Has my IP been hacked? (games, modem, server, reset)

[jtur88]

I have subscribed to mlb.tv's major league baseball package. Because I live in Texas, I am blacked out for all games of the Rangers and Astros. No problem. When I log in to choose a game, a little map pops up, showing my location with either a red or green dot, indicating whether I'm blacked out. The dot has always appeared in south Texas, where it belongs.

Suddenly, a month or so ago, the dot started appearing in the Appalachians, and I got blacked out for a Pirates game. I followed the blackout explanation links in mlb.com, and it identified my IP number correctly, but mis-placed it in Beckley, West Virginia. However, when I do my own IP track, it correctly shows it as Victoria, Texas. And, if I try to watch a Rangers game, it continues to also black me out as if they thought I was in Texas (and WV at the same time).

I phoned MLB, and they cannot explain why that is happening, but they manually override my account, to authorize viewing of the Pirates game.

My cable internet provider says it is not in their control, and the IP is "somehow" being diverted to the WV location, between me and the MLB website, which I have traced to somewhere west of Lucerne, Switzerland. Aside from that, my cable company doesn't seem to care, and said Have a nice day. I asked the tech if it is possible that somebody has hacked into my IP, and he said Maybe. mlb.com doesn't seem very worried about it, either. Significantly, my cable company is a small operation, and Beckley is one of the fairly small number of communities it serves, so I strongly suspect that the issue DOES lie within the cable company. By the way, all of this started about the time they switched out my high speed modem. Is it possible that modems are pre-configured for a certain location, and the local tech got a box of modems that were intended for Beckley, or one that was previously used in Beckley, and rebuilt? I take it as an article of faith that my cable company would deny certain details, even if I guessed right.

All traces and trackers of my IP place it correctly, except the in-house tracker at mlb.com.

The big question, bigger than the false blackouts, is this: is there somebody somewhere messing with my IP, that I should be worried about?

[Bo]

Based on that legwork you've done, I'd be very convinced that this is something on MLB.TV's end, rather than the result of any hacking. Since your IP check at other sites shows your location correctly, there's nothing your ISP can do. Keep after the MLB.TV folks. If your IP address doesn't shift very often, perhaps you can convince them to put a more permanent exception for you in their database?

[jtur88]

Thanks. My ISP tech said to google a way to track IP, which I did, and found ip-adress.com, and fumbled around with things like proxy-checker, and found I was going through a proxy located out in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 miles off Nigeria, which was pretty fascinating. But yielded no useful information about my particular problem.

[BestintheWest]

try this and you can determine exactly who owns the IP

Whois Lookup - Domain Names Search, Registration, & Availability | Whois.net

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by aliveandwellinSA

try this and you can determine exactly who owns the IP

Whois Lookup - Domain Names Search, Registration, & Availability | Whois.net

That just identifies my cable provider and location. Noting in there indicates anything out of the ordinary.

Apparently, mlb.tv has reset my account, I now get into games, even if I get a "you're blacked out" notice beforehand.

[thecoalman]

Satellite Service? AFIK this acts like a proxy server and they would have no clue what your physical location is because they only know the IP of the land based machine which itself they are only making an educated guess about. Geo location via IP is usually fairly accurate but not 100% because an IP doesn't have a physical location.

[TurcoLoco]

This is also a good site with bunch of related tools:
Tools