A niche but real practice: some Discord communities use third-party "verification" bots that collect a fingerprint of your device or browser, so they can ban not just an account but a person.
How it works
The bot asks new members to "verify" through a link or a small client. Behind it sits fingerprinting — browser signals (Canvas, WebGL, audio) or device identifiers. The community stores the resulting hash; if someone is banned, every account sharing that fingerprint can be blocked too.
It is mostly seen in narrow niches — trading communities, paid servers — rather than as mass infrastructure.
How to protect yourself
- Be cautious with "verification" links from servers you don't fully trust. A verification step that opens an external site is the warning sign.
- A browser fingerprint is built from your browser, not from your Windows identifiers — clearing site data, using a separate browser profile, or a privacy-focused browser limits it.
- If a ban reached your device-level identifiers, changing your HWID resets that layer.
A fair point
If a community genuinely banned you, it is worth asking why before working around it. A workaround treats the symptom, not the reason.