logunams
04-17-2005, 09:57 AM
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Just made this suggestion in another thread in Discussion Forum. Thought it was interesting enough to put here for its own debate among users here.
Useing the Force only for Good, it virtually eliminates the need for cookies.
Going to the Dark Side, it has the potential to become an invasive Spy Tool. Solution to this would require responsible tracking of StatCounter users to make sure they aren't abusing the feature (if it's possible, which I fear it is).
Suggestion for StatCounter : can you collect the MAC address code for the network adapter of a computer that visits? Place that into the statistics, even your main database. It will uniquely identify each network adapter that visits (usually meaning unique computers, unless the card gets re-used in another system at some time).
This will reduce the reliance on cookies for many of your statistics, and help identify the actual location of the visitor in the world.
Maybe only allow it for mature free accounts that demonstrably aren't abusing the resource, or maybe only for paying users who can be tracked by greater information through their payments. Maybe also limit display of the the actual MAC address info only to StatCounter users who meet certain ''trustability'' standards; StatCounter could still display the results of MAC address tracking without divulging the address itself.
I'd hate if the feature was pay-only, but I'd have to accept it as a safety feature for all 'Net users as well as the survival of StatCounters reputation.
I make this suggestion with great hesistation since it has the potential for privacy violations, possibly making any webcounter service a spytool service. Some hackware uses MAC addresses to locate not only the computer, but I have seen the street and room address of the computer identified this way.
I have used Norton Firewall to display the apartment in India that a hacker tried to access my system from ... admittedly, it identified the location of the computer used, which was probably a zombie.
-- logunams
Just made this suggestion in another thread in Discussion Forum. Thought it was interesting enough to put here for its own debate among users here.
Useing the Force only for Good, it virtually eliminates the need for cookies.
Going to the Dark Side, it has the potential to become an invasive Spy Tool. Solution to this would require responsible tracking of StatCounter users to make sure they aren't abusing the feature (if it's possible, which I fear it is).
Suggestion for StatCounter : can you collect the MAC address code for the network adapter of a computer that visits? Place that into the statistics, even your main database. It will uniquely identify each network adapter that visits (usually meaning unique computers, unless the card gets re-used in another system at some time).
This will reduce the reliance on cookies for many of your statistics, and help identify the actual location of the visitor in the world.
Maybe only allow it for mature free accounts that demonstrably aren't abusing the resource, or maybe only for paying users who can be tracked by greater information through their payments. Maybe also limit display of the the actual MAC address info only to StatCounter users who meet certain ''trustability'' standards; StatCounter could still display the results of MAC address tracking without divulging the address itself.
I'd hate if the feature was pay-only, but I'd have to accept it as a safety feature for all 'Net users as well as the survival of StatCounters reputation.
I make this suggestion with great hesistation since it has the potential for privacy violations, possibly making any webcounter service a spytool service. Some hackware uses MAC addresses to locate not only the computer, but I have seen the street and room address of the computer identified this way.
I have used Norton Firewall to display the apartment in India that a hacker tried to access my system from ... admittedly, it identified the location of the computer used, which was probably a zombie.
-- logunams