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<TITLE>MAC address vs “Ethernet Address”</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Hi all, <BR>
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I ran into a bit of weirdness while setting up a new faculty member’s 20” iMac G5 with Tiger. All the machines have to be authorized with the IT department here according to MAC address as a security protocol. In all the other Macs here the MAC address under the system profiler in Network matches the, “Ethernet Address” number in the Network tab under System Preferences except in this one new machine. So this machine has not been able to gain access to the internet nor our LAN. As far as I know the MAC address and the “Ethernet Address” should be the same identical number??? I’ve told IT here about this but haven’t heard back yet. But does this represent a security hazard? The IT guys here are super paranoid and I’m not sure they will allow this machine to join our network because of this. It seems to be a screwup from Apple and if this is indeed sloppy production it looks very very bad. The IT department here is all pro M$ and any excuse they can find to run Apple into the ground is the last thing we need around here. When budget renewal comes around they’ve got one more bit of ammo to try and run the Macs out of the building. Now they’re going say they are a security threat because they can’t be relied upon to have something as simple as an accurate MAC address and they’ll start telling the higher up money people not to waste money on these poorly made machines etc....I can just hear them now.<BR>
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What does the collective wisdom know about this issue? <BR>
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Should this machine get returned and exchanged for one that has matching addresses? <BR>
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Is it a Tiger issue? All the other machines are Panther and the system prefs in Tiger are a little different?<BR>
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Or can the MAC address listed in the system profiler be made to match the “Ethernet Address”? Should it?<BR>
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How does one discover the true MAC address of the machine?<BR>
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Thanx much<BR>
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Richard <BR>
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