There is the MAC address, but only if you are connected to the same switch/hub. Otherwise, it will fail because the MAC address is usually the one of the default gateway. The big big problem is that almost everything can be spoofed. IP address can be spoofed (well at least the response never arrives...), MAC address can be spoofed, even cookies can be spoofed. In fact, before writing this email, I thought about setting a cookie on the client machine, but: 1) maybe the client sometimes deletes all of his cookies; 2) the cookie itself is insecure and can be spoofed. In SSH (the Secure SHell, that permits secure remote shells), both client and server have criptography and electronic signatures enabled, so that the server is sure that the legitimate owner of the private key is the one who is communicating. But not in HTTP or at least in normal HTTP. The SET technology, usually used in money transactions (but I have to say I never saw that in action!), gives a certificate to everyone: client, seller and bank. Anyway, these technologies identify THE PERSON and not THE MACHINE because you can simply copy certificates and key pairs on another machine (though usually, except of extreme cases of stupidity, the one which does such a thing is the legitimate owner). Maybe you can rely on the header of HTTP request, to see its OS, machine,etc. But again it can be spoofed. So I think the most viable way is to use SSL with a login phase (eventually with a cookie). To identify the agent, you should analyze the header of HTTP requests, hoping it is not spoofed, but only for view reasons (different page organizations, different colours, etc.) because relying on header of HTTP requests is pretty dangerous. I thought in this email that security is your main problem. But if you only want to display something different while a user is on a different machine, I think you should see Dimensions: http://mutidimensions.sourceforge.net/ Hope it helps Antonio Petrelli
Ashish Kulkarni wrote: >Hi >Is there any thing unique to identify the client >machine(desktop) other then IP address? >I have a situtation where in my intranet, i need to >identify the machine uniquely and do some processing, >But the problem is that we dont haev static IP >address, but dynamic IP address. >I want to display a particular screen if the user is >using a perticular computer or network node > >Ashish > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
