MAC addresses are the 12-digit strings that wireless routers and other network devices use to restrict or open up access to a computer. They’re also a huge pain in the butt sometimes, requiring pen-and-paper manoeuvres and frustrating connection attempts. If you’re running a Windows system, the Online Tech Tips blog has a step-by-step tutorial on “spoofing” your address to something you can remember, or for hooking into a wireless network that’s locked down. The guide is written for Windows XP, but the steps look much the same as they would in Vista.
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Friday, September 12, 2008 at 12:24 PMThis is mostly a nitpick, but MAC addresses are 6 bytes, and it happens to take 12 hexadecimal digits to represent those 6 bytes. In fact, they are usually represented to humans with either colon or hypen separated bytes, not a long string like your screenshot.