Get unique System ID with Flex

Question

Is there a way to get a unique machine-specific system ID in a Flex application rinning in a browser, so that is can be used for example to determine if the machine is properly licensed to run the application?

Answer 1

Hi there,

I can't think of any way to do this based off the users machine or OS. The whole point of browser applications is to have them able to run anywhere, any time via a browser. To my knowledge Flash provides no information that could reasonable be converted into a unique machine ID for licensing purposes, not even the MAC address of a network card on the machine.

Personally, I think you'd be better off requiring a username/password for users to log in, and then using a session key stored in a cookie to allow the user to skip that step (e.g. a 'remember me on this computer' type of feature, such as GMail has). This has the advantage of the user being able to run the application from any PC they like.

Answer 2

You cannot really access machine specific information like MAC address or other ID's from a flex app. You should probably use some other technique like using ASP.NET or JSP.

Answer 3

Just read this article ...

http://blog.flexexamples.com/2007/11/01/creating-unique-identifiers-with-flex/

Just Chill..!!!

Answer 4

Create a UUID inside flex

import mx.utils.UIDUtil;

var myUUID:string = UIDUtil.createUID();

I suppose if you want to get really clever you could encrypt this string with a locally known salt and generate some encrypted license key that can't be shared. You could change the salts or keys at regular intervals to enforce license expiration.

You will need to manage the key data on a backend somehow.

Answer 5

ILog Elixir does this, but they do it through a traditional install process. The swc files are watermarked, but when you enter your valid serial number unmarked swc files are unlocked and the source code is made available.

I don't have any details as to how they actually go about this, but it isn't directly through flex. Perhaps researching traditional software installation processes and unlocking encrypted data that way would produce the answer you are looking for.