Re: [Tails-dev] Tails prevents MAC changes as design feature

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] Tails prevents MAC changes as design feature
Hi,

didukno:
> I have issues with network interfaces, like wlan0, changing back to what
> the system wants. This is not what I want.


We don't actively support the use case described below, but I'll still
spend a couple minutes writing down some suggestions:

> Case:


> - Start Tails (MAC Address Spoofing: On)
> - Plug in network card (wlan0)
> - macchanger assigns wlan0 random MAC string
> - Bring wlan0 down


^ Here you should instead stop the NetworkManager service.

> - Set new MAC string (macchanger or other tools)
> - Bring wlan0 up


^ Here you should instead start the NetworkManager service.

> - macchanger changes new MAC string to Tails' NIC-only MAC string


… and then this should not happen.

> This did not happen in older versions and may very well be a bug.


> If not, what development decisions have gone into making this change and
> why are they better than me changing my MAC and having the system
> respect that?


What happened is that NetworkManager had learned how to handle MAC
address randomization itself, and as a side effect it stated to manage
MAC addresses all the time. We don't use this feature so we've set
wifi.cloned-mac-address=preserve, that explains the behavior you noticed.

> Why continue with the insecure model of changing NIC only? Willfully
> leaking network device manufacturer info is irresponsible.


https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/MAC_address/#limitation-only-spoof-nic-part

Cheers,
--
intrigeri