Every computer has various network interfaces on it like Ethernet card, Wireless card and other that allow it to communicate with the other computer on the internet. Each network interface on every computer on the internet has a unique MAC addresses are defined by the manufacturer of the computer at time of manufacturing. Different network interface on the same computer will usually have a different unique MAC addresses. It is possible to view the MAC addresses of your own machine by going to MS DOS prompt and typing command "getmac -V" ithout quotes:
C:\Users\Shobhit>getmac -V:
A number of companies, colleges and organizations have a policy on how much data each user can download from internet in a specific amount of time. This is usually done to manage bandwidth and resources on the network. Typically such download limits are enforced by recording the MAC addresses. As soon as a particular MAC address reaches its respective download limit, then their Internet access is taken away.
Once you have reached the download limit assigned to your MAC address, if you want to still continue to download data from Internet, then you can try to change your MAC address to a new MAC address, by a technique called MAC SPOOFING. After that you will be able to fool your network allowing you to download stuff from Internet.
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There is a very cool free utility called "
MacMakeUp" that allows you to easily change your MAC address. Just select the adapter, type the MAC address and click on CHANGE button. You may have to disconnect and reconnect to network for MAC spoofing to come into effect.
Some other Tools that allow MAC spoofing are MAD MACS, ETHER CHANGE, BWMACHAK and others.
If you want to bypass your download limit using MAC spoofing, then normally you have to change your MAC address to that of some other user valid user on the network. So the obvious question now how you can find out somebody else's MAC address. It is quite easy to find out some other user's MAC address by simply running a
data sniffer on your machine to sniff data packets being sent across the network. mine fav tool is
Wireshark .
Once you have change your MAC address and pretend to be some other user then you will be able to continue downloading data as long as the user you are pretending to be does not reaches its download limit. The firewall thinks that some other user is downloading data but in reality its you who is pretending to be someone else.
NOTE: On some networks, administrator have no downloading limit, this means that if you are able to spoof your MAC address and pretend to be administrator then you have unlimited downloading.
