Just to be sure, my mac address is associated with my network card and that address is static?

Is there anyway to change that mac address?  I heard you can flash the network card on the mobo?  So can I just flash my bios on my mobo and I'll have a new mac address? 

why would you want to change your mac? its very hard and only reason to do it is most likely illegal activities
 
if your mac and card dont match youll most likely have connectivity issues
 

some NIC's allow you to change the MAC address right its device settings.  Intel ones in particular are known to do that easily.  

On Windows:
Technitium Mac Address Changer.
 
On Linux:

ifconfig eth0 down

Then: 

ifconfig eth0 hw ether NEW_MAC_ADDRESS_GOES_HERE up

Note that eth0 is a common network adapter name, your network adapter may be called something else.

Nex_Lupus


why would you want to change your mac? its very hard and only reason to do it is most likely illegal activities

if your mac and card dont match youll most likely have connectivity issues

 
There are wayyy more uses of MAC spoofing then illegal activities. 
 
You can freely change your MAC address because it doesn't really exist the way you think a normal address would. IIRC what essentially happens when your OS\NIC Driver creates the packets to send, it attaches the MAC address it queried from the device it's using to send the packet. Nothing is attached to the packet at the hardware, and every part of the packet (including the MAC\IP Addresses) is sent over the Ethernet line "voluntarily" by software (e.g. the driver). 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_spoofing
 
At the bottom is a link to two python scripts from spoofing your MAC in Linux. 

And for the super easy method.
 
http://www.softpedia.com/...Tools/Mac-Makeup.shtml
 
Download Mac Makeup, And select the network adapter you are using.
 
You can make a mac address what you want it to be or click random... I highly suggest just clicking random.
 
And then you are done. I have used this program many times with great success in the past. And yes can get you around a MAC address ban or MAC conflict even though those never happen.

iirc arent mac addresses hardwired into nic cards?

Nex_Lupus


iirc arent mac addresses hardwired into nic cards?

 
Yes and no, The computer reads the the devices MAC address but the reg keeps track what it is for the device, If you change what the computer thinks the MAC address is for that network device then it will attach the new MAC address to the packets it sends out and listen for packets for the new MAC address.
 
So the physical MAC address does not change, But the MAC that is attached to the computer and the one that is broadcasted changes. So to everything else your MAC address changes. And if you put that network adapter into a different computer then it will have it's old mac address until you use the computer to use a different MAC address.
 
http://social.technet.mic...385-981a-b1707f2dd76c/
As i said before i have changed my MAC address before without any issues :P
 
well, Almost no issues, If you copy the MAC address of your router or another device it will cause issues. xD

As others have mentioned, some NIC's allow you to change them. It depends on what you're wanting to do. You can spoof with some software, but the MAC is still bound to the hardware like a ESN. If you're wanting to change your MAC from what your ISP see's, you do it by binding the IP to a router or firewall, so it will see your routers MAC address. You can change your NIC MAC buy installing another NIC.

RainStryke


As others have mentioned, some NIC's allow you to change them. It depends on what you're wanting to do. You can spoof with some software, but the MAC is still bound to the hardware like a ESN. If you're wanting to change your MAC from what your ISP see's, you do it by binding the IP to a router or firewall, so it will see your routers MAC address. You can change your NIC MAC buy installing another NIC.

 
The "spoofing" works with anything that your computer connects to. Even your router will see a different MAC address then what your network card has. And it is a one time change, The only way to change your MAC back to the cards is to edit the REG or reinstall the card.
 
If you use a USB wireless adapter the new MAC will change to the old MAC if you change usb ports because the device reinstall when you do that.
 
Here is how to change it in windows 7 :P
 

This is extremely easy to do on linux. ifconfig and macchanger command line tools let you do it effortessly. But bear in mind it's not permanent  Unless you write a startup script that does it automatically each time. On windows you could do it on some network cards via device manager properties. But why would you want to change the mac? I heard some network cards and routers only allow you to change the mac a fixed number of times.

rhussain


I heard some network cards and routers only allow you to change the mac a fixed number of times.

 
That only affects changing the actual MAC of the card in the firmware. The user should be able to spoof the MAC address with software an unlimited number of times. 

