Is there any way I can check a device's mac address on the net? for example I am on a LAN at office and I want to check of my college's network adapter's mac address using my computer. is it possible? thanks
Hm... interesting question.
You can ping your "college's" pc and while you are doing that capture tha packets using ethereal or wireshark (they are the same just that wireshark is the new version of ethereal).
Then have a look at the reply packet from your college's pc. The Ethernet II part contains the destination and the source. The source is contains the MAC address.
yes it is possible. Try to use a program like 'ethereal'
and watch for the packets. it ll tell you the all information you need.
For example : try to ping a domain and watch the packets from ethereal. you can see what you need (default gateway should be your switch)
Trace for default gateway adress ARP packets. it s what you need.
simple network sniffer (like ethereal) can't show a MAC of PC. Because when you send packet, IP destination field contain IP address of PC but Ethernet destination field contain MAC of your network router's port . And for incoming packet source IP field contain IP addr of PC, but MAC of router's port