UDID Alternative for iOS5

github.com

31 points·sidwyn··10 comments

Using the MAC address as a unique identifier alone seems like a terrible idea(that is, without other secret, constant data included in the hash, similar to how UDIDs are generated.)

Your device is literally broadcasting your unique identifier to everyone in a several hundred foot radius.

It's also quite easy to just grab the MAC address manually: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/677530/how-can-i-programm...

The point of the UDID was for a unique identifier representing a device, not an application on a device. This project is a bit misleading indeed.

Agreed. I wrote a similar technique to overcoming UDID deprecation this morning but the powers that control HN saw fit to ignore it ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2908381 ).

My approach is MUCH SIMPLER it doesn't even need MAC addresses are a project under GitHub. Just generate a GUID which is as unique as what this author suggests.

Title and project name are misleading. This identifier is not unique per device, but unique per device+bundle identifier. This means different applications on the same device will generate different identifiers. Please, stop upvoting without reading (it's mentioned in the project README).

Fixed that.

Thanks for updating the title.

Only if you don't change the single line of code it takes to not append the bundle identifier.

But how do you know generated UDID won't collide with other phone manufacturer companies?

Yeah, this one's a fun issue to deal with, especially on Android where there are some (rather large) manufacturers who seem to forget that UUIDs are supposed to be at least relatively unique. I know of at least one major device line that uses the same UUID for all its devices, however, there are probably more out there.

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