Patent ID: 8204833

Claim:
A method to identify an individual operating a remote computer, comprising: a. identifying one or more intrinsic traits of the remote computer and the individual when a web site operator receives an inquiry from the individual visiting a web site using the remote computer, b. treating a device and account information as one whole set of entry, and establishing an identification (ID), wherein the next time a new set of entry is received, establishing another ID, and then determining a relationship of the IDs: c. linking the intrinsic traits to the individual for authentication instead of relying on the individual's representation for authentication or extrinsic information about the individual; and d. generating a fingerprint of the computer and the individual, wherein the fingerprint of the computer or individual is represented as a string, further comprising determining a relationship M between users and computers as: M =[(α 1 ×B 1 )+ P 1 ]×[(α 2 ×B 2 )+ P 2 ]× . . . ×[(α n ×B n )+ P n ], where α i and B i are constants and α i is between 0 and 1, and B is a constant assigned to each parameter depending on its degree of uniqueness; and P i is a comparison of the fingerprint based on each string position P i =(1,0); i=1-N and P i corresponds to the value assigned according to the comparison of strings at each position and where P=0 if a match exists with α i and otherwise P=1.