Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> A lot of the big ad networks right now instead rely heavily on geo-data

How does this work in today's age where ISPs normally will have at least one level of NATing with ipv4. And given ipv6 with prefix delegation is still far away this should continue to be very imprecise?



> ISPs normally will have at least one level of NATing with ipv4.

I don't think that's generally true for home DSL/cable/fiber service. I've only seen it on mobile internet.


Not sure about US, but Indian ISPs are doing this already to conserve IP space given huge userbase. In theory it would work similar to how a NAT gateway works for outbound communication. Skan + geo would be hard nut to crack in India.


Some USA ISPs do CGNAT, some don't. I'm not surprised to hear either way here.


In UK I'm now on FTTP but even on ADSL the house would have an IP address that normally stayed constant until a router reboot. This seems to be pretty common in the UK. Probably on cable internet (and on mobile ofc) you get NAT-ed but I've never had that.


In Australia most ISPs use CGNAT by default and you have to specifically request a dedicated IP if you want to host a Minecraft server or something.


It still works because those CGNAT shared IPs still vaguely correspond to a certain geography. It won't be accurate enough to target a specific home, but still accurate enough to target a specific neighborhood, for instance.


Assuming an ext-IP (60k ports) can easily represent 100 household if we statically assign ports. Given CGNAT with dynamic port allocation this can easily go up to 5x? That's wildly inaccurate given the core problem is to "target" a small set of users which is based on this geo info. Not sure how well this elephant sits in a room full of engineers solving this specific targeting problem.


I’ve never had an unroutable IP in the US


CGNAT does not means unroutable IP, it just means you would only have assigned a small range of ports on a routable IP with others.


If you have CGNAT, the IP on your router's external interface is unroutable.

Just like how when you do NAT for your home network, your devices get assigned non-routable private use only address space.

Unroutable meaning not publicly routable. Of course you can route traffic through your own LAN to your Internet gateway.


Billboards are still among the most effective forms of advertising in terms of efficiency. You don’t need to be very close. I see myself popping up probably 10 miles from where I’m actually at, but the businesses aren’t that inaccessible.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: