Using MAC Address to Uniquely Identify Computers 561
An anonymous reader writes "One of Australia's gaming networks, GamesArena has recently imposed a third party program required to access their gaming servers. One of it's features is that it records your NIC's MAC address to identify your computer, and subsequently in future, ban you if you cheat/break the rules etc. The response from players is mixed. It is not open source software, nor is it optional to install. "Install it or find another server to play on". Question remains, is it going too far?"
Definitely not- unfortunately it won't work since MACs are changable.
buy a new network card (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:buy a new network card (Score:5, Insightful)
Implementing security/restrictions client side doesnt work. period.
Re:buy a new network card (Score:5, Insightful)
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 hw ether DE:AD:BE:EF:BA:BE
ifconfig eth0 up
Re:buy a new network card (Score:5, Funny)
The MAC address checker is a security measure, and you just published information on how to circumvent it.
Re:buy a new network card (Score:2, Informative)
This might [ntfaq.com] also help of you are stuck with a Windows system
What of windows? (Score:5, Informative)
Bingo.
Re:What of windows? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What of windows? (Score:3, Funny)
I prefer to
FEEDBABEBEEF
Re:buy a new network card (Score:4, Insightful)
You miss the point - it's not a MAC... (Score:3, Insightful)
So long as you don't change things that break your local segment (ie: duplicate MACs), then you're fine - go for your life.
Re:buy a new network card (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everybody knows how/has the ability to change the MAC address of their NIC. Also, three things stop people from writing that rogue program-Time, Skill (in both programming and reverse engineering), and Desire. Not being a huge online gamer I cannot say with 100% confidence, but I doubt that the majority of gamers using this system want to cheat.
As for the statement that client side security doesn't work, well that isn't completely true. No, this system is not foolproof as I understand it, but that does not mean that there is absolutely no way this could work 90% of the time, which for a gaming network is not that bad. Sure, for the slashdot crowd, this might be easy to crack, but joe-average on the street probably doesn't have a clue what a MAC address is (or they think they don't have one because they use Windows).
Re:buy a new network card (Score:5, Insightful)
The average Cheater Joe off the street will definitely know exactly how to change it. Which makes the whole exercise pointless.
Heck, client side security with no passwords and disks shared to the world works great 90% of the time. Unfortunately it isnt the 90% that is the problem. It's the rest. And for the rest, repeat after me, client-side security will never ever ever work. If you dont have physical control over a computer you cannot trust anything it tells you.
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
The smart cheater who writes the utility is central to the argument after all, since historically the smart cheaters have published tools for the ignorant ones not "eventually" but almost immediately. The smart cheaters have already published a workaround, and the rest of them already know where to find it.
Re:buy a new network card (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.ntfaq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?Article
Re:buy a new network card (Score:2)
Oh this will be pissing people off (Score:5, Funny)
2) Sell Network Card
3) Some one buys new card
4) They are banned
There will be plenty of second hand NICS for sale becuase of this. its a 1 2 3 profit plan.
Re:Oh this will be pissing people off (Score:3, Insightful)
Ban your Enemies (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ban your Enemies (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ban your Enemies (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft machines will tell you their MAC when you do a NBTSTAT on them. At least one ISP I know of blocks NetBIOS traffic because of uncontrolled file sharing, but I don't know how common that is.
Personal firewall software should capture the request or block it too, so there are a few ways to thwart the method.
Of course you still need the IP address, but that's a little easier to find. You could even do a little social engineering to get it... "Hey check out my website dedicated to your demise!"
As for changing your MAC, what if the third party program doesn't read the MAC from the network stack, but pulls it from the driver? i.e. using the same calls the Network stack uses to get it in the first place?
Re:Ban your Enemies (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ban your Enemies (Score:5, Informative)
No need for social engineering. Anytime you play a game with someone you create an internet connection, that means your machine has to know their IP address. On Win98 (and probably all MS OS's) just open a dos window and type NETSTAT to see the text version of their address (userID.AOL.COM), or NETSTAT -N to see the dotted IP address (123.45.67.89).
Lots of people hesitate to tell you their IP address, thinking it is some big secret. It's rather amusing to get into a game with them and say "Your IP address is 123.45.67.89, your ISP is RoadRunner, and you are in Southern California, right near the coast".
How do I do the last part, naming their location? Just type their IP address into visualroute [visualware.com]. (Requires Java) One end of the line is fixed at the visualroute server, the line shows the physical location of every server along the route to the target. You can click the map to zoom in.
