Wireless MAC address

Bash

Bash

Bash

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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75
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In over my head
I am running NetStumber to see what I can pick up locally. It picks up WIFI enabled mobile phones other like equipment as they pass as well as displaying fixed Peer and AP's.

Interestingly I noticed lots of Peer devices with the same name (no longer within range) with different MAC addresses. After some investigation I found that these Peer devices (what ever they were) seem to be the same device each time they come into range of NetStumbler and yet report a different MAC address each time.

I thought you required a fixed MAC address for WIFI? This helps security by MAC filtering. Why are these devices changing MAC address each time I see them? How are they doing it and why? Anyone ever seen this before or know why? :confused:
 
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More likely to be the same type of equipment from the same maufacturer that has the same default name. Lots of people buy the same phone for the same reasons as each other.

10 people walk by with a Nokia phone (or whatever) with the default wireless setting turned on will give 10 names the same but 10 different MAC addresses.
 
That what I thought was the case at first as some fo the names were gereric e.g Nokia, Netgear etc etc but I have seen many with custom names e.g Bat Fone, [[[]]], Chapman etc etc. These custom names also have a different MAC address when NetStumbler picks them up again when their within range.

Can anyone explain this?
 
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