SAAS per seat authentication

Question

Our company makes the web based application which is priced per workstation.

That means that user/pass credentials should only be used from one particular machine.

Currently what is happening that several users are sharing credentials and we do not have any way to prevent this if they are not doing it concurrently.

The nature on the application is such that user needs to use it once in a while so the inability to work concurrently does not bother the users much and the company loses it's possible revenues.

The application currently is purely AJAX without flash/activeX/Java applets.

The ideal solution would be to read the computer name or IP address of the client with javascript using "Shell.Network" scripting interface.

But this is impossible because of the strict security settings in Internet Explorer. I have to mention that cross browser functionality does not matter and the only browser supported is IE.

Searching google I came across this solution here http://www.reglos.de/myaddress/MyAddress.html but it requires JAVA applet so will not be very convenient.

Are there any other solutions for this?

Answer 1

Your licensing model is not consistent with the delivery model. Change one of them.

Answer 2

Set a cookie on the machine with an id. Retrieve the cookie each time the user logs in. If you see several different cookies alternating for a single user you know you've got something odd going on.

(Of course a single switch may just mean they've moved to a new PC as one off. )

Alternatively, price per usage, 'query' or some other item.