Rooting Out Incorrect RIPE Atlas Probe Geolocations

Abstract

Geolocation plays a critical role in understanding the Internet. In this work, we analyze and fix operator-misreported geolocation. Using DNS root servers to detect speed of Internet violations, we conservatively infer that at least 2% of vantage points in the largest community-vantage point collection, RIPE Atlas, were not located at their operator-reported geolocation between January 2019 and April 2026. To increase the accuracy of future studies that use operator-reported geolocation, we open source our simple methodology, implement a reporting campaign of violating probes within RIPE, work with operators to fix the misreported geolocations, and release a continually updated dataset of RIPE vantage points that likely misreport geolocation.