However, you can change or spoof the MAC address in the Operating System itself.įirst though, let's look at why you'd might want to spoof it. MAC addresses, as I have said are hard-coded into the network card by the manufacturer and can't be changed. Given that MAC addresses appear in Layer 2 of the OSI model, there's an Address Resolution Protocol which converts MAC addresses into Layer 3 addresses, also known as IP addresses. The higher up to you go, the more the low-level electrical signals are abstracted so that at the higher levels, you get more meaningful representations of the electrical signals such as network requests and responses, and network protocols which the users see (like the http and https protocols used in browsers). MAC address are very near the bottom of the OSI model which is a standard model that defines how networking and communication systems work.īasically in a nutshell, the bottom layers represent electrical signals, binary data and the routing of the data across networks. The MAC address is a 6-byte number and allows devices to be uniquely identified on a network.
These unique addresses are assigned to the hardware by the manufacturer, when the device was being manufactured in the factory.
Network interfaces have what is known as a MAC address. Whenever you're surfing the web on your computer and connect to a wired or wireless network, it's the network interface inside your router, wireless device or the network card inside your laptop that allows you to connect to other computers and allows other computers to connect to you. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Disclosure: Bonkers About Tech is supported by its readers.
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