If I am connected with a wireless conection in a public place can my
computer be traced?  I know my IP address will be assigned to me from
the router and any page I visit will show the IP address of the router
and not my individual PC. As soon as I walk away I am not connected.
Do web pages collect MAC numbers that are unique to my PC?

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Clarification of Question by aatrainer-ga on 12 Oct 2005 07:35 PDT

Thank you colinl-ga for clarifying this issue for me, it was very
helpful.  But this leads to another question.  If the only identifier
you have on a wireless network is a mac address (after it is provided
by the network in question), can that mac address be searched on the
net to other networks to determine the home base for that mac address.
 If so the a specific pc could be traced, am I correct?

>Do web pages collect MAC numbers that are unique to my PC?

Web pages *might*, but wireless networks definitely do.  I have a
small wireless network at home, and it shows the login times (and MAC
addresses) of each time I connected.

Someone could (theoretically) take that MAC address and do a search
for it, but it would be pretty hard to find you out of the MAC address
alone.  They may be able to figure out what brand of laptop you were
using, maybe even the make and model, but thats probably about as far
as it would go.

Now, they could be logging the time you spend on their wireless
network, what you did online, etc.  But unless you accidentally
installed a keylogger software, they won't know exactly what you did,
what you typed.

hope that helps,
Brady173

If I am connected with a wireless conection in a public place can my
computer be traced?  

Most public places have access points that will log the mac address
(your computer specific harware address) that access the network.  The
access point would also log what IP it assigns that client.


I know my IP address will be assigned to me from the router and any
page I visit will show the IP address of the router and not my
individual PC.
As soon as I walk away I am not connected. Do web pages collect MAC
numbers that are unique to my PC?

No, web pages CAN NOT collect MAC addresses.  This gets more deep into
network topology but... computers are traced on the internet by their
IP address.  When I want to access a web page I will send a packet to
my router... the router will replace the MAC address on the packet
with the routers MAC address.  THUS, a web server will never know your
computers MAC address... that is unless the web server is on your
local network.


The only way to be traced is to find what IP it came from then to ask
the owner of the IP and ask them what MAC address was given that
specific IP.  This is what companies do when there are attacks.

I hope this answers your question