PDA

View Full Version : Possibly a Better way to track the number of users?



MasterNetra
July 21st, 2011, 10:42 PM
I was thinking perhaps a better way to track the number of people or more accurately the number of machines using a OS could be to use the serials of two rarely changed components of a machine (such as the motherboard & CPU) and add or someway combined them into one number and send that out the OS's update/software server(s) where it would store that number give a count based on the number of listings. It would only sent once, unless it was unsuccessful at sending of course.

And should one or both of the parts be changed the OS would detect this and create the new number from the new parts and send a message to the server essentially saying to replace the old number with the new one.

Due to a number of possible issues, this still would not yield a perfect number of users but I would think it would yield a more accurate number then any of the current methods employed and wouldn't cause any real privacy concerns, or shouldn't anyway. Sense even if you just add the serials together you can't discern what ones are together without first knowing at least one of the serial numbers already..and besides just what could someone due with a component serial that's worthwhile anyway?