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The wikipedia article on MAC address mentions that it is stored in the ROM of the NIC. How can the MAC address be changed then?

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Actually this does not specify if what you want to do this from a windows based computer, however my 2nd source provides instruction for *nix based systems – ricbax Oct 31 at 16:50
(Just in case you think that, for example, web sites you visit can see your MAC address: they don't.) – Arjan van Bentem Oct 31 at 18:39
I guess I wasn't clear. I wanted to know how is it possible to change the MAC address and not the actual procedure. – Manish Mathai Nov 2 at 16:03
Well, @Manish, you kind of fooled all of us with that title... ;-) – Arjan van Bentem Nov 6 at 22:16

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The physical MAC address is hardware dependent and is stored on the NIC's ROM (EEPROM) chip. To physically change this you would have to do what is known as flashing the ROM chip on the NIC.

You can however do what is know as "spoofing" which is tricking the operating system to think that it is actually different. It can be done within the registry or using 3rd party software.

Sources:

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You can do this quite easily in Windows for most if not all network cards.

  1. Right click on computer->manage
  2. Select device manager double click on your network card
  3. Select the advanced tab
  4. Select Network Address and enter the MAC address you want to use

This can be usable in situations where your ISP has "locked" your connection to a certain MAC address and not assigning any IP address. It's also found in most home routers on the market for this situation.

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this doesn't work for all network adapters, the registry method does. – Molly Oct 31 at 16:27
@Molly, I wonder if the Registry indeed works for all network adapters? I would expect (but I am no expert) that the adapter's driver must provide some means to change it. If it doesn't: no luck with any method. If it does, then why wouldn't Windows provide an input field in its device manager? – Arjan van Bentem Nov 1 at 7:33
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It is operating system dependent, but there are built in mechanisms in Linux to do this and easily used third party tools to do it in Windows.

It is possible, because that address is included in packets that are sent out through the TCP/IP stack, the software will spoof the address in the stack before they leave the host.

If you post your OS, you can get an exact answer on how to do it.

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regedit.exe is not a "third party tool", is it? – grawity Oct 31 at 16:15
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Is it possible to change my MAC address?

in a word, yes.

Here's a tutorial for Windows:

Change MAC Address or Physical Address Using Registry Editor (regedit) in Windows

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