site recgonizes me without IP address?

[Nikolas741]

i have a question. there's this game site that doesnt allow multi-logging, but it detects multi loggers without IP address. im thinking it saves something in your cookies or temp folder, but im afraid it could be storing it somewhere on my computer. if this is the case, couldnt other sites do that?

[wige]

In theory, the only places a web site could store session data like what you are describing would be in your cookies folder. However, there are ways around this, if the site requires you to install a viewer or other application on your computer. For instance, if the site uses Flash for the games, there may be a cache related to Flash that the site stores the data in.

[Orion]

how do you know it's doing it without IP addresses?

[Dinghus]

One way to find out is delete your cookies. (Which you should be doing on a regular basis anyway).

However, most of them use your IP address to check on multi-logging, so are you sure that is NOT what they are doing?

[deepsand]

What is your concern?

Is it truly one re. security? Or, is it that you have been unable to circumvent their prohibition?

[DrTandem1]

Yes, it is most likely a cookie. If not, there is a possibility that it has placed spyware on your computer. I recommend Spybot Searh & Destroy. Don't forget to keep your anti-virus up to date and run a scan now and then.

Most sites do not rely on IP addresses because now there are mostly dynamic ones. The return visit of an IP address may actually be a totally different user on the same ISP. Some ISPs and sites deny service to certain IP ranges due to spam, but that's not your question.

[Peopleunit]

I'm not all that privy as to how its done, but from what I understand there's a couple unique identifiers in place on your PC, sometimes its embedded in the CPU chip, and another one put in place by Windows (that's how they're able to control DRM - digital rights management).

As for actual usage (aside from DRM), eBay is able to use these unique identifiers (I'm pretty sure they do it without relying on cookies) so as to prevent someone from bidding on their own auction listings - known as shilling. If an auction listing is posted using your computer and someone later on comes along and places a bid on that listing using the same PC, the alarms go off and the red lights start flashing and all sorts of bad things can happen, including having your account shut down for shilling.

Various other websites also do this sort of thing, such as online financial institutions, as an anti-fraud sensor. Someone with a history of accessing their account from just one PC suddenly logs in from another PC with an odd IP address, and tries to make a big withdrawal for example.

Just out of curiosity, why would you want to have multiple sessions going on a gaming site? Multiple character aliases, and you want to fight in the mirror (fight with yourself, so to speak)?