Why does my computer think it's in India?

May 4, 2016 9:30 AM

I am in the US and have never traveled to India. Today, websites started acting as though I am in India (e.g., the Google website had a popup asking if I want to change my default search to google.in, and another shopping website showed prices in rupees). Why is this happening? Is my ISP (comcast) giving me an IP address that is being interpreted by websites as being in India? Or should I be worried about a virus or malware that is making my computer act as though it is in India?
posted by Mallenroh to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: Did you disable location in your phone or computer, and the computer is choosing India because the service contracts on your ISP are handled out of India?
posted by Oyéah at 9:34 AM on May 4, 2016

Best answer: If you change browsers, do you still have this problem? See what language you're set to. In Chrome/Firefox, it's buried in your preferences. If Safari, it's whatever your Mac is set to. Not sure about IE. You can also try to geolocate yourself here.
posted by mkultra at 9:40 AM on May 4, 2016

Best answer: I would advise you to go to the Recent Activity section of your Google account as soon as possible to see if there are any suspicious log-ins at any location you do not expect them to be. If this is the case, I would change my password as soon as I could, and I would enable two-factor authentication as well for more robust protection. Likewise, and perhaps more importantly, you should change any passwords which have semantic or literal similarity, especially w/r/t banking or shopping.

Frankly, I would take this as a sign that your Google account may well have been compromised - it's not a far-fetched possibility. I really don't think it's a virus on your computer, nor a problem with your ISP, that could or would cause such a thing to happen.

Not to worry you too much if this is not the case, and I apologize if I have unnecessarily. Further investigating may be necessary. But this would be the primary concern and the first step for me, personally speaking.
posted by a good beginning at 9:54 AM on May 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: 1. go here or here to see your ip address

2. enter the address here and see what result you get.

if 2 says you are in india then yes, there's something weird with either that address or the geolocation service data.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:19 AM on May 4, 2016

Best answer: you're not using a vpn or tor or similar that has an exit in india? i mean, surely you would know, but perhaps you have a company vpn that you use al the time and have forgotten about or similar?
posted by andrewcooke at 10:44 AM on May 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone - I tried the IP address location links that were posted, and two of them say that the IP address is in India (a third one said South Carolina). This is a work computer and it appears my company is using some kind of VPN or tunnel for web traffic that is making my IP address appear to be from India. At least I am no longer worried about being hacked, although I wonder if I'm going to be geo-blocked from things based on the wrong location now...
posted by Mallenroh at 8:09 PM on May 4, 2016