Can a website identify a specific laptop?

Belenus

Can websites tell that a specific Windows10 computer is accessing that web site even if the IP address has changed?

Edit: and cookies have also been cleared.

I have been a registered user on a site for many years. I have accessed that web site from my own laptop and also occasionally from my wife's laptop.

My wife wants to open her own account on that same web site but finds that her user ID is quickly deleted with no explanation. I suspect that it could be because that web site does not allow multiple user ids for the same person.

I have messaged the admin for the site explaining that it is a different person attempting to register but I have not had a response.

Thanks

matelodave

thats what cookis are for, they help the site identify the computer and any log-in or configurations specific to the user 

you could try clearing all the cookies on the machine that she's trying to use, especially if you've got your log-in credentials saved on it.

Belenus

Thanks but I cleared cookies every time.

molerat

Try with a different browser.

[Deleted User]

When did you last access the site?

Thinking about your saying the IP address has changed - do you mean your public IP address ie not the IP address of the laptop?

Websites can "fingerprint" you in various other ways though. Depending on the website itself and its determination to stop you from having duplicate accounts, some extreme measures can be taken including "supercookies" that are stored elsewhere, cached images, and something called IESnare that bookies use to prevent multi-accounting which is a hidden piece of software.

forgotmyname

Google browser leaks, privacy tests and website data collecting to see just how much data you maybe leaking.

CKhalvashi

If possible, I'd advise your wife contacting the company in question to alert them to the problems being faced.

We use IP addresses (for geo-blocking certain countries) and Wordpress then uses its own security protocols that we have set on all sites depending on the level of comfort we have. 2 computers to me on the same network will show as the same device on our end, but I'm not sure what data is collected on the backend as I have no need to access it.

grumbler

It's very common among bookies. They do use some service called IEsnare (google it) that helps them to blacklist certain computers. And this is based on far wider range of parameters than basic cookies and the IP address.

LV_426

They can probably detect your network card's MAC address. 
I know of at least one forum where the duplicate registration process involved checking this.

Grey_Critic

Years ago my son rang and said they were in urgent need of a break/holiday due to the pacticular film he was working on. I suggested Cyprus and went online to look at the hotels we stayed at.I came up with one that left in 24 hours and ticked all the boxes so rang him.

Snap he said just looking at the same one. It looks good and the price of X is reasonable - No says I the Price is Y.

The TO site identified where we were logging in from and priced the holiday accordingly. He was in London and I in Yorkshire.

I sent him the link from my computer and he used that to login and result - It was £150 cheaper. Of course that is why we clear cookies.

[Deleted User]

LV_426 said:

They can probably detect your network card's MAC address. 
I know of at least one forum where the duplicate registration process involved checking this.

Your MAC address is never transmitted outside of your subnet so it is impossible for a website to see the MAC address of your network card.

Your router strips it out when transmitting the data. Your ISP can see the MAC address of your router but not of any of your devices, but once the data leaves their subnet it is replaced with the MAC address of their router and so on until it arrives at the website.

I would be interested in knowing about this forum that can detect the MAC of your NIC? If they insist you download some software which detects it then that is the only possibility I can think of.