What are random MAC addresses?
Anew feature on wireless network connections is random MAC addresses. Instead of using the fixed MAC address, the network adapter chooses a random MAC address to connect to the wireless network. This increases security for the wireless user as they cannot be tracked by MAC address.
Now to define some terms that I just used and explain them, so this makes sense.
First the MAC address is an address that is burned in every network device at time of manufacture. It is 12 hexadecimal digits long (uses 0 thru 9 and A thru F). It is a unique number that no other network device has. It is used to get network traffic to the specific machine on the network in the frame. Since it is burned in it is not changeable, although routers already had the ability to appear to use a different MAC address. Essentially it is a serial number.
MAC is Media Access Control. You can look on any network device and see the MAC address. Because the first half of the address is
assigned to the manufacturer, you can go to the FCC web site and use their MAC address tool and type in a MAC address, and it will tell you who made the network device.
IP addresses which you usually hear about are assigned by the network you are on and points to the network.
This feature only works in Windows 10 and 11 in Windows and may be in other operating systems. What happens is that your wireless network adapter when not connected to a wireless network is always looking for wireless networks by broadcasting frames with the MAC address. A threat agent can use the information and be able to track you and also hack the machine. With this feature the network adapter instead of using the burned in MAC address every 10 seconds or so changes the MAC address it is advertising. If a connection is made it stays with the MAC address it had advertised for the session.
There is a range of addresses used for these random MAC addresses (sort of like private IP addresses or APIPA which assigns a 169.254 IP address if no address assigned statically and there is no device assigning addresses like a DHCP server.
The ranges are: (this is probably beyond most of my readers, but for the geeks here is) x can be any hexadecimal number. x2:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx x6:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx xA:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx xE:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
To use this feature in Windows 10 (should be similar in 11) to Settings in the Start menu. Then to Network and Internet. The choose Wi-Fi. Then you will see Random Hardware Addresses and you can turn it on (or off).
Hardware address is just a plainer way of saying MAC address.