[thelist] Attaining reliable MAC Address using javascript

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 12:57 -0400, Chris Dorer wrote:
> All,
> 
> Spec:
> To receive the mac address using a javascript system call and return it to
> the apache server.  Must work on Linux/Windows/Mac

By its nature, Javascript cannot be relied upon. Why do you want such
sensitive hardware information to begin with?

> Research:
> I've googled everywhere.  It seems to me that you must use an ActiveX script
> to get info from a windows box.  Not really good enough.

Given some of the nicknames for ActiveX, this isn't surprising.

> Question:
> Does anybody have any other ways of grabbing this information using
> javascript, or maybe using a universal language like java?

Anything that really, really needs the MAC address to work properly
would be way too constrained in a Java applet sandbox. It might be
possible in a full Java application running outside of the browser.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net>