On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 09:47:31PM +0200, Micha Feigin wrote: > Its actually quite easy to do. I reset mine once when trying to fix a > faulty card. If some sits at a point that they can sniff you network > traffic they can get the mac address from the arp requests and then > change the address on their card.
You're talking about changing the Ethernet card's MAC address, which can be easily done with "ifconfig ethX hwaddr ...", while we're talking about the cable modem's MAC address. The cable modem's MAC address is unique and unchangeable (as the standard dictates), and it's your only form of authentication (proving the right to receive service) and identification to the cable company. Just as they know your eligible for service at all, they can also mark certain MAC addresses as eligible to receive real IP addresses of some ISP. -- Changing the modem's MAC address is supposed to be hard: The customer should be unable to upgrade firmware from his side. Only the cable company can do it (dictated by the standard). So, you're left with the following options: 1. Find a security hole in the modem. Find a way to upgrade firmware through it. 2. Soldier out the Flash chip and reprogram it. 3. Build your own cable modem: build the hardware (a tuner, a modem...), write the software... That's why its considered beyond the reach of the casual service thief or network intruder. -- Oh, and sorry if that "cable networks 101" wasn't needed. Hope someone finds it useful :) ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
