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As a new student of cyber security, I have started to see in real-time how an individual can actually scan and view the mac addresses on a public wifi connection.

How can I hide my mac address when using a public wifi connection? Please I mean aside from not using public wifi at all.

Also, I am very DIY, but I am still unclear how VPNs work. I have skim read about setting it up on one's own server, but not sure how that works in conjunction with using wifi, so any documentation would help. I still have a lot to learn about OpenVPN, SSH Tunnel, RaspianVPNs. I know of them, so just tossing these out as answers would not help. I guess I am looking for a how-to than just use this...okay, but how? Anyway, thanks in advance.

Daniel
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  • Possible duplicate of [Is it possible to hide your MAC address before connecting to open wifi?](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/153594/is-it-possible-to-hide-your-mac-address-before-connecting-to-open-wifi), [How to stay anonymous in public wireless network?](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/47262/how-to-stay-anonymous-in-public-wireless-network) – Steffen Ullrich Nov 09 '19 at 02:20

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The answer is you can't hide your MAC address completely since it's essential in networking. As per wikipedia:

MAC addresses are used in the medium access control protocol sublayer of the data link layer.

What you can do though is to spoof your MAC address so you don't "expose" the manufacturer of your computer's network card which is going to help you avoid targeted attacks. Also as @multithr3at3d correctly pointed out, by spoofing you MAC address you also prevent your MAC address from being used to track you.

game0ver
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    It's not really the manufacturer that you want to hide; you just want to prevent your MAC address from being used to track you. – multithr3at3d Nov 09 '19 at 02:48