Patent ID: 8726407

Claim:
A method for authenticating a client device by executing encoded instructions configured to cause a computer to: generate a current machine fingerprint for the client device comprising a processor and memory, at least in part by retrieving raw configuration data indicating current configuration states of hardware making up the client device and processing the data to generate the current machine fingerprint using less than an entirety of the raw configuration data retrieved from the hardware; receive an identifier of the client device and from the client device through a computer network, wherein the identifier is separate from the current machine fingerprint; use the identifier to obtain a previously generated and stored machine fingerprint associated with the identifier, wherein the stored machine fingerprint was generated using the entirety of the raw configuration data; and provide an indication that the client device is authentic in response to determining that the current machine fingerprint matches the stored machine fingerprint; wherein the current machine fingerprint matches the stored machine fingerprint if the configuration of the client device has not changed in any critical way since the stored fingerprint was generated.