Virgin media and (probable) s****ed MAC address?

dch · 30th May 2008

My brother has just got home from work and found he cannot access the internet via his Virgin Media connection, after an hour on the phone with Virgin it turns out he cannot connect because somebody else has already connected with the same MAC address as his Intel NIC, and there is nothing they can do about it - which I find quite odd.

I guess somebody has s****ed their MAC in their modem/router - but the odds must be pretty high that this would happen on the same ISP !?!

Has anybody else every come across this issue?

Cheers,
Sean

JamieBeeston · 30th May 2008

Most Nics let you change the MAC, try this in advanced properties.

dch · 30th May 2008

Thanks Jamie - I never knew that - very easy, I've just told him, so hopefully he can sort that out - still quite a strange occurrence

Thanks again for that

BurtyB · 30th May 2008

Years ago I heard - if a bad boy was to "borrow" your MAC and use it in a different area (but not too far) it was supposed to let you connect up a second cable modem.. no idea if it ever did or still does though....

ChrisB.

dch · 30th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by BurtyB

Years ago I heard - if a bad boy was to "borrow" your MAC and use it in a different area (but not too far) it was supposed to let you connect up a second cable modem.. no idea if it ever did or still does though....

ChrisB.

That's interesting and I can understand that as I believe they used to restrict access by MAC, do they still do that? (I have no idea no cable down here! Just ADSL)

PaulC · 30th May 2008

You can clone the MAC address of another modem and you will receive the same service the original modem is provided with. I believe you have to be on a different UBR (I think that's the right term!) for it to work properly.

I believe the roll out and introduction of DOCSIS 3.0 will stop this from happening, I haven't been using cable long but chances are there's somebody about that knows more than me

CrystalVPS · 30th May 2008

I know cable modem cloning is a *very* common occurrence in Leicester, people in the "more ethical" areas log the MACs of modems and then reprogram modems bought from eBay and sell them for a one of fee to the "less ethical" (the more ethical places being where they'll pay for the service, the less ethical being where they'll use cloned modems).

Never done it, but people when I was at college did it, and I know people (indirectly) who do it. If someone is stupid enough to put two macs on the same UBR, then that's when the fun starts (and could be what's happened here, just virgin don't want to show that this is a problem)

JonWitte · 1st June 2008

Odds are pretty large that someone "Happened" to have the same MAC- I'd be a worried boy if that were me...