computer security question...ip addresses....?

Question

Can you trace someone by an ip address, to a physical area? I thought this was supposed to be difficult, involving the ip issuing company?
Reason for asking, on surfing, i come accross, by a redirect, pop up (though they are not technically pop ups, just redirected pages) that are are for dating. Nothing wrong with that, but they give my geographical area, such as find a date in "?town" (where i actually am) and ive come across these a year ago, with a more wider area,( a similar, near, larger city).
How can they get my location, initially roughly, but now, very precisely?
Its not a big deal...its just interesting to know how they know a pc's location. I use a router, and mcaffee self test, failed as my ip was "hidden" by a router?

How else could this be happening? I do regularly reformat, and it happens on two pc's, indicating ip over virus?

Answer 1

You might find this interesting:

Excerpts from article – not the entire piece:

“Assume that everything you put into those search engines is being saved and might be handed out to somebody, someday, perhaps linked to your identity.”

“Short of demanding that companies erase all data immediately or that Congress strengthens privacy laws, consumers can’t be assured of any privacy.” “Weinstein shuns anonymizers.” He says,”All those things you do are chipping away at the edges of the problem, and the problem is still there. That information is being collected, and the IP numbers are there with varying degrees of ease for tracking down.”
(Lauren Weinstein, computer scientist.)

“Be careful what you type in. Avoid putting in personal information such as your name or credit card number. If you truly want to know what’s being said about you online, do a “vanity search” for your name from a different computer…”

Configure your browser to block data files called “cookies,” or periodically clear existing cookies. Even if consumers take all of those steps, searches can still be ties to a computer’s numeric Internet Protocol (IP) address, which can be traced back to you – with a provider’s cooperation. This is less of a worry for dial-up users. … “
(Peter Eckersley, staff technologist, Electronic Frontier Foundation.)
Electronic Frontier Foundation tips: www.eff.org/privacy/search/searchtips.php

Source: “Can Security Experts Discern What Users Search for Online”?
by Janice Jesdanun, Associated Press. 9/25/06

Answer 2

Web traffic are monitored by IP address and most IP address has a certain country, city and suburb attached to them. This is the city, and suburb of your local service provider and not your physical address. To obtain a more precise location will need authorisation from your ISP and they will only supply it if they are legally obliged to do so.

http://www.cybertopcops.com

Answer 3

You can only trace an I.P. to the users internet service provider! Anyone can do it with a trace tool! The hard part is getting the provider to tell you who the user is! You have to have clearance to do this! If the persons service provider is a local provider, it will tell you approximately what area he lives in, if its a provider such as AOL, it will only trace to the AOL provider.