mac adress

[iconofsin14]

is it correct that you cannot determine a persons mac adress with PHP

if yes

can it be done with AS3 or javascript and if so is there any reason why these cannot post it to a PHP script as a variable?

[bregent]

Why do you need this? You understand that the mac address is not exposed for any computer behind a router, gateway etc?  You can probably use any server side scripting to get the mac address of a computer connected directly to the server.

[iconofsin14]

I need to be able to identify the user (without using a log in system)

i know of 3 ways to do this

1) IP adresses - no good if the user uses multiple pcs or does not access my site for a long time

2) MAC adresses - no good if the user changes PC or even changes to a different network card (ie changes from his ethernet to his wi-fi connection)
3) cookies - no good if he changes PC,s or simply clears his files.

so i want to create a script which detects all 3 in order to minimise the possiblity of the same user being anonomous form his previous visit as much as i can.

[Guest]

As you said, #1 is no good, #2 is no good, and #3 is no good. That is your answer. Detecting all three will get you no closer to what you are trying to do. A login system where you unambiguously identify verify the user might do the job, but even that is not entirely foolproof.

Why is this so important?

[iconofsin14]

I am starting up at a freelance web developer

i made a flash program which displayes my portfolio, this flash program follows the mouse arround and displays animations when the user performs various actions. these are entirely interactive. for example if a user clicks on an item, it zoomes in and centers from its current positon and not from a fixed postion.

i also made a static HTML portfolio

the HTML version is currently in use
but i display the FLASH version as an "experemental" version. this version has a small input form that says "should i use this version or the HTML version"

i have setup a small mysql database to record the IP adresses of everyone who responds so that the form can be removed perminantly after a person has given a responce. but if i could also record a persons MAC adress and set a cookie i could make it even harder for a person to see the form after responding to it,

[bregent]

You do realize that there could be 500 or more PC simultaneously using the same IP address, right?  And as mentioned previously, mac address is not available in most cases. Just use cookies. There is no reliable way to track users on the internet.