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Re: a note of caution
Authored by: hayne on Jul 25, '02 02:01:57AM

[I]some (maybe even all?) local networks require the computer's hardware address for the purposes of assigning an IP number. I know almost nothing about this. I just know that I have to find this number for each new machine I get, and pass it on to the network people before I get given an IP number for the new machine. [/I]

This is something that the corporate network administrators often do in order to keep more control of the network. By configuring their routers etc with your MAC (hardware) address, they can prevent any other computer (e.g. a laptop brought in from outside) being used on the network. But it is possible to spoof your MAC address (i.e. to make it seem that your machine has some other MAC address) so this only stops the less capable intruders. This is not something that is necessary - the ARP protocols allow for automatic discovery of the MAC address that matches an IP address.



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