On Mar 13, 2005, at 10:02 AM, Alexey Vatchenko wrote:

> Hello.
> I wonder, why not to allow root to change MAC address via ifconfig?
> Anyway root can change it via well-known sea.c.

This has been debated, ad infinitum, on several online forums. The
argument seems to boil down to, "why would one want to do such a
thing?" That is, most of us have never really heard a good argument
why this feature or option exists in the first place.

As you say, if you are one of the rare cases where this needs to be
done, there is a well-known patch.

Insert the usual remark about this not being appropriate for tech@,
&etc. I think the misc@ archives contains some of the old arguments
aver this.