It is interesting to note that it is not uncommon for servers locations to be completely different from the country code in the address. For example www.indymedia.org.il (Isreal country code) is actually hosed in Chiago USA. Often it is simply more convient getting content hosted on major US server farms, but sometimes it could be relevant for legal reasons, or it could even be intentionally missleading.
P.S.
I used www.indymedia.org.il as an example because it's the only example I remember off hand. I recall that one becase indymedia is anti-isreal, and I suspect the Isreal country code may be intentionally missleading. The indymedia "news" sites are certainly independant, but in my oppinion extremely biased and unreliable. It is a good source for certain stories the "major media" may have neglected, but double check any information you get there. The writing often drops to the level of pure propaganda.
-
Re:Ban your Enemies (Score:3)
Untrue. Some games, like Warcraft3, use a grid topology (each player connects to each other), so you do know their IP addresses. But many other popular games like HalfLife/Counterstrike are star topologies, where each player only connects to the central server. In those cases netstat can't show you their IP addresses.
(Sometimes the developers of star topology games create an ingame option to reveal other player's IPs, but they usually drop off the last one or two octets.)
In the old days of internet Quake, it wasn't unheard of for an annoying player to suffer a PingOfDeath or plain old overload DOS.
Ban the IP. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ban the IP. (Score:3, Insightful)
OMG OMG G4/\/\354R3|\|4 0\/\/5 J00! (Score:4, Funny)
This will work for a while... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wireless APs like Linksys' already come with a web admin that lets you specify *any* MAC address, apparently to please some cable/adsl providers that measure traffic/authenticate (partly) based on this.
Why not provide a public key server and ask people to submit they public OpenPGP key, signe by P. Zimmermann himself ? Get your identity trusted by Z. or go play somewhere else... After all, this seems to imply they want "real" players!
It's even simpler.. (Score:5, Informative)
They're violating the simple rule about never trusting the client. All you have to do is modify this third-party program to have it spit out a random MAC address each time and *poof* the system is worthless. You don't even have to change your MAC address. And since MAC addresses are only used at the Ethernet level, not at the [TCP|UDP]/IP level, it doesn't matter that the server thinks your MAC address is different than it is.
Re:Hurrumph (Score:3, Insightful)
Except the reason people get banned is for using cheats etc, which are distributed in the same way as information on how to change your MAC.
The first thing someone will do when they are banned is do a search on google for "telstra banned game unban" or something, and get hundreds of hits on how to get around it.
Re:Hurrumph (Score:3, Interesting)
MAC Adress and Cable Modems (Score:5, Informative)
They've been trying this crap for years with cable modems. Until I got a router, I used to use two different machines, each with the same MAC address installed. Worked out great. It's easy to change, too. It's also let me on at friends' offices, where access is MAC controlled. We log on a machine, write down the address, shut it down, boot mine up, change the address, and log on.
Who does it stop? Honest people.
Who won't it stop? The same people hacking their games in the first place.
Re:MAC Adress and Cable Modems (Score:3, Funny)
We log on a machine, write down the address, shut it down, boot mine up, change the address, and log on.
Who does it stop? Honest people.
I guess you're not honest then
Re:MAC Adress and Cable Modems (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, this little fuss is just about people who think that everyone has a right to be on every network, anywhere. It's as if they believe that people every network is a public, free, resource.,
ifconfig (Score:4, Informative)
Open source (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Close Source is not secure (Score:3, Insightful)
But the whole argument for this particular program to be open source is really pointless because they've chosen to break the #1 rule of multiplayer programming: Never trust the client. So it really does not matter if it's open source or closed source; the protection will be broken very easily, either by a script kiddie with a very basic understanding of a MAC address, or by somone who can reverse-engineer the data sent between the client and server.
--LordKaT
Re:Open source (Score:3, Interesting)
None of this would be necessary if we didn't have social-engineering black-hat hackers who break every attempt at default security just for kicks. Palladium (or something else) is coming, and I blame any bad side effects I suffer on hackers, not MS.
Tell me you are kidding. Please.
Palladium is simply rediculous. There is a much better solution:
1) Write more secure software. Dont' lock my PC up because you can't produce solid, tested code that's not full of holes.
2) Educate users. If you let someone you didn't know work on your car, and they broke something major, who is at fault? Should GM ship cars with the hood welded shut?
