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Your MAC will only be known to the router of the coffee shop and the router's MAC will only be know to their ISP's router/modem. The ISP MAC will be in the log
by lifeguard 14y ago
Your MAC will only be known to the router of the coffee shop and the router's MAC will only be know to their ISP's router/modem. The ISP MAC will be in the logs of all the servers you and other cafe customers access.
- wwwtyro 14y agoThanks, good to know.
- cookiecaper 14y agoI don't think this is correct. The servers you connect will see an IP address only. This could only be converted into a MAC if the IP was resolvable locally via ARP (i.e., you're on the same LAN). The danger of retaining your real MAC should be obvious; it's a unique identifier specific to your machine that will at least significantly narrow the scope of the machine/owner your adversaries are looking for if it doesn't give the investigators a direct link back to you (e.g., manufacturer records MAC addresses next to serial numbers, adversary gains access to manufacturer's data and sees "MAC X / Serial No Y sold to consumer Z online"). Depending on the configuration of the router on the open access points, it may be possible to retrieve a list of all connected MACs over the whole lifetime of the router. Then they simply have to correlate, "OK, which machines had a lease when the access from this machine was made?", and then investigate the 5 matches that come up. This is not very safe, clearly.
- lifeguard 14y agoThanks cookiecaper, I was thinking of DHCP. httpd doesn't log MAC. That aside, MAC addresses can be easily changed and spoofed. If one was really concerned, a throw away USB WiFi dongle could be used.