Linux software to randomize PC hostname & wireless MAC for privacy at hotspots

If I understand Jeff L. correctly, hotspots often log your hostname and wirelss car MAC address; so I wish to automatically change my wireless card MAC and laptop PC hostname upon every reboot.

On Windows, I can change these things manually but there are plenty of freeware packages which pseudo-randomize the hostname (based on a lookup table) and wireless MAC address for added privacy at hotspots upon every reboot. These work great!

However, on Linux, while I can change these things manually, I have not yet found software that does so automatically upon every reboot.

Here's how I change the hostname on Linux manually: $ sudo vi /etc/hosts

Change the contents of /etc/hosts from:

127.0.1.1 ubuntu ubuntu

Change the contents of /etc/hosts to: # 127.0.1.1 ubuntu ubuntu

127.0.0.1 foo foo $ sudo echo foo > /etc/hostname $ sudo reboot

And, here's how I change the MAC address on Linux manually: $ ifconfig -a | grep HWaddr $ sudo ifconfig wlan0 down hw ether DE:AD:BE:EF:CA:FE $ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

The question is where can I find software that will perform that task of changing the wireless card MAC address and PC hostname upon every reboot?

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Posted 5 years ago by Y Knot in Wireless Networking

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