3) Profit!
Okay, bad pun, but seriously... Palladium is just a bad, bad idea. What happens when (not if) someone breaks it? Then what?
Oh, right, hide behind more DMCA-like laws. No need to make it unbreakable, when you can just make it illegal to break (think CSS).
Microsoft seems to be acting like the RIAA. The RIAA is IMO an unnecessary middle-man, who's usefullness is proving to be less and less. So they lobby to get laws passed in order to survive. MS can't write secure software, so they want to lock us out of the PC, making it a (worse) crime to exploit it. Telco's are using old technology and want the government to bail them out.
Well guess what? If a company can't survive, or a business model proves to be no longer viable, then you lose. It isn't the government's (and thus the taxpayers') responsibility to keep a dead idea going for the benefit of some corporation.
Ah, but I'm rambling again... *sigh* I just get so frustrated with the way things are going these days (which has gotten much worse since 9/11)... my girlfriend thinks I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist... I'm simply making observations.
And after a firewall ? (Score:2)
Re:And after a firewall ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, they know how easy it is to change or mask IP addresses, and how (particularly for dialup users), banning an IP can punish a lot more people than just the original offender.
So, in the mind of some idiot who failed his CSC networking class before he went to business school, he figured "Hey, MAC addresses are unique! Let's grab that, and ban based on that!"
Just like back then, he didn't do his homework. As others have pointed out:
1) These days, altering your MAC address at run-time is easy, either on your machine or at a router (which is a common component of broadband connections these days)
2) Hackers will have little trouble cracking this "closed source" program, so they can make it emit any or a random MAC address, rather than the machine's actual MAC address. This will not affect connectivity, since its use in this context has nothing to do with the actual connection to the server.
3) If all else fails, network cards are dirt cheap; cheaters/griefers that can't manage #1 or #2 will just buy another network card.
Basically, this "solution" will only keep out the stupidest and poorest grief players. Smart cheaters won't be affected; smart NON-cheaters will probably hack the thing just to show them what a bad idea it was.
I've yet to see an access control system that can't be broken or circumvented; this one doesn't even come close.
Xentax
Hah! Won't work for me! (Score:4, Funny)
And im not joking:
http://gambit32.org/albums/other/aag.jpg
Re:Exposing myself. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe not such a bad thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not going too far. The game server admins can run the server however they choose fit. If you don't like the rules, don't use the server!
However, the majority of people don't know how to reset their MAC addresses. Also, as I believe to be true, some broadband providers specifically use MAC addresses to verify access. For instance, my Comcast cable modem does everything by MAC, so if I change my NIC in my machine, I need to power off/on the cable modem in order to get back through to the Internet. Although this is sort of a minor issue, some other ISPs may be more strict about MAC changes.
Overall, the admins figure they will cut out 99% of the hacking attempts as people would just go elsewhere, or once they did cheat, just wouldn't know how to change their MAC.
Re:Maybe not such a bad thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the digital age, where knowledge can be cristallized into programs, and where the majority of people will soon be able to reenable their access to the gaming server by running some magic program without ever knowing what a MAC address is.
Kristian
High road to the Locked Down Computer(tm) (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether it's in the name of catching cheaters or catching terrorists, our freedom and autonomy are about to evaporate.
Re:High road to the Locked Down Computer(tm) (Score:3, Funny)
Modems (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Modems (Score:3, Informative)
When you're dialed up it won't be able to find a MAC address. They could try and use something else unique, like your intel number on p3's and higher (sorry, forgot the actual name), or they could hash together a bunch of information from your bios and stuff.
There's no way it could get any information off the server you're dialed into. Hell, they may not even be running ethernet (MAC addresses are how ethernet addresses packets. It's not used by TCP/IP or UDP/IP)
Easy way to find out if you're cheating on dial-up (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, duh...
NAT routers (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what they'll do when they discover several simultaneous connections to the server (and sessions) from the same MAC?
IPv6 == MAC address (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, presently, you can probably change the MAC address of your system. However, once software vendors and DRM technologies and other things start locking themselves to your computer hardware, I suspect changing the MAC address would cause problems. The only thing this game company has to do is when the game is installed is to lock the licence to the present MAC address so it will not run with a changed IP address without a new licence.
