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Always the same MAC addresses on LAN

T

Tweaky

Junior Member
Hi,

I have a few questions because there are some strange things going on and hope someone can give me an explanation for it.
I noticed that whenever I connect to the internet that most of the MAC addresses as can be seen in the screenshot are connected to the same LAN.
untitljrj.png

I'm traveling and move from country to country so how is it possible that I always see the same MAC addresses?
Why am I not seeing the MAC addresses of other travelers?
The MAC addresses which are marked with XX are from the router and from my laptop.

I hope someone can give me an explanation how this is possible.
Please let me know if you need more technical details.

Regards,
Nick
 
Local private IPs has nothing to do with country or location.

The IP subnet 192..168.1x is one of the most common Local Subnet and used by many Routers.

As you know cars in diff rent countries has the same Driving Wheel too.

MAC addresses are embed in the Computers hardware and do not change either.

If the xx:xx:xx:xx are your MAC addressees you clearly see other MAC addresses in your screen shut.

If there is something functional on your mind ask it, otherwise it Not clear what you are wasting your time on.


😎
 
I think something is not clear. The MAC addresses marked with XX are manually changed be me because I prefer to keep this hidden. I'm not talking about spoofing, I just changed the real MAC address from my laptop and the router to XX.XX etc. in the picture. So what I'm interested to know is how can it be possible that I see most of the time the same MAC addresses from several different devices on a LAN. I'm not using a VPN connection.
 
What else is connected to your LAN? If you're connecting the same devices to your LAN, then you'll see the same MAC addresses.

Why do you expect to see MAC addresses for "other travelers"?
 
Either:

1) They're not really the same.
2) A group of people is following you. (Coworkers, hopefully.)
3) You have Virtual Machines set up and each one is using a spoofed MAC (so your laptop is actually showing a bunch of MACs to the network and grabbing an IP for each one) so you are actually seeing the same half dozen MACs, but they're all you.
4) You're on a VPN but don't realize it, and the MACs you see are the other devices on the VPN. (If you're using a work laptop and traveling for work, this is most likely.)
 
seepy83 said:
What else is connected to your LAN? If you're connecting the same devices to your LAN, then you'll see the same MAC addresses.

Why do you expect to see MAC addresses for "other travelers"?
Click to expand...

If I ran a network snooping utility like NirSoft's WakeMeOnLAN, in a hotel, I would see the MAC address of the other people in the hotel. (Who are presumably traveling.)
 
dave_the_nerd said:
If I ran a network snooping utility like NirSoft's WakeMeOnLAN, in a hotel, I would see the MAC address of the other people in the hotel. (Who are presumably traveling.)
Click to expand...

He said he blacked out the addresses for his laptop and his router. If he's behind his router, then he's only going to see MAC addresses for whatever else is behind (on the LAN side of) his router...Layer 2.
 
OP! What do you think is going to happened if your real MAC addy will be shown?



😎
 
Last edited:
Try typing this at an administrative-level command shell:

arp -d *


This will flush your arp cache. Does that make the list of MAC addresses change?

What software are you using to see this list?

When you travel, doesn't the IP address change? (most hotels won't use 192.168.1.x)
 
seepy83 said:
He said he blacked out the addresses for his laptop and his router. If he's behind his router, then he's only going to see MAC addresses for whatever else is behind (on the LAN side of) his router...Layer 2.
Click to expand...

The question is... why is he behind his own router when he's at a hotel?
 
Well, the OP never actually said anything about a Hotel. Sure, he said he was travelling from country to country, so maybe you want to assume he's in hotels.

All I saw from the OP was that he knows his router is at 192.168.1.1 and his laptop is at 192.168.1.6, and he blacked out the MAC addresses for those (due to, most likely, misinformed paranoia). Since the rest of the IPs that are shown are on the same subnet, they certainly look like other devices attached to his Router's LAN.

If that screenshot he showed is the router's web interface showing its own ARP table, then maybe his router is storing that info in NVRAM and it's saving old/bad data from location to location. If that's the case, there may be a way that he can purge it..
 
Is this a screenshot of the DHCP client list in your router? If so, you are most likely just seeing stored information from existing/old DHCP leases. My Netgear router doesn't remove lease information from its list (even for expired leases) until it actually gives that IP address to a different device.
 
seepy83 said:
Well, the OP never actually said anything about a Hotel. Sure, he said he was travelling from country to country, so maybe you want to assume he's in hotels.

All I saw from the OP was that he knows his router is at 192.168.1.1 and his laptop is at 192.168.1.6, and he blacked out the MAC addresses for those (due to, most likely, misinformed paranoia). Since the rest of the IPs that are shown are on the same subnet, they certainly look like other devices attached to his Router's LAN.

If that screenshot he showed is the router's web interface showing its own ARP table, then maybe his router is storing that info in NVRAM and it's saving old/bad data from location to location. If that's the case, there may be a way that he can purge it..
Click to expand...

Yeah, if it's from the router, it's probably old DHCP leases, which can persist..... well... forever, but has no bearing on whether or not the PC is currently connected, obviously.
 
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