----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Helms" <khelms@zcorum.com>
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said:
I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since.
Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth.
I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address....
It's very scary, and something I'm doing a paper on. It _is_ just MAC recognition, at least until you try and use a MAC address that's already active somewhere else.
MAC cloning isn't all *that* common, at least not for that usage. The fact that it is *possible* provides some nice cover in certain circumstances, I would guess. As for "something else on my laptop", I'm not sure what else they could see; I'd be surprised if they could get anything to run on SuSE 12.2. :-) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274