I write down the MAC number for my laptop as security measure. But later on, it heard that we can easily change the MAC number so meaning, the same laptop can have different number. Is it correct and that which way to safeguard my laptop.
I believe it's an EPROM and there is a tool that you can flash over it. I read on it a year or so. You have to flash the chip and you do some stuff. There's some information out there if you google it.
I'm not really sure.. You would think not but I vaguely remember reading the article and I didn't see any valid use for the feature.
I want to say it was on 3Com reusing old MAC addresses and they ran into a problem so they put out some feature that would change the MAC address.
I can't imagine they'd let you change the manufacturer's bit though.
I just did a google search and found someone else who seemed more aware of it that I, but he wasn't detailed himself:
" it IS POSSIBLE to physically change the mac address. but MOST network cards dont support that feature. it requires an eprom (erasable programmable read-only memory). with that it can be done at the physical level."
Which I guess is why I keep thinking the article I read only pertained to 3Com and not others.
Most nics support spoofing your mac address these days. Find your nic in the device manager, choose advanced and select locally administered address or something similar. I have no idea why you'd want to do that unless it's a server though.
It is on the bottom of your laptop because you cant see your actual nic card that is internal.. if you did pull your lappy appart... it would be printed there as well. For proof of property ownership, its a nice thing to have. Good move.