Re:IPv6 == MAC address (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite:
(my emphasis) From ripe-246 - http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv6policy.html
...it's really not that hard... (Score:5, Informative)
windows2000faq [windows2000faq.com]
-advanced tab in adapter properties
linux
eepro100 list [geocrawler.com]
-ifconfig eth0 hwaddr ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
this is exactly why microsoft's registration process uses a lot more than just the mac address.
Re:...it's really not that hard... (Score:3, Informative)
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Quake III has recently enabled anti-cheat software called Punk Buster. It does a ban via your Quake III CD-Key, so you can't play on any Punk Buster enabled servers if you get banned. But with the game under $20 at BestBuy, I'm not sure if it will stop many of the problems.
NICs are sometimes shipped with duplicate MACs (Score:5, Insightful)
Under most circumstances, this is seldom an issue since the NICs aren't likely to be deployed on the same network segment. However, when the MAC is used for other tracking services (in this case, a layer-2 NAT), you have a problem.
And of course, as others have said, most NICs permit the factory MAC to be overridden.
Re:NICs are sometimes shipped with duplicate MACs (Score:3, Informative)
Due to quirky differences between the NE1000 and NE2000 cards, it was possible for the card to present an incorrect MAC address which would be identical across all cards if either the driver wasn't written correctly or the specification badly cloned.
I saw this problem myself many years ago on a Banyan network. Updated card drivers resolved this.
OSS or not OSS, that is apparently not the Q here! (Score:3, Interesting)
Neither is windows for playing many of todays top-selling titles. I want an outcry here but I don't see it. Is it because software not being open source does not matter to the average user or is it because people are too ignorant to care? It is funny to see an outcry when a company tries to stop actual cheating which spoils the game for all, instead of putting energy where it matters.
out of line! (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for answering that one for us. Without your moral framework we would be lost in the chaotic hell of self determination.
As Stupid as Gun Control (Score:3, Informative)
Here, they're saying "we're going to introduce a software "lock" that will prevent you from cheating." Great. So the people who want to cheat in the game are going to (say it with me now)
Are the people who wrote this bit of client-side [*cough*] security really under the impression that MAC addresses are immutable? Perhaps they know damned well it isn't but was kinda hoping that nobody would tell their client? This has the earmark of an initiative by some dip in a suit who never bothered to consult a single knowledgable, technical person.
Whatever. It might take two days before a patch/spoofer is readily available for the habitual cheaters. All it has to do is spit out a fake MAC address when queried.
Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheaters aren't a problem in Multiplayer Action. (Score:5, Interesting)
And when you're playing on a public server, cheaters are easyly identified by playing like crap and either scoring immediate kills once they actually *do* manage to hit or by simply not throwing the towel no matter how many times you flak them at point-blank. Both area mostly less than minor drags to a skilled player and have a somewhat funny aspect to it.
I've seen entire matches in UT (1st) where cheaters we're just plain ignored because of the simply fact their skill level (not trained by playing under real conditions) rendered them something more like 'moving obstacles' rather than actuall participants.
Anyhow, some one using more subtle cheats, such as see-through textures or so, can be anoying. Then on the other hand, if you're that good to know for shure that someone is using such a cheat, you'll be playing clan games most of the time anyway. And I haven't met a single Clan player cheating yet. At least none of mentionable Clans.
BTW: I once had a cheater on my team in a pub UT CTF match. I switched sides and telefragged him 'til he gave up and disconnected. That was fun.
There is only one way to truly combat cheating. (Score:3, Interesting)
it DOES remove the threat of wallhacks and clientside radars but a good game protocol shouldnt send information about things outside of the clients vision anyway.
K
My MAC is 00:00:00:37:33:73 (Score:5, Funny)
Why MAC? (Score:3, Insightful)
Changeable MACs (Score:3, Funny)
It won't work (Score:3, Funny)
1) Many windows drivers let you put in arbitrary MAC's. Ban me? No prob, I'll change it to something else.
2) Many firewalls will let you do the same thing.
3) Ethernet cards cost what...a dollar or two at a used computer swap meet? If it comes down to it just keep a stack of 10.
It appears this is intended to catch people clever enough to cheat, but not clever enough to change their MAC address.
Another example of poorly contructed solutions to a badly defined problem.
Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Once nobody can connect they wont be able to use the system anymore. Shouldnt take too long if a few people here help out.
"Trust" and online games using GPG trust rings. (Score:3, Interesting)
If you get on the bad list, you can make a new key, but you have to start from scratch paying dues or otherwise earning "member in good standing" status.
