Mac-binding

Mac-binding

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II- Governance; GS-III- Awareness in IT

In News:

• Use of Social media was allowed in Jammu & Kashmir but Internet connectivity is made available “with mac-binding”.
• Every device has a Media Access Control (MAC) address, a hardware identification number that is unique to it.
• While accessing the Internet, every device is assigned an IP address.
• Mac-binding essentially means binding together the MAC and IP addresses, so that all requests from that IP address are served only by the computer having that particular MAC address
• In effect, it means that if the IP address or the MAC address changes, the device can no longer access the Internet

• Also, monitoring authorities can trace the specific system from which a particular online activity was carried out