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Michael's Guide

Chapter 4 - The Most Drastic Solution

The ultimate way to restrict access to your network is to lock it down by MAC address. Every device has a unique MAC address. By allowing only certain MAC addresses can connect to your router, you can choose what specific computers can connect. If you set it to only allow the computers you own, you have effectively banned everyone else from connecting.

This, of course, has its pros and cons. If you routinely have guests who need to access your network, you will need to add their MAC address to your router's settings. You will also need to remove them when they leave, if you don't want the to get on again. This could be more trouble than it is worth. That is a decision only you can make.

However, if you have the same computer(s) connected to the network all the time, this is a great solution. MAC addressed can be spoofed or faked, but unless you have incredibly valuable data on your network, this is not really something the average user needs to worry about.

TIPA MAC address is a unique identifying hexadecimal number that is assigned to every network device whether it is wired or wireless. It stands for Media Access Control. Despite a common confusion, it has nothing to do with Macintosh computers. All computers with a network card have a MAC address for each network card. Routers, network printers, etc. also all have MAC addresses. MAC addresses are like fingerprints. No two devices have the same one.

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