We working on a project and at this point we are struggling with one single issue. The project is web/browser based and requires our server to remember each computer, but we don't want to use anything that can be changed (eg. cookie, IP). We need a method that will stay on the computer as long as possible. And also it has to be cross browser/OS. We don't want to do browser plug-ins because that would just be too much for to provide & update for each browser. It doesn't matter what programing language, we just need a solution. Thank you.
thanks for commenting tech. Sorry, I'm kind of dumb in programing (i'm just the director) but is computer name constant? Until when, OS reinstall? Also is this same for all OS?
You can give each person a username.. Everything else can be deleted or changed easily and varies by ISP, OS, Browser etc.
If there's something out there that does this, I'd very much like to know the info as well, it would be very beneficial for a number of reasons. Though I don't think I've ever noticed on a website where they could gather my computer info (name, and such) unless I allowed the website to install something on it.
OK, how about something that would change when you reinstall the OS or something significant like such?
The only thing I can think of would be restricting acess per mac address, however, php cannot natively aquire this information, you would either need to pay a programmer to design you something to do the job, or search through the billions of pages of rubbish on the internet, also as far as I'm aware even linux can only get mac addresses of pcs on your local network, not sure about WAN.....even if you got all that done, far from difficult to spoof your mac addres, so that could be a rather massive security hole.
basically you would need everybody to enter a internet security id which is unique to themselves (for the entire world) that shows up when they go on the internet, hopefully that never happens.
Thats unique to their internet for a session not to a person. I use my internet at work, and at home, at starbucks, and at internet cafes.. lots of different IPs.
Also some countries will change your ip when ever you disconnect from the internet, so if you have a dsl usb modem, you could go thorugh 20 ips in just one day, some never change, like mine is always the same and will be for ever, but that costs and most ppl don't bother with it.....
What if we placed a file (which contains a unique ID) on the user's computer? How could we send the ID to the browser?
I have a better idea I think, a pretty fool proof ( but not cheap ) one .... You could have a programmer ( me for instance ) code you a custom browser, now that sounds a lot but infact native controls are available and pretty easy to use, the custom browser that I'm thinking of would uniquely identify itself as something totally different to any other browser in the world, with that the browser could send authetication headers ( encrypted ones that only the website would know how to decrypt ), if you could somehow make sure that no one except employees had access to that browser, you'd be as safe as houses; not only that, you could secure your parts of your website like no other; it could refuse every browser in the world but yours. That's about the best I got, and the most viable.....
perhaps if you told us more about what your trying to do we could help you come up with a solution that actually works.
Theres no way to track a computer without using ip addresses and cookies. They both can be changed however and the only possible way to make sure each computer is unique is through some kinda security hole you discover. even mac-addresses can be spoofed. if there was, trust me, the big companies like google would be using it to track clicks but they're only tracking possible is ip,cookies, and possibly mac-addresses. anything else would be an invasion of privacy