Thanks again Phil!
What's the Big Deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anonymity and privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
-Thomas
I don't have a MAC address (Score:3, Funny)
Anonymity and responsibility (Score:3, Insightful)
-Thomas
New way to remove honest players (Score:5, Funny)
I'll just assume their MAC address, misbehave like hell. Their MAC gets banned, and I get rid of the losers.
Alone, I shall reign through spite and malice.
ifconfig man pages (Score:5, Insightful)
Since changing the MAC address would allow a cheater to circumvent access controls
Then are the ifconfig man pages now illegal in the US under the DMCA?
Not just for gaming (Score:5, Informative)
Better idea (Score:3, Interesting)
"FuckStar31337 is using a wireframe hack. Press K to cast your Kick Vote."
Sure, I could get booted out of games arbitrarily by assholes, but I wouldn't want to play with said assholes, anyway. Not that I've even played a game since about 1999...
Neverwinter Nights has a much better method (Score:4, Interesting)
Teh CD keys are also an effective anti-piracy measrure, and one that isn't bothersome to legit users. When you are using the game for local play, the CD key doesn't matter, it's never checked. When you play on the Internet, however, the CD key is authenticated.
When you first go to play multiplayer games, you client talks to the master server and lets it know what it's key is, the server chekcs and authenticates this against its list. Then, when you connect to a server the server checks your key, and asks the master if this is a legit key and if that key has authenticated. If not, the server refuses the connection.
Hence, you can ban a CD key, and be very certian that the person it belongs to has been completely banned. Things like key generators aren't effective because while they can know the algortihm used to make legit keys, the keyspace is huge and they have no way of knowing which are actually legit and which aren't.
So it ends up working out pretty nice for both parties. Bioware gets some copyprotection that there is actually a reason for srever owners to want to use.
And Quake 3, Half Life, and a host of other games. (Score:3, Informative)
However, Quake 3 and related games have a CD Key system as well, and their keys are much more cryptographically secure. They have a legal keyspace in the trillions, making it very difficult to generate valid keys.
The system works. You can crack the game to make the key unnecessary, but you cannot crack all the Internet servers you could connect to. So a warez monkey can only play the game in single player or on a LAN, not on random Internet servers.
Howto change MAC in Win (Score:4, Informative)
A. Each network adapter card has a MAC address, which machines on local subnets use to talk to each other. MAC addresses are usually burned into the adapters during the manufacturing process. To overwrite a network adapter card's default MAC address, perform the following steps:
1. Start the registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servi
3. From the Edit menu, select New - String Value.
4. Type a name of NetworkAddress, and press Enter.
5. Double-click the new value, and enter the adapter's new MAC value.
6. Click OK.
7. Close the registry editor.
8. Reboot the machine.
This makes me very happy- One should be able to deliver their cutting remarks and wage psychiological warfare upon the weak with one liners like "Yeah thats what your mom did last night, cock jocky."
That is the essence of multiplayer gaming, and any attempt to deprive us of that should be fought bitterly.
Re:Changable? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Changable? (Score:5, Funny)
If you have brains, you can save $10...
Mark
Re:Changable? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Shh... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Shh... (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, no you won't. The only time MAC addresses make a difference is in ARP packets, and the only place MAC addresses make a difference is on your local LAN segment. The fact that two people in different cities have the same MAC address matters not a whit to the routers between them.
Re:Shh... (Score:2)
>Uh, no you won't. The only time MAC addresses make a difference is in ARP packets, and the only place MAC addresses make a difference is on your local LAN segment. The fact that two people in different cities have the same MAC address matters not a whit to the routers between them.
Re:Shh... (Score:5, Informative)
But if you're on the same segment, then routing is not an issue.
As noted, the answer is trivial: generate random MAC addresses. They are 6 bytes long - plenty of room for everyone to tumble the address every day and still not collide.
Re:Shh... (Score:4, Interesting)
Off-topic, but I used to do that when I had a cable modem. One day, however, I typo'd the ifconfig command on FreeBSD, and accidentally took over the router's IP (I mixed up my IP with the gateway IP). My phone promptly rang... they didn't much like that. Seems I took out service for the whole area, and they had to reset the router.
Good thing this was before 9/11 and all the crazy computer crime laws...
Re:Shh... (Score:2, Interesting)
If two interfaces do choose the same MAC address, and by some freak accident happen to be on the same Ethernet, doesn't it just affect frames sent to those two interfaces? Everyone else can communicate as normal.
