Yup. For example from my city to one of my dedicated server whose location is fully well-know (in France), I know there's 250 kilometers as the crow flies. Yet if I ping that server and draw a circle around my place (considering ping travels as fast as light in a vaccuum, which we know ain't happening but, hey, it's something) I get a radius of 2000 kilometers. About 8x the distance. I can prove that my IP ain't in the US but that's still not very precise.
And indeed many servers in the UK, which is 2x the distance than my server is, gives me constantly a lower ping.
TFA's approach, especially with the traceroute instead of Ping, is nice.
Comments
Yup. For example from my city to one of my dedicated server whose location is fully well-know (in France), I know there's 250 kilometers as the crow flies. Yet if I ping that server and draw a circle around my place (considering ping travels as fast as light in a vaccuum, which we know ain't happening but, hey, it's something) I get a radius of 2000 kilometers. About 8x the distance. I can prove that my IP ain't in the US but that's still not very precise.
And indeed many servers in the UK, which is 2x the distance than my server is, gives me constantly a lower ping.
TFA's approach, especially with the traceroute instead of Ping, is nice.