Hiding MAC address

wolfman

ev0s wrote:

You MAC addres is logged by every switch your data goes through when you are browsing the internet that is how they work. There is no need to hide your MAC address, I think your being over paranoid. If your ISP wants to trace you they will have logs to do so.

I'm not sure if that's right.

My understanding is that a MAC address is only related to the next device/server in the chain. So your MAC address is passed to your router. Its MAC addresses is passed on to your ISP's server and so on... This is all done in each packet which also contains the source and destination IP. At each device a lookup is performed via IP tables/ARP before sending the packet onto the next device.

So it's not something a webmaster can log unless there was some sort of applet or application running on your local machine that could grab it and pass it back.

pennineman

The ShieldsUp website is always worth a look if you're interested in privacy.

And if you're ntl-based then you can be uniquely identified easily. ShieldsUp tells me:

Your Internet connection's IP address is uniquely associated with the following "machine name":

spc1-rawtx-x-x-custxxx.bagu.broadband.ntl.com

ianian99

there a program called SMAC that i use for changing my ethernet mac

superscaper

pennineman wrote:

The ShieldsUp website is always worth a look if you're interested in privacy.

And if you're ntl-based then you can be uniquely identified easily. ShieldsUp tells me:

Your Internet connection's IP address is uniquely associated with the following "machine name":

spc1-rawtx-x-x-custxxx.bagu.broadband.ntl.com

That's why I mentioned shieldsup, it gives information related to the IP address but nothing about your computer name and MAC which I'm sure it would if it were possible.

wonka

The MAC address can't be deduced over the internet - it would have to be deduced by your browser and transmitted over HTTP. This doesn't happen.

The only external devices that can find out your MAC address are routers.

MadCowMan

shields up is not a comprehensive penetration test - I would take many of its claims with a pinch of salt. ( having personally put machines with remote access trojans through shields up to show how it completly fails to mention them. )

superscaper

MadCowMan wrote:

shields up is not a comprehensive penetration test - I would take many of its claims with a pinch of salt. ( having personally put machines with remote access trojans through shields up to show how it completly fails to mention them. )

I thought shields up tested the status of your firewall not whether your machine was infected.

MadCowMan

It alleges to let you know if your machine is open to attack ( which if you had a trojan happily sitting on an IRC channel , it would be )

Because of the general FUD on the GRC site , the implication is that if shileds up says your machine is fine , then its like fort knox , which it isn't

back on topic - given that you can spoof your mac address if you *really* want to ( and in fact most cable routers support this in order to support a router upgrade without having to call NTL ) and that MAC is only passed onto to the next hop in the routing chain , you'd only be able to see the MAC address of a user connectign to a site if you where able to connected to every hop between the site and the user and check the arp table.

albertross_2

GRC and other port scanners tests for a range of open ports, it doesn't claim to test all 64K ports, the standard test does 1024.. but you can specify which ports to test if you wish. Also, if you are sat behind a router, then it will be testing the router, not the PC.. That is the nature of port scanners, not a fault with the site or coding.

MadCowMan

ah but this isn't just any regular port scan....it has nanoprobes ( cue hair care product commercial 'science bit' )

http://www.grc.com/np/rsvptech.htm

so it must be better right ?