


Apple’s iOS 8 will use a random MAC address each time it scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks to prevent this sort of tracking.īear in mind that each network interface has its own MAC address.

A company named Renew London used trash bins in the city of London to track people’s movements around the city based on their MAC addresses. When you walk around, your smartphone scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks and broadcasts its MAC address.

Static IP Assignment: Routers allow you to assign static IP addresses to your computers.In addition to their core networking use, MAC addresses are often used for other purposes: RELATED: 22 Common Network Jargon Terms Explained It knows to send the request to the MAC address of your router’s network interface. At the hardware level of your network card, though, your network card is only looking at other MAC addresses for interfaces on the same network. Your computer sends the request to your router, which then sends it out onto the Internet. The web address you type gets translated to the IP address of the server. When a browser on your computer needs to grab a web page from a server on the Internet, for example, that request passes down through several layers of the TCP/IP protocol. At the lowest networking level, network interfaces attached to a network use MAC addresses to communicate with one another.
