The server that houses Ask Leo!, for example, is (currently) at 50.28.23.175. The internet is just a network, after all – albeit a huge one – and every device connected to it has an IP address. IP addressĪn IP address is assigned to every device on a network, so that device can be located on that network.
The MAC address of your router’s internet connection will show up in packets sent further upstream, until that too is replaced by the MAC address of the next device – likely either your modem or your ISP’s router.īottom line: your MAC address doesn’t make it out very far.Įven if someone knows your MAC address, that knowledge certainly doesn’t help them do anything either good or bad. If you have a router, then your machine’s MAC address will go no further than that. That means that your computer’s network adapter’s MAC address travels the network only until the next device along the way. MAC addresses are typically used only to direct packets from one device to the next as data travels on a network. : 00-1D-60-2F-4B-39Įach network adapter on your computer, including wired and wireless interfaces, has one. It looks something like this: Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2: You can see your network adapter’s MAC addresses by using the command prompt in Windows with the ipconfig /all command.
(I’ll talk about that “should” more in a moment.)
No two anywhere should have the same MAC address.
As you’ll see in a moment, IP addresses are assigned as part of connecting to a network, and MAC addresses are assigned at the time hardware is manufactured.Įven hiding a MAC or IP address is a concept that doesn’t quite apply, but we’ll get in to that too.Īnd whether MAC or IP addresses are hidden or not, they are not the kind of things you should be spending your time worrying about to stay safe from hackers.Ī MAC (or Machine Access Control) address is best thought of as kind of serial number assigned to every network adapter. Well, the last one is easy to answer: there’s no concept of free versus paid IP or MAC addresses.
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