AdultWork experiment

[Alde]

Had a boring, punt-free, few hours to spare recently and so tried an AW experiment.  Browsed the site to find some obscure erotica -  stuff that had a low "views count"- and made a note of the "views number".  Browsed off to another site then returned to same erotica page and noted a +1 increase in the views count.  Browsed to another site and then back to the AW erotica site.  Did not clear my browser cookies and as expected no increase in the number of views. Tried same again having cleared cookies and again no increase in views count.

Switched off my wifi hub to generate a new IP address, cleared all my browser cookies and went back to the AW erotica.  Surprisingly no change in the erotica view count.  Tried the same on my smart phone using my phone provider network (not wifi) and funny old thing the erotica view count increased by +1.

Sorry if this has been discussed before but just wondering if the AW cookies report back a device MAC address which will identify your machine every time regardless of clearing all cookies? 

Hope the above makes sense.  Guess it is not a worry but just something to be aware of.

[k]

Had a boring, punt-free, few hours to spare recently and so tried an AW experiment.  Browsed the site to find some obscure erotica -  stuff that had a low "views count"- and made a note of the "views number".  Browsed off to another site then returned to same erotica page and noted a +1 increase in the views count.  Browsed to another site and then back to the AW erotica site.  Did not clear my browser cookies and as expected no increase in the number of views. Tried same again having cleared cookies and again no increase in views count.

Switched off my wifi hub to generate a new IP address, cleared all my browser cookies and went back to the AW erotica.  Surprisingly no change in the erotica view count.  Tried the same on my smart phone using my phone provider network (not wifi) and funny old thing the erotica view count increased by +1.

Sorry if this has been discussed before but just wondering if the AW cookies report back a device MAC address which will identify your machine every time regardless of clearing all cookies? 

Hope the above makes sense.  Guess it is not a worry but just something to be aware of.

Interesting experiment.

A MAC address obviously doesn't pass outside your LAN and therefore it would have to be something in php or javascript which would capture that detail.  However, i don't think there is a function for that - unless you are using Internet Explorer with a certain security profile - I don't think AW would code that into their software because the number of successful captures would be low.

To help prove whether your theory is correct, or not, I would do the same as what you did, using a laptop that has two routes to the net - one through the LAN, the other through the wireless - the only differences between the two routes being the adaptor's MAC address (and the adaptor's IP address, but this is too transient to bother with). 

Another test is to use a browser where the UserAgent can easily be changed.  I suspect that this is what's being detected, with an extra parameter or two which can be surfaced to be reported upon.

[The President]

Did you log out of AW?

[gorge]

Are you sure it just isn't updating straight away? I would expect the logs of visits to be done to a separate process rather than straight to the profile and a  job ran at set interval to update the data. It would be done like this to avoid slowdown of viewing profiles when a lot of people are viewing. Without knowing the structure we can only guess. 

There are techniques which can be used to identifier a user but are not are 100% foolproof. If you are interested look at Browser Fingerprinting. It is not possible to get the Mac Address.

I would be surprised if they used any more than an unique ID generated and stored in a cookie.

[socks]

whenever I refresh a page the count always goes up one. HTH 

[markw]

On my home internet, which is Virgin cable, switching the modem and router off and back on again doesn't generate a new IP address (checked via whatsmyip.org. So I assume Virgin give me a static IP address.

[jcdmj12]

Had a boring, punt-free, few hours to spare recently and so tried an AW experiment.  Browsed the site to find some obscure erotica -  stuff that had a low "views count"- and made a note of the "views number".  Browsed off to another site then returned to same erotica page and noted a +1 increase in the views count.  Browsed to another site and then back to the AW erotica site.  Did not clear my browser cookies and as expected no increase in the number of views. Tried same again having cleared cookies and again no increase in views count.

Switched off my wifi hub to generate a new IP address, cleared all my browser cookies and went back to the AW erotica.  Surprisingly no change in the erotica view count.  Tried the same on my smart phone using my phone provider network (not wifi) and funny old thing the erotica view count increased by +1.

Sorry if this has been discussed before but just wondering if the AW cookies report back a device MAC address which will identify your machine every time regardless of clearing all cookies? 

Hope the above makes sense.  Guess it is not a worry but just something to be aware of.

No, it's impossible to access a device MAC address using Javascript.  It is theoretically possible they are using another method of user detection (such as flash cookies or ETags) which isn't cleared by clearing your cookies.  If that's the case, switching browsers as part of your test would tell you.  Personally, I think it's unlikely given the shitty state of their technical platform.

[Johny Stone]

every  ip has a different signature for different browsers.
Try clearing cookies then login with a different browser, I bet it will count as a fresh view.

[Jimmyredcab]

On my home internet, which is Virgin cable, switching the modem and router off and back on again doesn't generate a new IP address (checked via whatsmyip.org. So I assume Virgin give me a static IP address.

I think it does if switched off for a certain period of time, days rather than hours or minutes.

[Alde]

No, it's impossible to access a device MAC address using Javascript.  It is theoretically possible they are using another method of user detection (such as flash cookies or ETags) which isn't cleared by clearing your cookies.  If that's the case, switching browsers as part of your test would tell you.  Personally, I think it's unlikely given the shitty state of their technical platform.

ok will try that.  Thanks.

[CoolTiger]

whenever I refresh a page the count always goes up one. HTH 

It's AW's way of over-counting number of times a profile has been viewed!! 

All in their favour, of course.