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How does the iPhone identify itself on a corporate/university network?

M

macintologist

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 3, 2004
695
1,052
When the iPhone is connected via Wifi to a corporate or university network, during the DHCP request does it identify itself as simply a Mac or as some sort of different mobile device?

The reason I ask is because my university has this messed up registration scheme where you have to download a binary and launch it on your computer in order for it to be registered on the network and the iPhone obviously can't do that. On Windows, the binary actually scans for virus protection software, but on Mac it effectively does nothing. Since I can't download it and run a Mac binary on an iPhone, and since their "game console" registration is limited to just game consoles, I was wondering if they the IT people had the capability to know that through the DHCP identifier the iPhone was an iPhone and not just simply a type of Mac.
 
It doesn't "identify" itself as anything special. When you connect any sort of computer to a network it sends the router the MAC address of the network card and requests a IP.

The iphone is no different.
 
Diode said:
It doesn't "identify" itself as anything special. When you connect any sort of computer to a network it sends the router the MAC address of the network card and requests a IP.

The iphone is no different.
Click to expand...
That's weird because someone at the IT department said they could tell what kind of computer was connected to the network. I asked if I could just register the iPhone manually using the game console page where you type in the MAC address, but the IT person said they know if the device is actually a PS2/XBox as opposed to being something else.

Was it a bluff? because he knows I'm a semi-hacker type of person ;)
 
macintologist said:
That's weird because someone at the IT department said they could tell what kind of computer was connected to the network. I asked if I could just register the iPhone manually using the game console page where you type in the MAC address, but the IT person said they know if the device is actually a PS2/XBox as opposed to being something else.

Was it a bluff? because he knows I'm a semi-hacker type of person ;)
Click to expand...

Well it does register a DNS name ... don't remember what it is since I'm not at home to check.
 
macintologist said:
That's weird because someone at the IT department said they could tell what kind of computer was connected to the network. I asked if I could just register the iPhone manually using the game console page where you type in the MAC address, but the IT person said they know if the device is actually a PS2/XBox as opposed to being something else.

Was it a bluff? because he knows I'm a semi-hacker type of person ;)
Click to expand...

According to Microsoft, the DCHP client also sends it's hostname. So the question you have to ask is outside of a Mac/PC what other devices allow you to change their hostname?
 
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