4 ms·

I always wondered if there isn't someone out there making dodgy devices with mac addresses in someone else's range.

dspillett 4y ago
Many years ago I encountered cheap knock-off network cards¹ that had default MACs in the range of a big known name brand, and as far as I know it wasn't some cross-branding/affiliate/other deal. So yes, there has been and no doubt still is. [1] in fact, back in my student days most NICs I had were cheap knock-off versions, the "real" things were not the inexpensive items they are today. This predates it being common to have one built into your motherboard, even more expensive ones, by some time.
linuxlizard 4y ago
Several years ago I worked for a company that made a usb+network and usb-only skew of their product. The usb-only boards were the same as the usb+network boards with a few parts not populated. We started getting tech support complaints when we sold the product into China. Turns out, an enterprising vendor bought a single usb+network printer, desoldered the EEPROM (containing the ethernet mac address). Then that vendor bought usb-only (cheaper) products, added the additional parts and bulk copied the single eeprom image (with the mac address) onto the new products, selling them as the more expensive usb+network sku. Result: a dozen+ of our product running on the LAN with the same mac address.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Sorry to side-track this, but does anyone know if there is a reason why we make homophone spelling errors? Do we sound words out as we write them? Neurologically, what is happening? It doesn't sound automatically the case that the pathways for concept -> word -> write actually flow through a concept -> word -> sound -> write path. It's not a confusion of the word since this user clearly knows SKU is not SKEW. And /u/linuxlizard, if you don't mind saying, were you using speech-to-text to write that comment?
  - munk-a 4y ago
    A decent proportion of the population frequently run internal monologues in the voiced manner - when I'm typing this out I can hear (not actually hear but mentally hear) someone speaking the words as I type. I assume the frequency of homophone typos are due primarily to this - since both skew and SKU are identical in my inner monologue and I'm trusting my fingers to choose the right combination. I think homophone spelling errors are a different issue though - english education in the US is really quite poor so a lot of grammatical rules[1] (they're/their/there) and spelling aren't really well impressed on society at large - people will hear a term in conversation and start using it in their own speech, when they arrive at typing it out they'll make their best guess at spelling and it'll probably end up a roll of the dice which homophone their spell-check ends up shoveling them towards. 1. /me types while admitting they constantly type in spoken english - preferring the spoken sentence construction rules. Something something glass houses and stones.
    - renewiltord 4y ago
      Thanks for answering. Of course, I have the opposite of your second sentence, mispronouncing words I've only ever read :)
      - munk-a 4y ago
        Ah, I still internally mispronounce Quay - no matter how hard I try and relearn it as KEY.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      > english education in the US is really quite poor so a lot of grammatical rules[1] (they're/their/there) and spelling aren't really well impressed on society at large This is false. It was impressed into us many times throughout grade, middle, and high school. People just don’t care enough to get the right spelling because they were using the words natively long before they learned to spell them.
      - pokey00 4y ago
giobox 4y ago
Many years ago I worked for a major cellphone service provider in Europe - cellphones with duplicate IMEI numbers were an issue (the IMEI number was meant to be unique per cellular device much like a MAC address). This occasionally prevented an IMEI block on a stolen phone.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gruez 4y ago
IIRC that's what some manufacturers did. However, rather than squatting in someone's existing range, they ended up squatting in unused ranges that were unlikely to be assigned anytime soon (back in those days the assignments were sequential). IEEE ended up cracking down on this by randomizing OUI assignments.
randomfool 4y ago
Years ago I bought a bag of Bluetooth 4.1 USB dongles for development only to find every single one of them had the same MAC address. Ugh.
kube-system 4y ago
Well, there’s a ton of people using Xerox’s 00:00:00

Many years ago I encountered cheap knock-off network cards¹ that had default MACs in the range of a big known name brand, and as far as I know it wasn't some cross-branding/affiliate/other deal. So yes, there has been and no doubt still is. [1] in fact, back in my student days most NICs I had were cheap knock-off versions, the "real" things were not the inexpensive items they are today. This predates it being common to have one built into your motherboard, even more expensive ones, by some time.

linuxlizard 4y ago

Several years ago I worked for a company that made a usb+network and usb-only skew of their product. The usb-only boards were the same as the usb+network boards with a few parts not populated. We started getting tech support complaints when we sold the product into China. Turns out, an enterprising vendor bought a single usb+network printer, desoldered the EEPROM (containing the ethernet mac address). Then that vendor bought usb-only (cheaper) products, added the additional parts and bulk copied the single eeprom image (with the mac address) onto the new products, selling them as the more expensive usb+network sku. Result: a dozen+ of our product running on the LAN with the same mac address.

renewiltord 4y ago
Sorry to side-track this, but does anyone know if there is a reason why we make homophone spelling errors? Do we sound words out as we write them? Neurologically, what is happening? It doesn't sound automatically the case that the pathways for concept -> word -> write actually flow through a concept -> word -> sound -> write path. It's not a confusion of the word since this user clearly knows SKU is not SKEW. And /u/linuxlizard, if you don't mind saying, were you using speech-to-text to write that comment?
- munk-a 4y ago
  A decent proportion of the population frequently run internal monologues in the voiced manner - when I'm typing this out I can hear (not actually hear but mentally hear) someone speaking the words as I type. I assume the frequency of homophone typos are due primarily to this - since both skew and SKU are identical in my inner monologue and I'm trusting my fingers to choose the right combination. I think homophone spelling errors are a different issue though - english education in the US is really quite poor so a lot of grammatical rules[1] (they're/their/there) and spelling aren't really well impressed on society at large - people will hear a term in conversation and start using it in their own speech, when they arrive at typing it out they'll make their best guess at spelling and it'll probably end up a roll of the dice which homophone their spell-check ends up shoveling them towards. 1. /me types while admitting they constantly type in spoken english - preferring the spoken sentence construction rules. Something something glass houses and stones.
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Thanks for answering. Of course, I have the opposite of your second sentence, mispronouncing words I've only ever read :)
    - munk-a 4y ago
      Ah, I still internally mispronounce Quay - no matter how hard I try and relearn it as KEY.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    > english education in the US is really quite poor so a lot of grammatical rules[1] (they're/their/there) and spelling aren't really well impressed on society at large This is false. It was impressed into us many times throughout grade, middle, and high school. People just don’t care enough to get the right spelling because they were using the words natively long before they learned to spell them.
    - pokey00 4y ago

giobox 4y ago

Many years ago I worked for a major cellphone service provider in Europe - cellphones with duplicate IMEI numbers were an issue (the IMEI number was meant to be unique per cellular device much like a MAC address). This occasionally prevented an IMEI block on a stolen phone.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

gruez 4y ago

IIRC that's what some manufacturers did. However, rather than squatting in someone's existing range, they ended up squatting in unused ranges that were unlikely to be assigned anytime soon (back in those days the assignments were sequential). IEEE ended up cracking down on this by randomizing OUI assignments.

randomfool 4y ago

Years ago I bought a bag of Bluetooth 4.1 USB dongles for development only to find every single one of them had the same MAC address. Ugh.

kube-system 4y ago

Well, there’s a ton of people using Xerox’s 00:00:00