I’ve created a simple script after discussions on a mailing list I’m a member of. The idea was to create a unique identifier without using a full IP address or cookies. It works using javascript to gather information about the browser (screen depth, user agent etc), it then takes all this information and creates a unique hash and returns the length of the hash to create the identifier (between 10-32 characters).
The script assumes the target user would only use one browser and have javascript enabled, I’m not sure if it could be used for production code but I thought it was worth looking into and any feedback would be helpful.
Comments 4
Maybe I misunderstand what’s happening here but if you’re only looking at the length of the hash wouldn’t this limit you to tracking just (32 - 10 =) 22 people?
Posted 10 Jul 2007 at 11:21 pm ¶Each user should get a hash based on their browser configuration, so each hash will be different. I was just cutting the length of the hash to get a nicer session id. Instead of a long 32 character session id.
Posted 11 Jul 2007 at 10:14 am ¶That makes much more sense than what you actually say in the post.
“creates a unique hash and returns the length of the hash to create the identifier (between 10-32 characters)”
Posted 11 Jul 2007 at 11:12 am ¶Sorry about the confusion but it all I tried to say was it reduced the length of the hash using substring in javascript. I usually type in a hurry
Posted 11 Jul 2007 at 11:22 am ¶Post a Comment