Maxi-Pedia Forum

Dear reader,

We have a small Bed & Breakfast in the Eifel area in Germany.
To avoid any problems with the German authoroties I intend to log all the MAC addresses, date, time etc. from the PC/Laptop/Tablet/smartphones ..... using my gast network.

Are there any open source programs (windows7 / Ubuntu linux) to register this information ?

Many thanks in advance for your co-operation,
warm regards wimduk

This info is in logs in your router. However, logging this information is useless. I assume you want to log this information to keep some evidence in case someone does something bad while connected to your wifi. MACs can be spoofed easily. If anyone wants to do anything bad and remain anonymous on the internet, he won't be using his own laptop. And even if the bad guy used his laptops and had not spoofed his MAC, you can hardly prove that some MAC from your logs really points at someone (the bad guy can say, the laptop is not his and that he was not using it).

Thanks for the information Atari

I know that MAC addresses can be spoofed.
The reason I want this information is to prove to the authoroties that it was not one of our computers that did the wrong things on the internet.

Do you have any other advises how to achieve this objective??

thanks again and with warm regards,
wimduk

You will need to get a better equipment for that. Some access points log MACs (see your device), but that alone would not be sufficient evidence. When browsing internet, you are identified with your IP, not your MAC. So, the logs would need to contain pairs of assigned IPs and MACs to work as evidence (assuming you are using DHCP). If you want to be secure, you will need to get an access point with controller. It works in a way that if your guest wants to use your WiFi, you generate a unique code (can be limited for a certain period too; each guest has different code) that you give to your guest. He then connects to your WiFi and upon opening his browser is asked for that code. This type of solution then logs IP and MAC assigned to the access code.

You can only prove what you did, not what you did not do. From the parking lot in your village, an attacker can listen to your wireless communication (between your computer and your AP) and find out your MAC (or even sitting at his home he can just make up one - having just enough luck, it will match your MAC). Then he can drive to another city, assign your MAC to his computer and do bad things under your MAC. How do you prove in this case that the bad things did not happen from your computer? Do you see now why logging MACs to prove that you did not do something can't work (or at least can't be sufficient evidence)?

Gents,

many thanks for your co-operative feedback. I'll make use of it.

with warm regards,
wimduk

You are welcome. Let us know here how you finally solved your task. Share your experience. Thanks.