Can Blizzard See your MAC adress

[Sturmgewehr86]

Hey there the title pretty much sums my question.Me and some friends had a arguement about if blizzard sees teh mac adress as well as the ip adress of the router,LAN card etc.I am pretty sure they cant but i just wanted to get your opinion on the matter.

[Drunkenvalley]

I don't know if they do save it, but I know that fetching your MAC address should hardly be difficult. O_o

[Sturmgewehr86]

I don't know if they do save it, but I know that fetching your MAC address should hardly be difficult. O_o

I do disagree on the matter only your ISP knows your MAC

[Neteyes]

I do disagree on the matter only your ISP knows your MAC

Of course they can see your MAC-Address. Why wouldn't they be able to?

[Drunkenvalley]

I do disagree on the matter only your ISP knows your MAC

...I can't decide where to begin here. But let's begin with the ISP part. Why in heaven's name do you believe only your ISP knows your MAC? Your MAC address is not some obscure, hard to find piece of information.

Which brings me to Blizzard. If your MAC address is on your PC (spoiler: it is), why in heaven's name do you believe Blizzard cannot find and save the MAC address when you have their software on your machine? That was of course assuming the MAC address wasn't part of the packets being traded to begin with, as a method of directing your computer traffic, but I can't recall solidly now.

[Sturmgewehr86]

Thank you but i do know my own MAC,i am just posing the question if anyone outside of your Internet Provider can find out what your MAC is

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

command prompt > ipconfig /all
It's also available through WMI.

And in the router admin.

[Deleted]

I do disagree on the matter only your ISP knows your MAC

MAC has nothing to do with your ISP, as the MAC adress is hard-coded into the NIC.
You might be talking about external IP's, which indeed are managed by your ISP.

[Drunkenvalley]

Thank you but i do know my own MAC,i am just posing the question if anyone outside of your Internet Provider can find out what your MAC is

If your ISP can, everyone can.

[Yohassakura]

Thank you but i do know my own MAC,i am just posing the question if anyone outside of your Internet Provider can find out what your MAC is

If people couldn't find out what MAC Address you were using, then Mac Address Spoofing would be a lot harder!

[Sturmgewehr86]

...I can't decide where to begin here. But let's begin with the ISP part. Why in heaven's name do you believe only your ISP knows your MAC? Your MAC address is not some obscure, hard to find piece of information.

Which brings me to Blizzard. If your MAC address is on your PC (spoiler: it is), why in heaven's name do you believe Blizzard cannot find and save the MAC address when you have their software on your machine? That was of course assuming the MAC address wasn't part of the packets being traded to begin with, as a method of directing your computer traffic, but I can't recall solidly now.

Let me Elaborate a bit i think i gave too little info. I am Using a Router.Blizzards software is on my PC so i think if they can see any MAC adress it is the MAC on my LAN card that is connected to my Router( and i dont give a s*** if they know it becouse i can change it whenever i want,however if i change my router MAC adress my internet immidiatly stops and i have to call my ISP to tell them that i changed it and give it to them so i can have internet agan).So i just dont know how blizzard could could know my Router MAC adress.

[Tilde]

Blizzard actually uses your MAC address as part of your authenticator hash to know that you've changed computers behind the same IP address in order to prompt you for a new authentication code.

[Sturmgewehr86]

Blizzard actually uses your MAC address as part of your authenticator hash to know that you've changed computers behind the same IP address in order to prompt you for a new authentication code.

Arent we talking again about the PC's network device rather than the router MAC?

[Drunkenvalley]

Etc

Now I'm curious for proper: What the heck does it matter?

Firstly, why would changing your router's MAC change anything, unless your router and your modem are the same device? Secondly, what stops Blizzard, if they so desire, from sniffing your packets a bit? Because reading the ARP would give Blizzard your router's MAC if you're connected to it... As would a variety of other traffic between you and the router I would imagine.

Whether it's legal or not is one thing, but there's nothing technically stopping Blizzard from finding out if they so feel like it...

[Deleted]

I'm not entirely sure why you would even care if Blizzard registers your computer's MAC address.

[Sturmgewehr86]

Example- If you get IP Banned,you switch your ip and you are wandering if u gotta change your mac adress too so there will be no link between the banned IP and the new one.

[Drunkenvalley]

So this entire thread exists to help circumvent an IP ban. Hold on, Blizzard even do those? I thought they just shut down your account and called it a day.

[Sturmgewehr86]

So this entire thread exists to help circumvent an IP ban. Hold on, Blizzard even do those? I thought they just shut down your account and called it a day.

The Key in my post is Example.Blizzard bans accounts not IP's.

[TommiTMX]

So this entire thread exists to help circumvent an IP ban. Hold on, Blizzard even do those? I thought they just shut down your account and called it a day.

This. Blizzard don't ban IP's, they never have and I know a lot of people who have been banned for various reasons. They ban an account and that's the end of it, if you go out and buy another then they aren't likely to stop you paying to play again by trying to ban your MAC address (this completely ignoring the fact it would screw over Gaming Lounges etc.)

I can't see what relevance them having your MAC address has, but yes they could get it if they wanted.

[Drunkenvalley]

The Key in my post is Example.Blizzard bans accounts not IP's.

Well, what can and cannot be done is going to vary from company to company, as well as the medium of the log-in.
- If it's browser-based session, odds are they have no implementation of calls that would let them get your router's information beyond what can be probed from outside. Ie nothing especially useful, off the top of my head.
- If it's custom software on your PC, odds are they can do whatever they damn well please.