On Mon, 16 Jul 2001, Nate Carlson wrote:

> Some cards do allow you to change your MAC address.
> 
> If the card supports it, the command:
> 
> ifconfig eth0 hw ether nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn
> 
> will do it.

Can one of you network gurus explain how this is legal, by Ethernet specs?  
I'm a little out of date, but MAC addresses were supposed to be sacrosanct
physical IDs that are unique for each card.  Of course this was late 70's
or early 80's, and there was no danger of running out of them!


I thought changing MAC would carry the possibility that you might end up
with very low-level net problems, if you're exposed (i.e., what if you
grab someone else's MAC.)  I also thought they were issued by a standards
body to manufacturers, but it seems I have a little to learn.

-- 
"To misattribute a quote is unforgivable." --Anonymous