The Internet connects hosts from all around the world. Sometimes it is valuable to know where, geographically, a particular host or data is located. Informally, Internet geolocation, a.k.a. IP geolocation, is used to solve the problem of determining or validating the physical location of an Internet user or device. The development of Internet geolocation technology is being driven by many practical use cases such as advertising, zero-trust security, privacy regulations, marketing, location-aware services, and more. For example, websites often tailor content and ads based on geographic location. Content delivery networks (CDN) redirect requests to nearby servers based on geolocation. Validating authenticity from a geographical viewpoint may also help with detecting impersonation attempts.

Robust and trusted Internet geolocation is related to the concepts of Trust-Enhanced Networking (TEN), and the Quality of Trust (QoT). TEN uses reliable information about physical attributes of real-world entities to improve users’ trust in the overall network. QoT is a logical continuation of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). Verified geographical location of network entities can be used to increase the QoT in a network.

Location in the context of the Internet usually means an IP address. However, the granularity of geographic location is often important, with implications on the ability to verify the identity of the target and secure data from theft. Furthermore, while Global Positioning System (GPS) is well-known as a method for tracking geographic location, GPS information is vulnerable to spoofing. There are also a number of approaches for inferring target location based on real-time active measurements via networks (such approaches are referred to as active geolocation methods).

Physical attributes are usually obscured when performing activities in cyberspace, however robust and trusted Internet geolocation may shed light on the physical attributes of entities involved in communication in cyberspace in this setting.

This workshop aims to bring together the latest cyber security research related to geolocation in the Internet. We are soliciting contributions on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Passive geolocation (whois, location feeds, etc.)
• Active geolocation (delays, traceroute, probing, etc.)
• Data on the move (route hijacking, route bending, etc.)
• Trust in location or other physical attributes of a communication target
• Location spoofing attacks and defenses
• Location database poisoning
• Location leakage
• Proof of location
• Geolocation of data (GDPR, cloud, named data networking, etc.)
• Network tomography in context of IP geolocation
• Network topology obfuscation
• Mobile geolocation
• Location privacy (consent, controls, tools, etc.)
• Trustable location aware networking
• Quality of Trust (QoT) in context of location
• Trust propagation in context of location