Changing a MAC address

[ispano]

isn't that what i just said

No, because the spoofing isn't what's breaking the law. Subverting their system to use it without paying is. ie doing it in a different method than spoofing your MAC places you in the same position.

[vesseblah]

Anyway, I'm almost certain that your problem with the so-called 'packet sniffing' for diagnostic purposes caused problems because you hooked unauthorized devices into the same LAN where the dentist's office and the bank was on. That is clearly a failure of the LAN administrator if it's configured so that you can just hook in any gear to the same physical network as bank's computers to run packet sniffers.

It was probably a case of the dentist being allowed to run one computer in the LAN with MAC(?) based authentication and you adding unauthorized computer to the net raised red flags. Sounds like the bank's system was provided with the power of nepotism and built by some 14 year old kid with "ten years of networking experience".

[Doylez]

okay, take for example 802.16, aka wimax, comcast just set it up here in denver, it uses mac filtering to keep non paying customers from accessing it, if i spoof my wimax nic's mac to one that i know has access, it is a crime, im technically stealing from comcast

If MAC filtering is their only protection then they sure have some problems.
Also the illegal thing here is that YOU BREAK INTO SOMEONES NETWORK, not that you have changed your MAC. I really don't know why this is so hard to understand for you. Is it illegal to own a crowbar? No. Is it illegal to break into someones house with a crowbar? Yes. Though that you did it with a crowbar hardly matters.

[Cyanotical]

No, because the spoofing isn't what's breaking the law. Subverting their system to use it without paying is. ie doing it in a different method than spoofing your MAC places you in the same position.

that is what a majority of non-lan mac spoofing is used for though, even if it's as simple as getting around a ban or lockout, if it happens over the public wan, it's a crime, same reason i can't legally hack my friends home lan from mine, it goes over public wan, the op wanted to know how to change his mac, whether it was a theoretical question or not, the fact that there can be legal implications needed to be brought up

i saw the crowbar analogy brought up, but i would compare it a sawed off shotgun, even though you may no intent of shooting someone, sawing off the end of your shotgun is still illegal (in most places)

[ispano]

that is what a majority of non-lan mac spoofing is used for though, even if it's as simple as getting around a ban or lockout, if it happens over the public wan, it's a crime, same reason i can't legally hack my friends home lan from mine, it goes over public wan, the op wanted to know how to change his mac, whether it was a theoretical question or not, the fact that there can be legal implications needed to be brought up

i saw the crowbar analogy brought up, but i would compare it a sawed off shotgun, even though you may no intent of shooting someone, sawing off the end of your shotgun is still illegal (in most places)

But that's the thing, sawing off the end of your shotgun, whether you use it or not, is illegal. Spoofing your MAC is not. The analogy that fits is the crowbar one, not the shotgun. It's like Bittorrent, it's not illegal, but pirating the recent release of Thor with it would be, at least here in the states. Some things are illegal, regardless of whether you use them afterwards or not. And some things are perfectly legal to do, but then using them to commit an illegal act, still does not make the initial thing illegal, not the act you committed afterwards.

[vesseblah]

i saw the crowbar analogy brought up, but i would compare it a sawed off shotgun, even though you may no intent of shooting someone, sawing off the end of your shotgun is still illegal (in most places)

You still failed to see the point and failed with the analogy.

Changing MAC address 100% legally and without any hacking tools can be done in 5 minutes. Simply install new network card into your computer and plug it in. There's nothing malicious in it (necessarily) and nothing illegal. Purchasing a network card is not illegal either unlike sawing off pieces of shotgun.

Again, changing MAC address is not illegal or immoral. Changing MAC address for criminal purposes (to bypass security) is.

edit:

OP wanted to know if changing MAC address is possible. Yes it is, and easy. Changing MAC address to pretend you're somebody else is notably harder and it is considered to be hacking which is punishable by law. Somebody abusing home WiFi connection with MAC spoofing is technically possible to do, but being worried about it is being paranoid unless you have a reason to be afraid of somebody.

Best possible security available for home WLAN at the moment is using WPA2, turning off SSID broadcast and enabling MAC whitelisting. It's possible to break in and abuse the network, but it's so hard that nobody does it trivially or without very good reason. For extra security parabolic antennas for directional wireless links makes breaking in even harder. Extreme paranoid solution is just not connecting to internet at all and transfer all files with encrypted USB stick personally.

[Doylez]

i saw the crowbar analogy brought up, but i would compare it a sawed off shotgun, even though you may no intent of shooting someone, sawing off the end of your shotgun is still illegal (in most places)

Alright I give up you're either a troll or immune to learning.

[ispano]

Alright I give up you're either a troll or immune to learning.

