Replace device mac address with same length random string at app about cusp_sonyc_wifi HOT 6 CLOSED

If the string is random though we won't be able to track the same device between different sessions. Should we not use a one-directional hash (or something of sorts) instead?

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Hmm the idea we came up with was to safe the random string to the user's phone in a text file and then just pull that whenever we would have used the mac address of the phone instead. That way we do not need to ever even deal with the phone's mac address and we'll still have a way to uniquely identify the phone (unless the user deletes the file).

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What if the user does delete the file? More to the point, what if the user deletes and re-installs the app (something that is likely to happen as we iron-out bugs and add features)?

I'm not an expert, but creating a one-way hash in python should be fairly straight forward no?
https://exyr.org/2011/hashing-passwords/
http://www.pythoncentral.io/hashing-strings-with-python/

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Right, if the user were to delete that text file a new string would have to be generated. Deleting the app would have no affect on the process going about it the way I had in mind though. In any case, I see your point and it looks like using a Hash is a better idea. I wouldn't want to do it in Python though. I would do it in the Java so we are never sending up the Mac address of the phone at all.

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yes sorry, i was thinking of a different project when I mentioned python. It should be done natively in the app of course (so yes, Java). I guess Oz is making me think upside down :P

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One way hash used as a replacement for mac address. Nice 1!

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