macchanger: Ready for the masquerade

I am at times a paranoiac, which may or may not be a good thing.

Most recently I find myself masking my MAC address on public networks, not because I am inherently a bad person, but because I expect network admins (and government agents) to be checking.

I know that a pretend MAC address is the least measure of anonymity, but I also figure it’s a reasonable step to take in a public environment.

To that end — and the point of this spiel — is macchanger.

I first learned about macchanger a few years ago, while tinkering with aircrack-ng. And no, I will not justify my need to use aircrack-ng. 👿

Swapping out a MAC address is fairly easy — the A flag (sometimes coupled with the b flag) assigns a random number with a predetermined vendor.

And that’s it. It only takes a second and like I said, gratifies my paranoiac streak.

Will it save you persecution if you’re stranded in a Moscow airport? No, of course not.

But why not take a second or two, and wear a small disguise? You never know when that might be important. 😐