Last month, I used Google Maps to make a geographical representation of attempted SSH brute-force hack attempts. In order to translate the bad guys’ IP addresses into co-ordinates, I employed the handy geolocation service at hostip.info.

Unfortunately, as of today, that service no longer works. It has been replaced by a rather useless “Real Estate Listings” site.

My first thought was that the address registration has lapsed and been picked up by domain-squatting vultures. However, the whois seems to suggest otherwise:

Domain ID:D2911816-LRMS
Domain Name:HOSTIP.INFO
Created On:09-Oct-2003 20:04:12 UTC
Last Updated On:22-Oct-2005 02:35:36 UTC
Expiration Date:09-Oct-2010 20:04:12 UTC

Had it lapsed and been updated on the 22nd, I’d expect the expiration date to reflect that.

If I’m optimistic, I could speculate that it is just due to a move to a new, misconfigured server, in which case it seems that there may be hope yet for the return of hostip.info—but in the meantime, my map isn’t going to show any new data.

Update (2005-10-24)

I just visited www.hostip.info on the off-chance:

Stay Tuned as we are moving servers in order to keep up with the demand, so most links and the database will not work for a few days.

It looks like everything’s going to be OK.