC quote about someone who was stealing internet, or something like that, a town over, so they tracked his IP to his house and went there will a couple bananas and said they were the internet police or something and freaked the guy out, can't remember enough to find the darn thing though.
I wish I had been born in the days of IRC and phreaking, it would have been so much fun.
It was! So. Much. Fun.
For IRC quotes, bash.org is an oldie but a goodie. The Top100 section is a goldmine.
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#23601 +(17121)- [X]
<mage> what should I give sister for unzipping?
<Kevyn> Um. Ten bucks?
<mage> no I mean like, WinZip?
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#240849 +(13932)- [X]
<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls
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#400459 +(13680)- [X]
<Sonium> someone speak python here?
<lucky> HHHHHSSSSSHSSS
<lucky> SSSSS
<Sonium> the programming language
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#111338 +(16758)- [X]
<JonJonB> Purely in the interests of science, I have replaced the word "wand" with "wang" in the first Harry Potter Book
<JonJonB> Let's see the results...
<JonJonB> "Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.
<JonJonB> "Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wang in half an' everything
<JonJonB> A magic wang... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.
<JonJonB> "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wang. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wang for charm work."
<JonJonB> "Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wang. Eleven inches. "
<JonJonB> Harry took the wang. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wang above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls
<JonJonB> "Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wang, tapped the lock, and whispered, 'Alohomora!"
<JonJonB> The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wang had still been in his hand when he'd jumped - it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.
<JonJonB> He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.
<JonJonB> He ran onto the field as you fell, waved his wang, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wang at the dementors. Shot silver stuff at them.
<JonJonB> Ok
<JonJonB> I have found, definitive proof
<JonJonB> that J.K Rowling is a dirty DIRTY woman, making a fool of us all
<JonJonB> "Yes," Harry said, gripping his wang very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding.... Any second now, he might hear his mother again... but he shouldn't think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn't want to... or did he?
<melusine > O_______O
<JonJonB> Something silver-white, something enormous, erupted from the end of his wang
<JonJonJonB> Then, with a sigh, he raised his wang and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
<JonJonJonB> 'Get - off - me!' Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wang.