What I am looking for is way / design to track a user / site visitor without the need for cookies or JavaScript as about 5% of users have one or both of these turned off.
What I would like to achieve is a unique reference for the user which can be captured server side in code.
I was thinking machine CPU / Motherboard ID but this information is hidden.
What information could you use / combine to create a unique hash.
I also need that ID to work across different sessions. Or maybe if the information is unique enough a way to do cookies/cookie type things across different browsers.
After some more research aided by Rup and the ret of the comments on here, it has become apparent that there isn't a simple way to track a user across your site without cookies, But its not impossible.
Looks like the only way to truly achieve this is via browser finger printing, using all the information supplied back to the server to make a unique finger print of the users browser, this seams to work for about 95% about the same as cookies.
Browser finger printing at the moment seams like a workable approach but I feel there might be quite a large backlash from the general public / privacy groups if you where to go down this route.
For the moment it seems we are stuck with cookies.