Shares computer?

[jonbgood93]

Hi i have had my uni 2.4 mac book for about a month and i love it but in my finder it says shared and then lists mac and then numbers after it. Is this Someone hacking me? Please tell me what this means Thanks!

 

[spinnerlys]

Do you mean something like in the following picture where it says "combox"?

If that's the case, then it's just a computer sharing your network.

So someone is on your home network, via cable or via WiFi, or if you're on campus/work/cafe, someone sharing the same network.

 

[jonbgood93]

Kind of it looks like this

 

[plinden]

Shared shows you other machines on your network that are advertising that they have shared files accessible, not your own Mac.

Do you have a PC or printer attached to the network? A printer shouldn't show up, but mine does sometimes.

 

[toolbox]

Do you have a wireless network? is it secure?

I know if your running VMware the guest OS will show up there as a computer.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

That is another computer, or possible a VMWare computer on your own computer. What is being displayed is the MAC address of the ethernet adapter (I think) of the remote computer, that is connecting to the same network as yourself

 

[jonbgood93]

yes i have a wireless network with a password. Does this person have access to my computer?

 

[spinnerlys]

If s/he has your username and password, yes he/she has access.

Otherwise s/he will see only the Drop Box in the Shared user and can put files in there, but not see the content of it.

 

[jonbgood93]

Thank You

Thanks. It seems odd. Is there anyway i can get rid of their shared access

 

[spinnerlys]

If you have your own wireless network, that no one should be sharing with you, you could setup the router to only allow computers with their specific MAC address. Consult the manual for doing this. Or make the password for the wireless network longer, mine is like dewsswesp09oi87uz65t (just an approximation).

A Mac address looks like this: 00:24:15:52:2e:fb, and is only used once in the world (correct me if I'm wrong).



If you're only interested in not being able to see the Shared computer, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar > Shared and deselect what you don't want to see.

 

[jonbgood93]

Thanks

Thanks i just decided to make it so i can't see it. 🙂

 

[spinnerlys]

That's not more secure than having it seen, as the network broadcast out its ID nonetheless, just invisible.

But it will hold back most of the people, just not the savvy ones, who also look for that.

Here for more technical reading:

http://www.icsalabs.com/icsa/docs/html/communities/WLAN/wp_ssid_hiding.pdf

found on

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=43