Device fingerprint

Definition
A device fingerprint (or machine fingerprint) is a compact summary of software and hardware settings collected from a remote computing device.

Overview
Basic web browser configuration information has long been collected by web analytics services in an effort to accurately measure real human web traffic, and discount various forms of click fraud. With the assistance of client-side scripting languages, collection of much more esoteric parameters is possible. Assimilation of such information into a single string comprises a device fingerprint.

Recently such fingerprints have proven useful in the detection and prevention of online identity theft and credit card fraud.