(In practice the new address may not be random, there may be certain digits you have to leave alone, I don't know the details.)
Details (Score:3, Insightful)
However, you can tell the OS to report a different MAC. That's what "changing your MAC" means, it doesn't actually change the MAC on the card, but it changes what the OS reports.
This is also a good example of why Palladium and trusted computing can't have just any old OS running on a computer. DRM requires complete control, not just a little bit of special software.
Re:Details (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shh... (Score:5, Informative)
This is big.
If there's many cards on a network, and you want to know how many total you can add before two of them will end up with the same card, the answer's far smaller -- 2^24, which is still pretty huge(it's a bit more than 16 million). It's a different problem because each time you add a new card, the card after has one more it can possibly match with. This is known as the birthday paradox, so named because this precise logic means that given 23 people in a room, there's a +50% chance that two people have the same birthday. Each new person is one more to match with.
In reality, this is a moot point: MAC address prefixes are assigned by manufacturer, and the manufacturer serializes their cards such that no two shipped devices should ever have the same MAC address. Sometimes there are screwups, but they're pretty rare as far as I know.
To debunk what a couple people are saying -- yes, MAC addresses as exposed to the network can be changed, but MAC addresses as detected by custom client software may be more tricky. Whatever the driver is exposing to the network, the card itself can't usually have its MAC address written over(i.e. once power is cycled, that card's returning to original shipped condition). I'm positive there are exceptions to this, but they're probably rare.
Actually, this gives me an interesting idea. You can probably remotely fingerprint the age of a computer based on the MAC address of its ethernet card...and if IPV6's MAC->IP shove goes through, you'll be able to do that reasonably remotely!
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:Shh... (Score:3, Informative)
Just so you know. There are loads of 3Com-cards that you can permanently change the mac address of. I have one with an address of 42:42:42:42:42:42, another one with 00:DE:AD:BE:EF:00.
You can change that together with the rest of the card settings with a program running in dos-mode (3c5x9cfg.exe, get it from 3com.com). It's saved in eeprom or something like that. Very nice cards :)
Re:Shh... (Score:3, Funny)
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Re:How is that possible? (Score:2)
Re:How is that possible? (Score:3, Informative)
All the NICs I've looked store the MAC in a very obvious format in the chip, whithout any pesky checksums to fix up - I recently used this method to simplify swapping 2 PCs off one cable modem.
As the NIC controller chip can read from the eeprom, chances are it can also be made to write to it as well, so it's probably possible to write a program to change the MAC without any hardware twiddling - a read of the chip;s data sheet would probably show you how.
Re:How is that possible? (Score:3, Informative)
It is stored on a PROM on the card. And the driver reads it, and stores it in computer memory. Then you go into the driver settings and override it, assuming the driver allows that; it's up to the driver.
The NIC never sends its MAC out on its own. The MAC is incorporated into the packet by the driver. The driver can send whatever the hell it wants to for the MAC address.
In Windows the changeablility of the MAC address depends on your driver. On my Dell laptop it's as easy as going into the NIC's properties and changing the number. On my desktop here at work I don't see an obvious way to do it.
Under Linux I think it's just ifconfig with some options.
Re:Nastyhunting will get a little easier... (Score:3, Interesting)
An interesting question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now we all know that that cheating in online games is for the most part a Bad Thing (tm). We all remember the original Quake bots (my personal favorite was the StoogeBot) that required a certain measure of circumventing of built-in precautions. Generally when people were caught, they heard about it. Flames, kicks, bans, you name it.
Now we have issues of people using similar circumventions to get around copy protection instead of anti-cheating measures. I realize that this isn't exactly the same thing, but the two scenarios have a common theme: people using third-party software to use a product in a manner in which it was never intended.
What I find amusing is that generally (at least on Slashdot) the circumvention of copy protection is usually regarded as a Good Thing (tm), but becomes less desirable when it comes to games.
Could it be that third-party circumvention is a good thing as long as it doesn't negatively affect you?
Re:Why not use internet Public Key Infrastructures (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, if the game was critically dependent on online functionality, you could let the game go free on the net and just sell CD-Keys. If any small projects want to try to make it big without the potentially crippling barrier to entry into mass distributers, this would be the way I would think... Stick it on Gnutella and let people *think* it is illegal to download and its popularity could be good...