Unique User

[eluser]phybertek[/eluser]
Hello,

I'm writing a voting system using codeIgniter and I have one question that is not directly related to CI, but more logic. I'm trying to devise a way that users and can only vote up to 3 times per day. Is there anyway to identify users without having them register? I need to ID uniqueness. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

In the worst case, who do you stop scripts from voting?

Regards,

-phybertek

[eluser]Sumon[/eluser]
I don't know without registration perfect uniqueness is possible or not. But you can try by track IP address for uniqueness.

[eluser]phybertek[/eluser]
Yes,

I thought about that, but will all the NAT'ing done for IPv4 to conserve IP address, that might not be accurate enough and might prevent users from the same company from voting. :-(

Phybertek

[eluser]Hannes Nevalainen[/eluser]
If it does not have to be perfectly secure then I suggest a cookie could do the job.

[eluser]phybertek[/eluser]
Is there anyway to detect if the client is a program accepting and clearing cookies?

-Phybertek

[eluser]Jilani Jidni[/eluser]
[quote author="phybertek" date="1218190812"]Is there anyway to detect if the client is a program accepting and clearing cookies?

-Phybertek[/quote]

I think you application will run on intranet. so my suggetion is track the IP address or client mac address. but there is a limitation "number of votes count per PC".

If you want to run this on internet then have to use unique id because I don't think there is any program available to detect accepting and clearing cookies.

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]

Code:

// Does the user accept cookies?
function accept_cookies() {
  $this->session->set_userdata(array('accept'=>TRUE));
  if ($this->session->userdata('accept')) {
    return TRUE;
  }
  return FALSE;
}

[eluser]phybertek[/eluser]
So, are you saying... If I set a cookie, the client must be a web browser? There is no way a person can write an automated program to accept my cookie and vote? Jilani, this is for the Internet.

[eluser]Jilani Jidni[/eluser]
[quote author="phybertek" date="1218200979"]There is no way a person can write an automated program to accept my cookie and vote?[/quote]

sorry I could not read you. what I am trying to say earlier is that if you set a cookie to a client computer and then the user remove the cookie from their computer the how could you track this? I don't know is there any way or not.

my suggestion is use a unique ID.

[eluser]phybertek[/eluser]
Jilani,

I can deal with someone (a real person) cheating and clearing their cookies in Firefox or IE, but what I am trying to find out is, are there any programs that can accept site cookies, respond to your voting system in a loop?

What I want to prevent is someone write a script making choice thosands of times cheating the process.

Phybertek