How Do I Find The Pandoras Mac Address

[BaDToaD]

I secure my home wifi with MAC address filtering so how will I find out the MAC address of my Pandora when it arrives. Just thought I'd ask before I get it. I don't want to be pulling my hair out on the day LOL.

 

[hells_dark]

ipconfig in a shell ?

 

[Hooka]

ifconfig, linux knows nothing of this ipconfig you speak of...

 

[fettouhi]

Open a terminal and type

iwconfig

that should give the name of the wifi connections on your pandora, i.e. the wifi chip. Then you type

ifconfig <name of wifi connection>

for example

ifconfig eth0

 

[BaDToaD]

Yay that's pretty easy then thanks

 

[torpor]

Use ifconfig -a .. look for the "HWaddr" field ..

 

[mindlord]

For people with "Terminal Fear":

Right Click the Network Manager Icon by the clock.
Left Click Edit Connections...
Select the Wireless Tab
Make sure the Wireless adapter is selected and click Edit
MAC Address is right there.

 

[skeezix]

"ifconfig wlan0" would do it

Anyone want to slap this tidbit, and mindlord UI approach, up in the unofficial wiki so its not lost forever?

jeff

 

[BaDToaD]

I've just saved the thread as a .mht to cut and paste from when I've got a min. Cheers all!

 

[Tor]

I secure my home wifi with MAC address filtering [...]

Note that you don't secure anything with MAC filtering. The only thing you gain with MAC filtering is more hassle for yourself because of having to maintain that MAC address list. For no security gain whatsoever. What you should do is simply to use WPA encryption. Easy to set up, easy to add new device (connect, give passphrase, done.)

 

[Caine]

Indeed. Whenever any machine in your network sends a message, the MAC address is transmitted unencrypted. All it takes to circumvent MAC address filters is to sniff a single packet and replace ones own MAC address. This can be done in seconds.

Sorry to say it, but if you rely on this for security then you are deluding yourself.

 

[bce23w]

I think MAC filtering is one of those security features to keep out opportunistic breaches, rather than serious efforts. The average person looking for free wifi isn't going to bother to sniff packets, and may not even know what a packet is.

I noticed in Puerto Rico that every house had a fence and a gate, to keep people from opportunistically stealing whatever crap was in the yard. Obviously, people who really wanted to rob you could easily scale these fences, but they weren't there to keep out committed robbers.

Or think of The Club or the more expensive bike locks: you *can* cut through them, but why bother when there's another car or bike without one two feet away?

 

[Aninhumer]

I think MAC filtering is one of those security features to keep out opportunistic breaches, rather than serious efforts. The average person looking for free wifi isn't going to bother to sniff packets, and may not even know what a packet is.

You can achieve the same thing with an encrypted connection, and you don't need to reconfigure your router every time you get a new device.
Oh and as a plus, if you use WPA, it's secure against more determined people too. (unless they cracked it recently)
EDIT: That said though, I did use a hidden SSID as my "security" for a while, back when Linux had poorer WiFi support.

 

[BaDToaD]

I actually use WEP as well. Why don't you use WPA I hear you ask. Well I have an old Palm TH55 that doesn't support WPA so I figured WEP and MAC address filtering has to be better than just WEP. If I end up using the Pandora for all of my portable needs then I will probably retire the TH55 and move to WPA.

 

[Aninhumer]

I actually use WEP as well. Why don't you use WPA I hear you ask. Well I have an old Palm TH55 that doesn't support WPA so I figured WEP and MAC address filtering has to be better than just WEP. If I end up using the Pandora for all of my portable needs then I will probably retire the TH55 and move to WPA.

I think the WEP is probably enough.
Anyone who can run the cracking tools necessary to break it can spoof a MAC address no problem.

 

[skeezix]

MAC filtering is great; its the same as when ytou get a security system, and you put a sticker in the window. Its not advertising -- its when someone peeps in the window and sees the sticker, they go rob the next house instead. Sometimes all you need is a sticker

MAC filtering doesn't stop nerds; it is the prickles on the weed that stops you from walking there -- in my area, 5-10 AP's come up at ay given time (which is annoying,m they use up too many channels , and half of them are open. So a MAC filtered one will be ever so slightly annoying, and people will go elsewhere.

Its not security, but its a roadbump.

jeff

 

[Caine]

Any form of encryption, even WEP, will achieve exactly the same effect (and more). As Aninhumer pointed out, the encryption has even higher convenience as you don't need to register MAC addresses every time you get a new device.

The casual user just looking for a free access point gives up immediately if any form of security is involved. The attacker which attempts to break WEP will get a valid MAC address he can use the moment he discovers your WiFi network.

MAC address filtering adds absolutely nothing. WEP + MAC address filtering == WEP.

 

[Poem58]

Yet, strangely though I had to keep it set a WEP for some things like my PDA etc.
Someone managed to hop on to my wireless anyway, so one would assume he cracked WEP to do it.
I enabled the MAC filtering, and he never logged on again. Maybe he cracked WEP and was proud of himself and when blocked, spoofing the MAC address just didn't occur to him? In any case, he never came back. So it may seem pointless, yet may be enough to confuse the budding hacker!? So I guess it doesn't hurt. Also, it never caused me any kind of additional problems to use MAC filtering, not sure what those would be. (I only say that cause of previous posts saying it just causes more problems/difficulties)

 

[WizardStan]

MAC address filtering adds absolutely nothing.

It does one very important thing for me: adds to my routers log that an unauthorized host tried to connect; or in the event it's been cloned already, that a given MAC address is reconnecting when it was already connected. Without MAC filtering, it doesn't log those alerts, because it's not even checking them. At the very least, it's additional evidence that someone broke into my wifi should it ever be required.

 

[cbox]

I use just MAC address filtering on my network, more just to keep the average losers in my apt. complex from stealing my connection than anything, they aren't geeks who know how to do MAC address spoofing. And also because my DS doesn't support encryption.