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Trying to identify a TI MAC Address

Christian Campbell
Prodigy 10 points

Hi. 

I was referred here by TI customer support.  Hoping someone can help. I replaced my wireless router recently and can identify all but ONE device. The router identified it as a Ring Spotlight cam, but I don’t have any. The MAC address was identified as a TI product but I have no idea what it is. 

Just to avoid the obvious:

- I’ve checked every room in my house.
- It must be a plug in device because it stays active all the time, while battery operated BLE devices intermittently connect. Plus, if I don’t know about it, the battery would have died by now. 
- It can’t be a neighbor, unless they figured out my Wi-Fi password (highly unlikely because I only have 2 neighbors)
- I cannot (really don’t want to) change my SSID or password because I have 20+ smart home devices that I’d need to re-setup if I did this. 

The MAC address is 

98:84:E3:E5:02:56

Any thoughts are welcome. 

Thanks. 

  • 0
    Guru 79905 points

    Hi,

    It is likely that one of your WiFi devices uses inside WiFi chipset manufactured by TI like a CC31xx /  CC32xx, etc. Hard to say what device this can be. You can determine this by:

    • by the sniffing communication at your router you can determine how that device communicate inside / outside your network.  This may to give you a clue.
    • you can check factory labels of your IoT Wifi devices for MAC address on it. Devices which you will not be able identify you can check at FCC webpages what WiFi SoC contains.
    • if you not be still successfully you can use wireless sniffer and according RSSI try to determine approximately location of your device

    But if you have many IoT wifi device, it is strongly recommanded to connect them into separate WLAN with SSID. This WLAN should be isolated by VLAN at firewall with client isolation.

    Jan

  • 0 in reply to Jan D
    Prodigy 10 points

    Hi Jan - thanks for replying. A few comments to your suggestions above. 
    - For sniffing, is there a Mac app you’d suggest?

    - I can’t check the label because I can’t find the device in question. 
    -  Again for the sniffer, any suggestions on an app?

     Thanks!

  • 0 in reply to Christian Campbell
    TI__Guru 64405 points

    Hi,

    I would also try the followings:

    • read the RSSI value on your AP. It must have some kind of advanced statistics. RSSI would indicate how far it is from the AP
    • you can also see whether this device is transmitting/receiving from the statistics menu
    • you can try to connect to its main page in case it has an HTTP server by default. For example, if this device is CC32xx based, you might be able to connect to <IP address>/index.html
  • 0 in reply to Shlomi Itzhak
    Guru 79905 points

    Hi,

    Just a addition to Shlomi comment.

    Personally I don't believe that some malicious device is connected into your WLAN. It is more likely that one of our 20+ devices have inside TI WiFi chipset.

    Answers to your question:

    • Sniffing network communication is common way for determining what is going on on your network. There is multiple ways how this can be done but it depends on your network infrastructure. Eg.:
      • your can sniff packets at your router / firewall if it have such capability (via web gui, tcpdump via SSH, etc.)
      • you can sniff packets at your your AP directly (e.g. for example Ubiquiti or OpenWRT APs have capability to run tcpdump as well)
      • you can set port mirroring at switch port where is connected your AP and use Wireshark software for capturing packets. At Yourube you find many tutorials. For example Lawrence Systems channel contains many useful informations at network engineering.
    • For direct packets sniffing you need WiFi card / dongle with this capability. As software side you can use Wireshark.

    Jan