Maybe first ask yourself why have a MAC address at all, then the answer will come to you.
I find it interesting how many people will stumble over this concept. A lot of technically minded people know that a MAC address is a "unique identifier" for the network card. They have that phrase "unique identifier" fixed in their heads and they know that MACs are this. Pull out a question like "why would you want a unique identifier?" and you get a lot of blank looks. It's almost like it's too easy to latch onto a phrase like "unique identifier" and get distracted from its practical purpose. (That thing that tells you whose packet this is.)
^ This. A MAC address is a link-layer network address, just like an IP address. For example, the ARP protocol[1] uses it to identify devices with a given IP address on a network.
I don't know if this was a concern, but some restaurants set time limits on internet access during certain hours based off of mac addresses. You need a different mac addy to bypass the restriction.
asveikau|11 years ago
I find it interesting how many people will stumble over this concept. A lot of technically minded people know that a MAC address is a "unique identifier" for the network card. They have that phrase "unique identifier" fixed in their heads and they know that MACs are this. Pull out a question like "why would you want a unique identifier?" and you get a lot of blank looks. It's almost like it's too easy to latch onto a phrase like "unique identifier" and get distracted from its practical purpose. (That thing that tells you whose packet this is.)
FredericJ|11 years ago
csixty4|11 years ago
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Resolution_Protocol#Exa...
jarin|11 years ago
jgrowl|11 years ago