Please respond with reasonable answers. [Laptop has a unique identifying code number -- what is this

Is this "number" the MAC address? Or the locally administered network
address? Or something totally different?

What is this number called?

No offense but please respond with reasonable answers & keep out the
jokes, off-topic nonsense, taunts, insults, and trivializations. I am
really interested in this.

 

in message

MAC address.

 

the mac address










....or is it?

 

Yes, can be tied to the mac address

Media Access Control address
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
http://devices.natetrue.com/macshift/
http://www.klcconsulting.net/smac/

 

The basis for your question, i.e. "a unique identifying code number"
does not narrow it down to a single answer. Perhaps you mean the serial
number on the bottom of most laptops, perhaps you mean the MAC address
of the networking device in the laptop. Until you are more specific, it
would be very hard to give a definitive answer. If you mean the MAC
address, it's an twelve character alphanumeric identifier assigned to
networking devices such as wireless cards and ethernet cards. They are
supposed to be unique, but accidents can happen. And if you have two or
more networking devices then you have two or more MAC addresses in the
same machine.

If you'd be so kind as to use Google and type in "define MAC address"
there's a lot more information available than I'd care to retype.

 

Radium

Even though your quote is lacking sufficient detail to place it in context
the most likely 'number' your quote refers to is what is know as a TCP/IP
address. The TCP/IP networking protocol is the protocol used on the Internet
and nowdays the majority of Local Area Networks.

TCP/IP networking works by assigning a unique number to each computer or
device connected to the network.
This number can be permanently assigned (static address) or lent temporarly
from a pool of address's (dynamic) address. The numbers are made up of four
octets separated by a dot. The numbers range from 0.0.0.0 to
255.255.255.255, for example 64.233.187.99 is the Internet address for
Google.com.
Therefore for your Laptop to connect to a TCP/IP network you must either
assign a TCP/IP address to it or have one granted to it by some other
authority.

Depending on your method of connection to the Internet either your Laptop
(for dial up) or your Router (for broadband) will be assigned a TCP/IP
number from your ISP's pool of numbers that it has bought the rights to.
You could think of this TCP/IP address as akin to a house number/street
address for your regular snail mail.

There are many reference documents available on the Web that will give you
chapter and verse on the tiniest detail of TCP/IP. For example
http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=tcp/ip+&btnG=Search&meta=
I can only encourage you to read them up.

Best
Paul.

 

Uhm. Finally, this was the 3rd thread from you without any
clarification "which" unique number you are talking about and how the
number would be transmitted. There is the MAC address , the CPUID and the
serial number of your(?) laptop. The former two numbers are captured by
programs like windows activation/validation, and munged to a code that's
transferred regularly. Some other programs may as well grab the IDs without
munging them, and send them elsewhere.
In addition, the serial number of most modern laptops as printed on the
label, is also imprinted into the bios chip - some management software (DMI
or other) can get that one as well.
If you are really paranoid, don't use a computer or at least do not connect
it to the internet, or only use public computers at internet cafes where
you don't need to prove identity.

 

The distinctive identification is probably the MAC address. However,
it has no meaning unless it can be linked to other information. IOW,
it is just a number. Any local administrator can use the MAC address
to assign an identification to the laptop but the relevance is between
the laptop and the interested network. In this instance, the laptop
might be known by its assigned domain name, e.g., Radium226.

From this point, where else do you want to take this discussion?