Improving YOUR Online Security [Windows 10 & 11, Randomize your WiFi address]

market-ticker.or ^ | 8/22/2024 | Karl Denninger

[ransomnote]

Its a small difference, but a real one.

Go into your operating system and for all WiFi connections set MAC address randomization.

For Windows 11 it is under Network & Internet -> WiFi right at the bottom -- "Random hardware addresses."

For Android it is on by default for WiFi connections -- check all of them you use, and it should be on.

I suspect IOS on Macs has a similar feature.

Unfortunately for most systems there is no similar setting for hardware connections (e.g. cabled.)

This didn't used to matter much in the world of IPv4 because MAC addresses do not travel beyond the local network.  They have to be unique within the local network domain (e.g. your WiFi access point or similar) because that's how the network builds the mapping table so it knows what IP address (for example) goes to what machine.  Since they never leave the local domain the only real value in the IPv4 universe was preventing some local actor from mapping recurring device presence in a given place.  It would take a great deal of effort to put together any sort of "coalition" between such locations to develop any sort of effective "profiling" capability.

Unfortunately in the IPv6 world this is no longer true. SLACC, which is what most IPv6 networks use for local devices, results in a globally-unique address that is specifically tied to your hardware and is visible anywhere on the Internet you connect to!

So now when you connect to any site on the Internet and are using IPv6 the other end has a globally-unique identifier for your specific device, and unless you can randomize the MAC address it uses you now have dropped a "breadcrumb" that identifies your specific machine.

[Taxman]

ping