what can you find out with a mac address

Translated to a more understandable language, this means that the MAC addresses will consist of 12 digits (both letters and numbers) divided into 6 pairs usually separated by a colon (although they will not always have this separation). MAC addresses are made up of 48 bits, represented by hexadecimal digits. MAC, or “Media Access Control” is the unique identifier that hardware manufacturers assign to the network card of each of the devices they make in order to be unambiguously identifiable when accessing any network (which of course includes the Internet). In this article we will find out what the MAC address of a device is, what it is for and how to find yours in a very simple way. In fact, you can find it on devices of any brand. Of course, remember that the one called “MAC” has nothing to do with Macintosh computers. This means that 2 24 (= 16.777.216) unique OUAs can be assigned per OUI.What are MAC addresses, what are they for and how to find them?Īt the shadow of the widespread IP addresses, MAC addresses say even more about our devices than its more popular sister.Īs a kind of “identity document for network devices”, a MAC address informs us about “who is who” when connecting to a network.

Bit 25-48 (network adapter identifier): Bits 25 to 48 provide device manufacturers with 24 bits for assigning a unique hardware identifier (organizationally unique address, OUA).

A corresponding service is available, for example, on. The assignment of OUIs is usually public and can be determined via databases.

Bit 3–24 (manufacturer identification): Bits 3 to 24 encode an identifier (organizationally unique identifier, OUI), which is assigned exclusively to hardware manufacturers by IEEE.

Addresses that are only locally unique are called locally administered address (LAA) and are marked with U/L = 1.

If U/L = 0, the address is valid worldwide as a universally administered address (UAA). Bit 2 (registry): The second bit of the MAC address indicates whether it is an address with global validity (universal) or whether the address has been assigned locally (local).Multicast addresses are identified by I/G = 1 and are addressed to several receivers. If I/G = 0, it is a unicast address for a single network adapter. This bit is called I/G (short for individual/group). Bit 1 (receiver): The first bit of the MAC address specifies whether it is an individual or group address.The bit sequence of each MAC address is divided into 4 areas, each of which encodes different information.

What can you find out with a mac address