Nmap Announce mailing list archives
Re: mac addr lookups?
From: Fyodor <fyodor () dhp com>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:48:15 -0500 (EST)
With all due respect to Fyodor, I agree with him in many ways in that it might not be the best of scanning ideas, i just don't like the reason
for
his disaproval of the idea.
This is not actually my reason for disapproval. The reason I don't plan on adding this it is that it only works in the very specific case where: 1) You are using ethernet 2) Your target is using ethernet 3) You are on the *same* ethernet segment I don't think it is worth the code bloat or confusion to add such a special-case feature. Plus you should generally be able to do an 'arp -a' after the scan and see what hardware address the target (or several targets) are using. As further clarification, here is the (relevant parts of) the mail I sent to //Stany in December: That is a good idea. I've considered adding that feature a while back, but thing is (as you mentioned) it will only work for machines on people's local ethernet. And in most case people already know what other machines on their network are running. Also nowadays just because it is a SUN or Macintosh does not mean it runs Solaris or MacOS. Even an HP or Amiga box could be running NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc. It is also really easy to change the MAC address on some operating systems. On Linux you can do 'ifconfig eth0 hw 08:00:20:74:31:2A' and look like a Sun. However this isn't a big problem; almost everything nmap tests for could be spoofed. Cheers, Fyodor -- Fyodor 'finger pgp () www insecure org | pgp -fka' Frustrated by firewalls? Try nmap: http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ In a free and open marketplace, it would be surprising to have such an obviously flawed standard generate much enthusiasm outside of the criminal community. --Mitch Stone on Microsoft ActiveX
Current thread:
- mac addr lookups? Terje Elde (Feb 15)
- Re: mac addr lookups? Dug Song (Feb 15)
- Re: mac addr lookups? Matthew Franz (Feb 15)
- Re: mac addr lookups? //Stany (Feb 15)
- Re: mac addr lookups? Terje Elde (Feb 15)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: mac addr lookups? Fyodor (Feb 16)
- Re: mac addr lookups? White Cap (Feb 16)
- Re: mac addr lookups? ajax (Feb 16)
- Re: mac addr lookups? Nathan Catlow (Feb 16)
- Re: mac addr lookups? Terje Elde (Feb 17)
- Re: mac addr lookups? White Cap (Feb 16)
- RE: mac addr lookups? Escobar, Henry J. (Feb 17)
- RE: mac addr lookups? White Cap (Feb 17)
- RE: mac addr lookups? Fyodor (Feb 17)
- RE: mac addr lookups? White Cap (Feb 17)
- RE: mac addr lookups? wanb0y (Feb 17)