Hello all. I have a site that provides subscription services. the price is 250/mo. customers can get a one week free trial to the service. we currently ban someone from signing up with multiple trials from the same ip. the problem is customers are still signing up for multiple trials. people with dial up for example get a different ip each time. so does anyone have ideas on another way to ban a specific computer? I have been told that each cpu has its own "mac address" but i don't have any knowledge about this. woudl we be able to pull this address when someone sign up? thanks for your help!
Internet uses IP protocol, so the MAC addresses of the clients don't get to your server. And even though, changing a MAC address is easier than changing a IP address. You can ban them using a cookie, but the problem is that cookies are controlled by the client as well. So, there's no way to ban permanently and efficiently someone who can change his IP address.
You can make a program that user must donwload to register to a free trial. This program can obtain mac adress and make a entry on windows registry. Next time user wants to make a trial the program search the mac address and the registry... But you can change your mac address or the registry.