Besides what I think are the obvious, IP address and cookies.
What other methods may a website use in order to uniquely identify a user?
ISP?
Geo positioning?
Can they ascertain things such as the mac address of your hardware in order to block and Identify a user?
Thanks
meh
ISP and Geo position are based on your IP address - when I was with Virgin a lot of the checkers said I was in Manchester / Birmingham / Chelmsford etc.
ip's are based on locations just like post codes. Not always right though.
□ΞVΞ□
yea, my friends aol ip points to usa on all checkers so it's not always 100% accurate.Originally Posted by jay_oasis
Don't quote me on this, but I don't think your Mac address gets that far.
And even with IP address, it's known to be pretty likely that one IP will represent a number of users (possibly hundreds), so a combination of IP and Browser User Agent would be slightly more useful.
Even then, tbh most commercial operations won't bother with anything except cookies, as the rest simply isn't reliable. If the users delete the cookies, tough tiddles. You just wait for them to log in again and set a new cookie.
Lastly, sites might replicate an ID in a hidden form field (eg ViewState in asp.net apps), this would mean that if you deleted a cookie in the middle of a session, but then filled in and submitted a form, a sneaky website might be able to re-identify you and just set a new cookie. That form could even be sent without you realising using javascript, however this would be a lot of effort for not a lot of gain (and you could always just end the session, then delete the cookies).
They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them.
In simple terms, your MAC address is only used for local 'routing' of traffic (ie between computers on a local network segment - it is stored in a switch for example so that the switch can send traffic for the apprropriate computer on the appropriate port) so it doesn't form part of the routed IP network beyond the router. However it is perefectly feasible for a web site to run a java applet - probably javascript - that will probe the MAC address of the NIC and report that back to the web server. However quite a lot of information goes back as 'routine' without going to those lengths. For example: the browser used, the operating system and version etc. I run a webserver and I was surprised at the amount of data it collects abiout hosts visiting the site.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
Been helped or just 'Like' a post? Use the Thanks button!
My broadband speed - 750 Meganibbles/minute
thats because AOL use proxies for all their IPs.
□ΞVΞ□
IP addresses are based on what IP segment your ISP has. An inherent design flaw of IP4 is that it is totally region un-specific.
I never said that the numbering was region specific, just that your IP is like a postcode.
□ΞVΞ□
You said IP is like a postcode in that it is based on locations.
I still dont see it
I think that trying to say that IP allocation is analogous to the postcode scheme is a bit misguided.
I see your point.
what I ment is that an IP is registered to a location by the ISP
□ΞVΞ□
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
