I understand that various web sites (hoyle games) can read my harddrive ID number and use that to band me from their web site i they think i broke one of their rules, is that true and if so how can i stop them from hacking into my hard drive !? I find that very annoying and should be illegal.

Is their any way to stop this, would a regesty monitor fix this and reverse the damage that these sites can cause?

I ve heard stories that sites ban hard drives, then they unband the user and they can t because the act of banning a hard drive caused the damage and then the site plays stupid and won t pay to have the users hard drive fixed; so whats that all about ! - thanks . .

They would only be able to access your PC if it is not secure, make sure you run regular Antivirus and Spyware scans and have a firewall installed.

The websites read your IP address which is a unique number that identifies your home network on the internet, that is what they would ban from their website.

Welcome to PCHF Rockabilly.

Banning a users hard drive? It's a new one on me. Could you link us to the information please?

I believe this method is also used (or used to be) to ban cheaters on certain online games, and the only way around it is to buy a new hard drive.

They'd need a specific api to run on your system and send them the data. It seems more likely that they're banning mac or IP addresses as all you need to do to obtain this information is connect to a website.

In all these cases, this is avoidable:
1. Don't let the api run, change the data sent back in transit.
2. Change your IP, use a proxy.
3. Change your mac address, buy a cheap NIC.

This isn't 'hacking' though, it's just common sense. If they're banning you for doing something wrong, they're on the right track in my books.

I didn't even know hard drives had a visible ID anyway.

I agree with slowpoke,use a proxy adress unless they ban these to.

HDDs do have an ID number however unless your computer is hacked into I am curious how this website would gain access to this number.Although I think nothing is impossible with the computer literate out there these days.

Ok hi i don t think they can ban an I S P because that changes everytime you log on but not sure if they can ban a DSL user since thats not dial up.

Hoyle sierra.com a huge online game site bands hard drives in some fashion i am pretty sure of it and i am just trying to figure it out, i wonder is a really tight firewall or a registy monitor could stop that dead ! ? - byeee