How deep in the stack must one dig to find the hardware MAC address?

Is it time consuming or hard to do so, say a laptop was connected via a public WIFI hotspot, how would one find the MAC address of the said machine, and then compare it to say a connection that was made earlier during the same day to the same website but on a different internet connection. Doing such a thing would change ones IP address, but the Mac address would remain constant, you would have to identify the packets sent by the same machine and then look through the stack to get a match on the MAC addresses..... would this be an easy thing to identify??
Answer:

MAC address is only constant for those who can't be bothered to learn how to change it ... But, yes, it's really easy to discover MAC addresses - they are recorded by the DHCP Server that issues IP addresses !! - go look in your own home router - look for 'Network Information' / 'Routing Table' or similar .. (Yes, there was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when MAC address was 'hard wired' into the NIC ... these days NIC's are built without a MAC and it's added in firmware .. very easy to reprogram = all trace of the original can be wiped so even if you actually recovered the hardware you couldn't ever discover it)

The Mad Mullah! at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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Other answers

The MAC address is not a constant. While the MAC address is assigned at manufacture, it can be changed for many network devices. All you need it a MAC address changer and you are good. If I wanted to hide, I would simply use a MAC address changer and public access wifi from the parking lot. You wouldn't ever see my actual MAC address anywhere. Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

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