Fine. Why would it? The device has a unique hardware ID that’s even easier/better for identifying the device. MAC addresses are randomized, and there’s at least 3 of them in any modern phone. Seems overly complicated and ineffective.

previous self-immolators have been thoroughly ignored

Arguably a self imolator ended the war in Vietnam. He absolutely got the ball rolling.

I created an account on a hosted service we use at work the other day, my password had to be exactly 12 characters. No more no less.

Then don’t make me pay for it. That’s my intelligence, I bought it. So did you. What else do you pay for that you’re never allowed to see or even know about?

You don’t see how the military operating in darkness with no oversight has ended up in disaster time and time again?

Fine. They can hide the stuff they don’t force me to pay for. I have a right to know where my money is going.

I’m not saying they can’t track you. I’m saying the person who told you that they’re not doing it by MAC was right, and your reply was not only wrong but painfully self righteous for a guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about about.

Also, changing your IP, clearing cookies, and installing a plugin that obfusticates your browser fingerprint ought to be enough. The second two are essentially what you did by blowing out your OS.

Still annoying but an improvement

Sure, and all of that goes out the window on a mobile app that doesn’t play by browser rules.

This has nothing to do with browser rules. It’s how tcp/ip works.

And 96% of reddit is on mobile

And 100% of phones have a unique hardware ID visable to any app with the “read phone state” permission. Why the hell would anyone use a MAC address to identify you? And which MAC address would they use? The wifi nic? The mobile nic? The Bluetooth MAC?

That’s not naivety it’s a basic understanding of how networking works