Can a MAC address be traced?

"The computer (or just the network card) could have been purchased off the shelf with cash, which would mean that even if the MAC address was traceable to a particular computer, there would be no way to identify the owner. The ease with which MAC addresses can be spoofed would further invalidate any attempt to identify the owner.

If you just want the problem to go away, switch to using WPA2 on your network. There are more interesting options available as well."

"I make carrier grade networking equipment for a living. We have no way to track a MAC address to a specific customer, and I highly doubt Dell does either. It gets programmed and stuck in a box on a big pile of boxes.

The easiest way to track this guy down is going to be to let him on your network and capture his traffic using Wireshark until he gives up some personal information. Once you've gathered enough, a nicely crafted welcome page greeting him by name should be enough to get him to leave you alone."

"This is off topic, but are you doing MAC address filtering on your wireless network? If you have a whitelist of addresses that are only the devices that you yourself have authorized to be on the network, then it does prevent people from using it unless they spoof one of your aforementioned authorized devices.

Unfortunately it also makes it a pain when guests come over and want to connect."

"Furthermore I don't think that Dell will provide you with the name of the person, just because you tell them your story.

I guess you need some judge to enforce that for you. And for that you have press charges against unknown.

So even if it was possible (which it probably is for large computer companies like Dell or HP), do you really want to go that far.

And then you have to consider all those hundreds of people you build there computer from scratch, or the local computer store who does that for the customer. (Almost all of the desktop PCs also have wireless now - so it doesn't have to be a laptop). Furthermore: my mobile also has wireless.

I guess using a good mechanism like WPA2 should give sufficient security to block him. And that is probably enough for you and much less stressful :)."