Many people try and connect an ip address to a geographic location, as they are trying to find the real source of the email, often as the email received may be suspicious (phishing, scam attempt, etc)
Alternatively, you may have had your social media account/s hacked, identified the ip address used by the hacker, and traced it to latitude 38 longitude 97
The coordinates latitude 38 longitude 97 are located in a field just south of a farmhouse in Potwin, Kansas, and this location was chosen because it is the geographic center of the USA (although it isn't, really).
Obviously there is nobody sitting in that Kansas field, but unfortunately many people have assumed that the nearby farmhouse is the genuine location of the ip address, and as the email they received may be a criminal attempt at fraud, or they may have been hacked (a criminal offense itself), people then report the farmhouse owners to the Potwin police and to the FBI
If you use an ip address tracing tool, and get a latitude of latitude 38 longitude 97, it means that the geolocation database doesn't know the physical location of the ip address, and instead just gives you the centre coordinates of the USA. It is the database's way of saying :
"I don't know where this ip address is really located, but I do know it is in the USA somewhere, and here is the center of the USA : latitude 38 longitude 97".
The number of ip addresses with
no known geolocation is in the millions.
One of the companies maintaining a database of geolocations and ip addresses is MaxMind, and they themselves state that Potwin, Kansas, is the source
of millions of ip address geolocations, and therefore such a location is
meaningless.
This is certainly true of AOL's email servers, which have the ip addresses listed below. All of these will appear to be located in Potwin, Kansas, though they aren't. This can often cause confusion, as the email header usually states that one of the ip addresses listed below is the "source", and therefore must be identifying the email sender. It isn't the source of course, it's just that the email header isn't giving the original sending ip address, it's just listing an AOL mail server as the sender."many large US IP ranges are almost entirely located at 38,-97 with no other information (besides country) provided"
205.188.105.143 205.188.105.144 205.188.105.145 205.188.105.146 205.188.105.147 205.188.169.203 205.188.91.95 205.188.91.96 205.188.91.97 64.12.206.39 64.12.206.40 64.12.206.41 64.12.206.42 64.12.100.31 64.12.78.142 64.12.207.164 64.12.207.163 205.188.252.208 205.188.109.194 205.188.109.200 205.188.109.201 205.188.109.202 205.188.109.203 205.188.109.204 205.188.109.207 205.188.108.133 205.188.108.134 64.12.143.75 64.12.143.76 64.12.143.77 64.12.143.78 64.12.143.79 64.12.143.80 64.12.143.81 64.12.222.129 64.12.143.82 64.12.143.86 205.188.249.129 205.188.249.132 205.188.249.133 64.12.143.151 64.12.143.146 64.12.143.147 205.188.58.1 205.188.58.2 205.188.58.3 205.188.58.4 205.188.167.65 205.188.167.67 205.188.167.68 205.188.167.69 205.188.169.14 205.188.169.19 205.188.169.23 205.188.169.24 205.188.92.203 205.188.92.205 205.188.92.206 205.188.92.208 64.12.188.249 64.12.237.8 64.12.237.10 64.12.237.12 64.12.102.137 64.12.102.138 64.12.102.139 64.12.102.140 64.12.81.66 64.12.81.67 64.12.81.68 64.12.81.69 64.12.81.145 64.12.81.146 64.12.81.147 64.12.81.148
As a result of many emails being incorrectly traced to a field in Potwin, followed by an erroneous assumption that the nearby farmhouse is to blame, there have been several theories published concerning the activities of this Potwin farmhouse :
Some consider it to be a nest of cybercriminals, with a building full of the latest equipment that would be the envy of the NSA, and which has been used for years to run scams and frauds.
Others have suggested it is the modern-day Area 51, and underneath the farmhouse can be found aliens.
One person even thought that girls had been kidnapped and held hostage there, because that person received a hoax email saying so, and the hoax email traced back to that field in Potwin. The recipient of the hoax than reported the matter to the FBI.
So, if you have traced the sender of an email to a Potwin farmhouse, you can go no further. Unfortunately you haven't found a fraudster, or a gang of criminals, or a nest of hackers, hiding in a Kansas farmhouse, so no need to report the farmhouse owners to the Potwin police or the FBI.
Of course, criminal matters should be reported to the authorities, who may, or may not, investigate it further, but whatever they do, they won't be visiting a farmhouse in Potwin.
Some consider it to be a nest of cybercriminals, with a building full of the latest equipment that would be the envy of the NSA, and which has been used for years to run scams and frauds.
Others have suggested it is the modern-day Area 51, and underneath the farmhouse can be found aliens.
One person even thought that girls had been kidnapped and held hostage there, because that person received a hoax email saying so, and the hoax email traced back to that field in Potwin. The recipient of the hoax than reported the matter to the FBI.
So, if you have traced the sender of an email to a Potwin farmhouse, you can go no further. Unfortunately you haven't found a fraudster, or a gang of criminals, or a nest of hackers, hiding in a Kansas farmhouse, so no need to report the farmhouse owners to the Potwin police or the FBI.
Of course, criminal matters should be reported to the authorities, who may, or may not, investigate it further, but whatever they do, they won't be visiting a farmhouse in Potwin.
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