What is a MAC address and when should it be hidden?

A media access control (MAC) address is an address that is associated with a network adapter, the hardware component that connects a PC to a computer network. This adapter can be a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Ethernet card built into your computer. The network adapter is basically where you physically connect to the Internet when you connect a cable or pick up a Wi-Fi signal. This is why some consider the MAC address to be the physical address of the device. While the IP address indicates where the device is connected to the network, the MAC address indicates where the device is actually located. And if you want to get more information about “how to hide your mac address”, check this link https://blog.partners1xbet.com/hide-mac-address/ 

What MAC address?

The MAC address is represented by 12 numbers and letters, separated by a colon or hyphen. It usually looks like this: 00:4A:77:98:3C:B4 or 00-4A-77-98-3C-B4. You can have multiple MAC addresses. For example, if you are able to connect to a Wi-Fi network and see that your computer also has an Ethernet port, this means that your device has 2 MAC addresses. Which one will be displayed? Depends. about what you choose to connect to the Internet.

You can easily find your MAC address in the system or network settings of your device. However, keep in mind that companies tend to use different terms for MAC address, such as WiFi address or hardware ID.

Unlike an IP address, the likelihood that you have the same MAC address as someone else is close to zero. This leads to a reasonable question: should you hide it to save your job?

Can anyone get my Mac address?

The short answer is no. Online stores, social networks, gambling and betting sites cannot obtain your MAC address. Of course there are some workarounds, but they are very complex, so no website can detect you by your MAC address unless…

Unless you’re currently sitting in a café connected to a public Wi-Fi network. Your MAC address never goes beyond the correlation between your device and the Wi-Fi router. It’s right. As long as you use your own router and are 100% sure that no one has access to it, you are safe and sound. But if you’re enjoying brunch at Starbucks, things can get out of hand. Why? Well, because you don’t. have access to their WiFi router, but its system administrator does not. This means that he or she can easily get your MAC address from your log through the router.

And in this case, it is theoretically possible that you will have your Google accounts blocked. Again – only theoretically. In the past, there have been cases where cafes and restaurants have leaked customers’ MAC addresses or even passed them on to third parties. on their own. Hypothetically, this could go to some huge, influential company. The probability, however, is very small, but still exists.

But are there people who care about online privacy and security and use public Wi-Fi? If yes, better ask yourself if you care about it at all, because using a public network has never been a safe way to access the Internet.

So the long answer is yes. If you’re reckless enough to handle multiple accounts or anything that requires real privacy and security, then yes – you’re better off hiding your MAC address. The problem is that the default public network is a pretty risky way to do something like this. More specifically, the MAC address should probably be the last thing you should care about when you decide to do anything serious over a public network. The MAC address is simply useless information to anyone other than your router and the computer you are connecting to.

How to find out MAC address from IP address or hostname?

Quite often there are situations when you need to find out the hardware address of a network device, but there is nothing at hand other than the standard console, or you just want to save time without installing additional programs, or without opening management consoles, such as DHCP Management Console, etc.

How can you find out the MAC address by IP address or host name if you just have a workstation running Windows?

The answer is simple – using the standard command line.

To find out the MAC address of a remote computer or a computer on the local network, you must:

1. In the command line, ping this computer (ping the IP address or DNS name).

To do this, press the Win+R key combination and enter cmd. In the command prompt window, enter: ping ip address or ping dns name .

We ping the desired node.

If you ping a hostname, that hostname will be converted to an IP address in the process.

2. When you finish processing the ping command, enter the command arp -a 

In the results of the command output, find the IP address you need and the corresponding MAC address.

Find out the required MAC address

arp is the display and modification of the IP to physical address translation tables used by the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP).

You can also ping the broadcast address of your network.

For example, if you have a network 192.168.31.0 with a mask of 255.255.255.0, your address will then be 192.168.31.1-254, and the broadcast address will be the latest 192.168.31.255. We must ping it, then give the command: arp -a

You will see all the IP addresses on your network with their poppies, all you have to do is find the one you need.

If you need to find out the MAC by ip, then enter the command: nbtstat -A 192.168.31.5

I would like to note that this command does not work in powershell only in cmd.

Perhaps that’s all.

So, do I need to worry about my MAC address?

No. As mentioned above, when it comes to anonymity, the MAC address is basically useless information. Neither Google, nor Facebook, nor many other platforms and companies can even theoretically get your MAC address if you use your own cable or router.

But what you have to worry about are the lists of parameters by which you can actually be detected, and the MAC address falls far short of any of them. Parameters that websites monitor include WebRTC, fonts, screen resolution, platform, operating system, RAM and more