Anyone Past Your ISP Cannot See Your MAC, Only Your IP?

[ebayyounexttuesday]

I see it's common belief around that a mac address is seen by the powers that be and therefore changed to prevent linking.

Saw elsewhere a statement emphasized Anyone Past Your ISP Cannot See Your MAC, Only Your IP.

I understand amazon employs even more sophisticated tactics than ebay) along with the explanation: "Some people are worried that their MAC address is visible online. However, the MAC address is only visible to the next hop, as the source and destination MAC address in each packet is changed by every router, setting the source MAC to itself, and the destination to the next hop. So your router can see your PC's MAC address, and your ISP's LNS's MAC address. Your ISP can see your router's MAC address. Anyone Past Your ISP Cannot See Your MAC, Only Your IP.

I'm not going to begin to claim I understand this but it sounds like a valid explanation of why the MAC cannot be seen by Amazon or Ebay. Can anyone with wisdom on this shed some light?

[JRaynor101]

That's correct. There's absolutely no way for any website to see your MAC address(es).

[download3000]

Yea its a big myth that anyone else can see the MAC, the mac id changing can indeed allow your ip to change though.

[ebayyounexttuesday]

Odd it says that Amazon CAN see your Mac address in the Amazon Ghost guide? Do you think that might be outdated or just incorrect?

[GoteBay]

Originally Posted by ebayyounexttuesday

Odd it says that Amazon CAN see your Mac address in the Amazon Ghost guide? Do you think that might be outdated or just incorrect?

It is possible that Amazon can see your mac address.

Authenticating services can have intelligent cookies that will collect information from your computer. In this case, eBay does not seem to do the same.

Based on what I read, AZ seems to be doing it though.

With experience, clients authenticating to a network can have Public IP, Private IP and Mac Address visible. This is not the case here.

[ebayyounexttuesday]

If I use a VPS can they see my Mac?

[donkeykong2012]

Originally Posted by GoteBay

It is possible that Amazon can see your mac address.

Authenticating services can have intelligent cookies that will collect information from your computer. In this case, eBay does not seem to do the same.

Based on what I read, AZ seems to be doing it though.

With experience, clients authenticating to a network can have Public IP, Private IP and Mac Address visible. This is not the case here.

I don't see how that is possible.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but I can't see how cookies can do this.

[GoteBay]

Originally Posted by donkeykong2012

I don't see how that is possible.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but I can't see how cookies can do this.

Remember, I am talking about AUTHENTICATION SERVICES.

[JRaynor101]

Originally Posted by GoteBay

It is possible that Amazon can see your mac address.

Authenticating services can have intelligent cookies that will collect information from your computer. In this case, eBay does not seem to do the same.

Based on what I read, AZ seems to be doing it though.

With experience, clients authenticating to a network can have Public IP, Private IP and Mac Address visible. This is not the case here.

No they can't. The MAC address is only visible to a server if clients on the same LAN segment as the server. Cookies don't have access to this information.

If eBay/Amazon wanted to track your MAC, they'd need you to volunteer the information.

[download3000]

Hmm there is malware that could potential give out the mac address, maybe a flash cookie, but a regular cookie ist a enough.

[JRaynor101]

The kind of software that would give out your MAC address would be red-flagged by both your browser and Virus/spyware scanner, unless it was done as some kind of Java/ActiveX applet - in which case, you would be alerted also quite prominently. Seriously, you'd have to actually find the MAC address yourself and type it out, sending it to the server for it to know it.

[JRaynor101]

ok, I've done some playing.

When someone tries to read your mac address via packet sniffing (This actually happens internally on a network or externally), you will be prompted with an error message like this.

Alternatively, if someone legitimately asks for your MAC, you can see what happens on a page like this. There's a button down the page to click which will run a Java applet with your permission to read it.

[GoteBay]

This inquiry can become very complex; lets put it to rest. Security is usually a controversial topic in IT. I will leave you with Device FingerPrinting.

[JRaynor101]

You can only scan MAC with Active device fingerprinting, which requires the user to be aware of things, to the point where the user has to install software directly.

I know it's a complex field, it was both my University degree and is my current job.

[ebayyounexttuesday]

Wow wee. Both arguments sound very convincing.

[donkeykong2012]

I'm with JRaynor.

It is fascinating stuff. I have learnt so much off this site, but I have never believed any site can get our MAC address without our interaction.

Have a cool weekend everyone.