0

My question is a bit broad as I'm not 100% sure if I am looking for the right thing - I'm sorry if this is not allowed, so any guidance on how to ask this question would be helpful.

I want to give a user a one time access link to a live video. They will enter a code which combined with the onetime link will allow them access.

Once entered, this code and link will no longer work for anyone else but they are entitled to watch the entire video so if for some reason they get disconnected I need some way of allowing them to reconnect - in the same browser. The session variable could also be lost or expire so I can't use this.

Is there something unique about browser I can store that I can use to let them back in but only if it's in exactly the same browser?

Bex
  • 4,898
  • 11
  • 50
  • 87
  • How is the original one-time link sent to the user? And can you detect disconnection events? If so, could you send the user another link "We noticed you didn't finish watching our video. If you want to resume watching, please go to https://example.com/videos/1/continue"? – Damien_The_Unbeliever Jun 14 '16 at 10:45
  • Why the same browser? Many devices have multiple browsers installed. I'd imagine each device would have a unique identifier of some description. MAC for example will be unique. – Admiral Noisey Bottom Jun 14 '16 at 10:48
  • @Damien_The_Unbeliever I don't have a way of detecting disconnections. It's a live stream on a webpage so I was thinking they'd just try and refresh the page - there are a few unknowns on this so far. – Bex Jun 14 '16 at 10:51
  • 2
    I would use a cookie – Marco A. Hernandez Jun 14 '16 at 10:53
  • @AdmiralNoiseBottom there doesn't appear to be a reliable way of getting a clients MAC address – Bex Jun 14 '16 at 10:53
  • @Bex I don't know if this is useful at all: http://www.java2s.com/Code/CSharp/Network/GetMacAddress.htm The cookie idea mention by Marco is also worth considering. – Admiral Noisey Bottom Jun 14 '16 at 11:01
  • How long would the session need to be? If session cannot be used for some reasons, did you consider using local storage? – Harry Ninh Jun 14 '16 at 11:01
  • @bex This page claims to have code to get MAC http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20593080/getting-client-mac-address-in-global-asax but I cannot confirm if it works or not. – Admiral Noisey Bottom Jun 14 '16 at 11:08
  • A combo of the IP address and browser UserAgent meets your request but that would A) end up affecting all devices the user has on the same network B) Only pertain to a single BROWSER type across all the users devices C) IPs can be finagled. Also if you need checks across login/sessions you will need to store it somewhere, a DB if you want total control of the information (cookies could be deleted, local storage can be cleared). – Paul Swetz Jun 14 '16 at 12:48

0 Answers0