Tracking users using MAC address
 

I was told by a programmer user can be tracked using their MAC address. Is this true, could you track someone like that instead of IP or cookies?

Also, do you think google is capably of tracking you using your MAC address?

Thanks

To do so you have collect a world-wide database of MAC-s. Google is collecting it all the time.

Here is a solution how to avoid tracking of your MAC. Browse internet from a virtual machine ;)

They can view your gateway MAC at best, not the endpoint

browserstack? :)

Perhaps they mean tracking smartphones by their wifi MAC address. There's a company in London which is working on targeting advertising by doing this. They even suggest using multiple mini access (snoop) points to determine how long someone sits at a bar, or which restroom they go into. By linking these access points together they can gradually build up a profile of the person.

With regards to Google, I don't know of any way that a stock web browser would reveal a MAC address to a remote site. A malicious plugin or malware could do this, of course.

Open https://maps.google.com/ or http://maps.yandex.ru/ and click "on show my location". Make sure that geo tracking is enabled in your browser (e.g. in FireFox: about:config -> geo.enabled and geo.wifi.uri). So if you are on wifi, you'll see your exact location on those maps even if your PC has no GPS module.

Google Chrome and other browsers do the same. Furthermore, geo tracking is always enabled by default.

Wifi based geo tracking is done by your browser reporting back *other* MACs it sees.

For tracking, fingerprinting is the way forward.

Fixed it for you.

Exactly. That's why the one needs a huge database of MAC's. Google, Microsoft, Apple, Secret Services and others have it already.

Biometrics is going to be great when they get it working, in the meantime, browser/os fingerprinting is a pretty good option.

Yes, exactly. So the browser does not pass the MAC address?

It can, using Java applets, I believe.

I'm not so sure, really. On the face of it, phoning home your own MAC would seem a bit silly, especially if you're on a mobile device, but I guess it could be used as a tie-breaker if there wasn't sufficient data to be confident.

If the desktop you're using is running "host AP" software then Google and other *cough*mapping*cough* companies will have captured its MAC and SSID as they drove past, just like any other AP.

It's probably not an option for what you are looking for.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1...ing-javascript
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9...eb-application

Fingerprinting can be fairly effective though:

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

I have an odd ball setup and mine was unique among the 3.2 million tested so far.