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TheRealOC's avatar
TheRealOC
Aspirant
Oct 17, 2020
Solved

Netgear XR500 Unnamed devices poping up

Apologies for the repeat of an earlier post, but I'm still having the same problems with my XR500.    I hadn't checked in on routerlogin.net dashboard for a few months, and when I checked the Devic...
  • schumaku's avatar
    schumaku
    Oct 17, 2020

    There are no secrets on a MAC address...

     

    The ones with an OUI starting with 02:xx:xx (like any x2:.., x6:... xA:..., or xE:... are local managed MAC, not assigned to a vendor, freely usable, just unique on a LAN, used by VMs, wireless access points offering multiple SSIDs/VLANs. Look there  -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address#Universal_vs._local

     

    For the other random ones, say thank you generation tin hat, say thank you Apple (-> Use private Wi-Fi addresses in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 [with complete ridiculous enforced defaults!]), say thank you Android (-> Privacy: MAC Randomization [with smart defaults of course]).

     

    Needless to say - there is no reason to randomize MAC addresses on a home, private, or business network. A correct hardware MAC key for access control, base line security, .... So disable this **** on the network connection settings (by each SSID).

     

    So we can blame Netgear for many things - regardlss on how many times you factory reset your router. Can't see a Netgear problem here...

     

    PS. For those hyping Apple for a "great" privacy innovation - Android has this feature  since Android 8.0 Oreo (API 26, August 2017) - and it never caused (m)any issues.