Computer Unique ID

Forgive

Well i've been looking around the internet about this, though, couldn't find anything. What i'm trying to do is to build a system that lets you grab the Unique ID of the computer. (Yes, i know there are more than 1 Unique ID such as HDD, CPU, etc). The issue is that i don't find an idea of how to get to do this. (Also i need it to work on Linux and Mac).

Any idea? Thanks.

Chris H

Are you looking to fingerprint a particular configuration, or what? Lots of DRM uses the MAC address, operating on the assumption that a user doesn't know how to change it, and will never buy a new ethernet card: maybe that is good enough for you? Or do you need a fingerprint for the full system configuration so you know when something changes? Most methods that let you access low-level hardware info like this are OS-specific, but you can wrap them in ifdefs.

Forgive

Well since MAC Address can be easily changed, i should discard that. I know that gathering data from hardware is OS-specific, but i think this way would work (Using ifdefs, like you said). So, i would prefer accessing low-level hardware information for Windows / Linux / Mac. Easiest one would be HDD or Motherboard ID if i'm not wrong.

Thanks.

Chris H

It's easy enough to change your HDD hardware ID: buy a new HD! Is this something for DRM? What part of the hardware do you want it tied to?

Forgive

Not likely people would buy a new HDD for that. And no it's not for DRM. I would want it to be tied to the Motherboard.

Chris H

On Linux anyway, you need root's permission to access the motherboard ID, so a sys admin would have to configure your app for the users. Depending on the kernel, you may be able to find it in /sys/class/dmi/id/board_serial or similar. For a Mac, see "this document":http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn1103/_index.html . Dunno about windows, but I imagine there's something out there.

Forgive

Hm, i see. Thank you.

broadpeak

Maybe helps:
http://www.koders.com/c/fidA056F4476C9F0D5F3A6BDC9266074A5508B0F589.aspx
(search this on that page: Motherboard Serial Number)

broadpeak

[quote author="Chris H" date="1325086441"]On Linux anyway, you need root's permission to access the motherboard ID...[/quote]

I don't think so:
$ lshal | grep 'system.hardware.serial'
system.hardware.serial = '<serial-number>' (string)

Chris H

Interesting, broadpeak. Do you know how it works? On systems with that command installed it works well, but not all of my systems have it. Presumably, however, the data is accessible programmatically somehow.