It's more likely that people dislike being wrong, and especially dislike being told they're wrong. Many people have a hard time admitting they're wrong. It's hard for me to admit being wrong as well, but if you bring proof, i'll concede. And then proceed to mentally berate myself for not researching enough. I've seen this with not just him, Brett and several others on this forum are like that.

[Cyanotical]

You still failed to see the point and failed with the analogy.

Changing MAC address 100% legally and without any hacking tools can be done in 5 minutes. Simply install new network card into your computer and plug it in. There's nothing malicious in it (necessarily) and nothing illegal. Purchasing a network card is not illegal either unlike sawing off pieces of shotgun.

Again, changing MAC address is not illegal or immoral. Changing MAC address for criminal purposes (to bypass security) is.

changing your nic only changes the mac within your local broadcast domain, and has nothing to do with public wan

[vesseblah]

changing your nic only changes the mac within your local broadcast domain, and has nothing to do with public wan

MACs really have got nothing to do with public WAN, since MAC addresses are not present in IP packet headers, only IP address is. MAC is not used to route any traffic at any point in the internet, it's only used to allocate new IP by DHCP protocol when you connect to network.

IP spoofing is whole another thing you're probably thinking about.

[Cyanotical]

us code: title 18 , part I , chapter 47 , § 1030, a, 5:
"knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer"


ie, if you spoof your wan mac, and it causes an issue to your isp's router, or has the possibility to, but you knowingly did it anyway

---------- Post added 2011-05-21 at 03:59 AM ----------

MACs really have got nothing to do with public WAN, since MAC addresses are not present in IP packet headers, only IP address is. MAC is not used to route any traffic at any point in the internet, it's only used to allocate new IP by DHCP protocol when you connect to network.

IP spoofing is whole another thing you're probably thinking about.

every single router and layer3 switch out there has a mac, its how they know that port to send the signal down

[ispano]

us code: title 18 , part I , chapter 47 , § 1030, a, 5:
"knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer"


ie, if you spoof your wan mac, and it causes an issue to your isp's router, or has the possibility to, but you knowingly did it anyway

---------- Post added 2011-05-21 at 03:59 AM ----------



every single router and layer3 switch out there has a mac, its how they know that port to send the signal down

Yeah, no? You actually had to do this with home gateways on cable providers several years ago. They would set up the service on a computer at your place, and the service would bind itself to that MAC. To get a gateway to work, you could either call them and get them to change which MAC it registered to, or use the router to clone, ie spoof, the MAC from your PCs NIC.

Now that's not really done anymore, but the option still exists. The act of spoofing your MAC is NOT illegal. If you use it for something illegal, the illegal act itself is what's illegal, not the spoofing. With your quote there, the act of spoofing the MAC isn't illegal, but the "knowingly cause" and "intentionally cause" mean, the intention to cause harm is what's illegal.

[Brett Skullcrack]

You..... missed the point, didn't you? People were claiming they weren't detectable at all, that's a flat out lie. Can you work around the detection methods? Sure! But that doesn't make them non detectable, 100%, as they are.

Packet sniffing is fundamentally undetectable. You would know this if you had read the articles you linked to: "In theory, it is impossible to detect sniffing programs because they are passive: they only collect packets, they don't transmit anything. However, in practice it is sometimes possible to detect sniffing programs."

A packet sniffer that doesn't know what he's doing can be detected - although none of the methods you linked to proves that packet sniffing is going on, they only indicate that your NIC is in promiscuous mode which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for packet sniffing to happen. You're not "working around detection methods", if you do packet sniffing the way you're supposed to you will not be detected.

[ispano]

Packet sniffing is fundamentally undetectable. You would know this if you had read the articles you linked to: "In theory, it is impossible to detect sniffing programs because they are passive: they only collect packets, they don't transmit anything. However, in practice it is sometimes possible to detect sniffing programs."

A packet sniffer that doesn't know what he's doing can be detected - although none of the methods you linked to proves that packet sniffing is going on, they only indicate that your NIC is in promiscuous mode which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for packet sniffing to happen. You're not "working around detection methods", if you do packet sniffing the way you're supposed to you will not be detected.

Mmmm, assumptions, I do read what I link. Passive Packet Sniffing is undetectable, but they also don't really do much on a switched network, except sniff packets destined for the computer the sniffer is run on. If you're still using hubs in this day, well you know where that's going. You CAN use a passive sniffer on certain switches if you exploit a flaw in those certain switches to cause them to transmit to all ports, allowing it to work as if it was on a hub. And by doing that, you could theoretically be detected as well. Active sniffers on the other hand, become detectable on varying levels, just by nature of being active.