hello everyone, I have a question that might turn out to be even stupid but I can’t find an answer, I am approaching the world of privacy and anonymity, the question is, even if I have an old laptop where previously there was windows and no methods were used to protect the identity is the pc still considered valid? because if the mac address is unique and I had linked my accounts to the pc, the address is also associated with my person and always will be, is there any way to sanitize this problem or would it be better to buy a new pc and start from scratch?
The MAC address is a code on each of your networking chips that allows it to talk with local networking equipment. This means its only legitimate use is to be broadcast on your local network (or in the local broadcasts for WiFi).
However, it is also often part of the UUID generated by some software and sent to all sorts of online places.
The good news about this is that there are other components of the UUID that are easier to change that will change that ID.
And you can always software mask your MAC IDs if you’re running Linux. This enables your device to pretend the various MACs are numbers of your choosing.
Can be also done under Windows. I’m not suggestion that Windows is good for privacy, but it can be done. https://www.digitalcitizen.life/change-mac-address-windows/
deleted by creator