I've tried to learn more about MAC addresses, but somehow I can't get it clearly. From what I know, it uniquely identifies a computer. Earlier I used to think only the IP address can be used to trace you, and that too the other party will have to contact your ISP. Now this MAC address, is it something which others can come to know easily. Like you send an email to someone, does that capture the MAC address? Is it only your ISP who knows this address or is it commonly broadcast out to the rest of the world?There are tutorials and little apps available on the net to spoof the MAC address - is there any need to do this? What happens if you don't, and if you do change the address, will the ISP automatically detect the new address or will it cause headaches?Like I said earlier, I'm a total noob in this department.
Need some info on MAC address
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If you understand networking and OSI reference layer..MAC addressing is a PC's layer 2 address and IP addressing is a PC's layer 3 address.IF you dont understand OSI layer then , think of IP address as a logical address and the MAC address as the real hardware address.PC communicate with each other using IP addresses..but this happens only when the 2 of them are separated by a router or in other words are on either sides of 2 different network (like 192.168.1.1 and 10.45.24.1).PCs communicate with each other using MAC addresses when they are on the same side of the network or in other words in the same layer 2 domain.A packet goes from one destination to another traversing several routers using IP addressing, when it reaches its destination network and is it finally on the same network where the destination is , it now has to find the MAC address of the destination for the final delivery. For this it does something called ARP. Google ARP.
Thanks. I don't understand OSI layers and all, but I did understand that there's one layer which works at the hardware level, between two computers of a local network using MAC ID, and another which is the IP layer which is used to connect to the net. So from the home computer to the BSNL server, the MAC ID is used for purposes of identification, and after that the IP address comes into the picture, so that whatever data that has been requested by the home computer is sent back by the internet server to the IP address at the BSNL server from where it is sent to the MAC address of the home computer. This is how it is, right?Thats one part of the question. The other part deals with security. Is the MAC address known only to BSNL or to the outside world as well? At Yahoo answers and some other places I found people asking that if they had the MAC address, could they trace the computer; so do websites, like Yahoo mail and Gmail, and Orkut and Facebook and all, collect the MAC ID in some way.Thanks for the answer.
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Ok...See its like this...when a packet moves from its source to its destination, the source and destination MAC address keeps changing..as it moves from one network to another...while the IP address is constant. (unless NAT happens)..So when u visit sites like yahoo, orkut, facebook, etc....there is no way that they can find ur original MAC..
