Ethernet Address

[jrcplanet]

I am a newbie to UNIX and to Mac OS X, but no stranger at all to the OS 9.2.2. and below. Here is my dilema:

I attend a private college where a program called Surf Control is used to block students from going to Napster, Audio Galaxy, etc. The campus is also run on an IBM base and deals in IBM THink Pads. Well, that leave me and several other Mac users on campus in a sticky situation
Curf Control blocks EVERY site was try to load from CNN.com to Apple.com There is no way around it that we can tell. They program locates our Hardware address and used that to block us. However, I have been informed by people I trust that there is a way to either mask or change your Hardware IP address. Is this so? If so, how do you go about it in OS X?

-J.C.

[jrcplanet]

Did I just ask a really stupid question? Could someone be nice enough to tell me I am the biggest bonehead since Gil Amelio? Thanks

Jonathan

[xchanyazy]

You're not the biggest bonehead since Gil, I (for one) am just not sure what your situation is. Is your specific computer blocked because you used napster/etc. at some point in time earlier? Or is the server just rejecting you because you have a mac? Have you talked to the network people at your school? More specifics, please.

[jrcplanet]

Thank God someone not only replied, but got my joke. Anyway xchanyazy, here is my dilema in more detail.

My campus has a little thing called a laptop program. You have to lease an IBM Thinkpad from them for an outrageous price (compared to state institutions) and use that for all your days here at Cornerstone Uinversity. Now, I own a PB G3 Firewire. They do not want people who do nat have one of the celeron laptops to have acess so when I dropped down to below full time status, I was stripped my precious IBM Thinkpad.
Now, I run a student news orginiaztion and we stream our broadcasts and I use Final Cut Pro 3 to do a lot of editing and I manage a web site using iTools. You can't do that thourhg the WYSE terminals they give us here. Now, what they have done is tkaen my hardware adress and used Surf Control to block me from acessing anything and I am stuck with a dial up connection from my room. Since I deal with large files and streaming, I can't do it anymore due to the dial-up connection.
I hope this helps.
The long and the short of it is, I want to know if there is anyway possible in which OS X can either mask or make a different ethernet address on the network. They use WIN 2000 for the system, and any other specs you need I can get.
As for talking to our Client Support, they don't have a problem with students having their own laptops, they just don't want you to use them on the network. You can only use your Thinkpads. I am not the only mac user on the campus besides, so i represent about 9 others. Thanks again xchanyazy, let me know what you think.

-J.C.

[brodie]

the only way i can think of is to use another ethernet card, ie a router/hub. im not sure how they 'see' yout ethernet address but if its through packets i guess theres a software solution, dont know what it would be though, sorry.

[xchanyazy]

hmm, that's quite the stupid policy.. at U of M we just had to pay 50 bucks to activate the hub. Well, short of getting the University to change its policies, I'm not too sure of what you can do. If you know of someone that's willing, you could set up a hub with one of the ThinkPad's, and then connect through the thinkpad. There is possibly another way, for instance you could possibly block the port where they send the packets. Hopefully someone that knows a little more could help you out on this?

[Dr-NiKoN]

You can of course disguize your MAC-address.
It is possible. It is not wise, but it's possible.
I have also heard of some people doing it.

Where to find the software or knowledge to do it is another thing.

google.com? :)

nikon

[mksmith]

Originally posted by brodie
the only way i can think of is to use another ethernet card, ie a router/hub. im not sure how they 'see' yout ethernet address but if its through packets i guess theres a software solution, dont know what it would be though, sorry.

They are probably filtering on the Ethernet ID for IBM (Thinkpads). They can set up an Access List on their routers and/or switches that drops all frames that don't come from a MAC address with the first 3 Bytes that match one of the IBM ID's.

Check out http://www.epanorama.net/documents/lan/ethernet_address.html for the addresses.

So, one way to spoof the MAC address would be to put a router in front of your connection that will allow you to change the MAC address on the ethernet port and then NAT behind that. Certainly not graceful...

You might also talk to the admins of the network and see if they will open up their filters to your MAC address.

Mike