Not only don't we know who is running mining equipment, where they are located, or how much equipment any of them are running.

Believe it or not, we also have no way of even knowing how much total hashpower is actually running during any timeframe.

All we know is what the current difficulty target is, and how much time it takes for a block to show up. From there we can calculate an ESTIMATED total hash rate.

Some of the mining pools may publish their hash rate, but you have to decide if you trust them to tell the truth or not.  They easily could lie about it.  Some pools add data into their blocks to indicate that they mined that block, but there is nothing forcing them to do so, and they certainly could leave the data out of some blocks or even lie and put some other pools data into their own blocks if they wanted to.

Some mining businesses may publish information about how much hashpower they are running. Again, you have to decide if you trust them to be honest about it or not.

Am I running any minging equipment?  How would you know? If I told you I was (or wasn't) how would you know if you could trust what I said?