turn usb printer into wireless?

[Angus MacGyver]

On Sat, 2011-01-01 at 02:40 -0800, MR ZenWiz wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 1:04 AM, Angus MacGyver
> <macgyver at calibre-solutions.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> :
> >
> > If you do already have a network, then MAC addresses should be
> > irrelevant really.
> > MAC = Media Access Control - it the theoretically unique hardware
> > address of every network card, and you cannot set it, it is put their by
> > the manufacturer of the network card.
> >

Cough.. "theoretically"
Used that precisely because I know some crappy NIC manufacturers
actually have been known to re-use MAC's... silly people.


> Actually not so much - you can change the MAC address of anything to
> which you have a direct connection. 


Yup - it's called spoofing.
But, unless you have actually changed it on the card from what the
manufacturer burnt in, it's temporary until next reboot. (scripts to
re-set it on reboot not-with-standing)

Not saying you can't re-burn, some NICs one might theoretically be able
to take a re-burn, but in practice the energy a normal person needs to
put in to do that will be higher than a spoof, and for the person in the
original question, chances are they won't be wanting to mess with that.


>  Usually IME it's been as simple
> as a configuration option that asks if I want to set or clone the MAC
> address (e.g., in my router, which was required by the cable internet
> configuration where I live - the cable company only recognizes that
> MAC address and won't even talk to the router unless it has the same
> MAC address as the original PC that the subscriber hooked up
> originally, and this is not unusual).

Yeah - and as spoofing them is so trivial, I seriously don't understand
why these ISP's still require that, it's not like it is enhancing any
security.


> For most flavors of Linux and UNIX, you can change a MAC address with
> ifconfig.  There's usually a file somewhere in /etc that holds the MAC
> address, but that depends on your particular
> installation/distro/network manager.

Again - spoof, OS level, but not hardware level.


--
AM