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amazon-web-servicesnetworkingamazon-ec2ipelastic-ip

Why traceroute of AWS public IP goes to the US?


I've used the traceroute command to see which network path packets are taking when reaching out to an EC2 instance with a public IP address.

I don't understand why at step 8 of the traceroute, packets are going to the USA (Seattle)

My EC2 is located in the AWS Paris region (eu-west-3) and my laptop making the request is located in Paris too.

Any idea why ?

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Solution

  • IP addresses are not actually associated with geographic locations. However, various services over time have attempted to map each IP address with a location.

    See: How does IP geolocation service providers collect data or how does IP geolocation databases are filled? - Quora

    These activities are not always accurate and nobody is responsible for updating the information whenever devices are moved or addresses are reallocated.