Bkatt

RainStryke


As others have mentioned, some NIC's allow you to change them. It depends on what you're wanting to do. You can spoof with some software, but the MAC is still bound to the hardware like a ESN. If you're wanting to change your MAC from what your ISP see's, you do it by binding the IP to a router or firewall, so it will see your routers MAC address. You can change your NIC MAC buy installing another NIC.

The "spoofing" works with anything that your computer connects to. Even your router will see a different MAC address then what your network card has. And it is a one time change, The only way to change your MAC back to the cards is to edit the REG or reinstall the card.

If you use a USB wireless adapter the new MAC will change to the old MAC if you change usb ports because the device reinstall when you do that.

Here is how to change it in windows 7 :P

 
Yep, that's pretty much what the software does for ya, but if you know how to access it manually in the registry, that's even better, since you know exactly what you changed.

Although MAC addresses do not reveal any geographic location information like IP addresses do, changing MAC addresses may improve your Internet privacy in some situations.

Miller912


Although MAC addresses do not reveal any geographic location information like IP addresses do, changing MAC addresses may improve your Internet privacy in some situations.

 
The MAC address identifies the hardware associated with it. The normal usage is for vendor type (for example: D-Link, 3Com, Apple, Intel, etc) and a unique identifier for purposes to separate the cards hardware broadcast internally to the local LAN itself. The hardware address is stored in the routers arp table for resolution after it has been address translated prior to being sent to the internet itself. This is a normal occurrence so that routes can be sent properly back when needing to be reversed. No geographic location is associated with a hardware identifier, only through IPv4 or IPv6 addressing respectively. Changing it won't add or remove any privacy as your hardware address on the router will always need to be available for other routers on the internet.

James_L

Miller912


Although MAC addresses do not reveal any geographic location information like IP addresses do, changing MAC addresses may improve your Internet privacy in some situations.

The MAC address identifies the hardware associated with it. The normal usage is for vendor type (for example: D-Link, 3Com, Apple, Intel, etc) and a unique identifier for purposes to separate the cards hardware broadcast internally to the local LAN itself. The hardware address is stored in the routers arp table for resolution after it has been address translated prior to being sent to the internet itself. This is a normal occurrence so that routes can be sent properly back when needing to be reversed. No geographic location is associated with a hardware identifier, only through IPv4 or IPv6 addressing respectively. Changing it won't add or remove any privacy as your hardware address on the router will always need to be available for other routers on the internet.

 
When you play a game they use your MAC address and your IP address. You can get a MAC ban from a site and then you computer will not be able to access it no mater how many times you change your IP address... So changing it can add some privacy since your MAC is stored around the net.

Bkatt

James_L

Miller912


Although MAC addresses do not reveal any geographic location information like IP addresses do, changing MAC addresses may improve your Internet privacy in some situations.

The MAC address identifies the hardware associated with it. The normal usage is for vendor type (for example: D-Link, 3Com, Apple, Intel, etc) and a unique identifier for purposes to separate the cards hardware broadcast internally to the local LAN itself. The hardware address is stored in the routers arp table for resolution after it has been address translated prior to being sent to the internet itself. This is a normal occurrence so that routes can be sent properly back when needing to be reversed. No geographic location is associated with a hardware identifier, only through IPv4 or IPv6 addressing respectively. Changing it won't add or remove any privacy as your hardware address on the router will always need to be available for other routers on the internet.

When you play a game they use your MAC address and your IP address. You can get a MAC ban from a site and then you computer will not be able to access it no mater how many times you change your IP address... So changing it can add some privacy since your MAC is stored around the net.

 
The MAC ban is for your WAN MAC address.
 
Every time your route from your internal network to any outside router the MAC address changes. The OSI layer 3 will do this automatically in order to ensure routing correctly back to your system. All routers do this for convenience as the processing of such a massive amount of addressing was impossible when the ethernet specifications were introduced. Consider that the MAC address is a set of 6 hex numbers, 00-FF (decimal 0-255), the amount of arp space necessary in order to route those would be tremendously problematic.
 
It all comes down to that MAC addresses do not traverse from router to router. They are kept in the ARP table and translated from hop to hop from OSI layer 2 to OSI layer 3 in order for proper network functionality. Even if a ban were to occur with some network it would not be valid as the only MAC address the target system (or filtering system) would receive is the MAC address of their upstream router on the first hop. That would make the ban essentially useless since they'd be banning all traffic to their site using MAC address filtering.