Coca-Cola Reserves a Massive Range of MAC Addresses

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Coca-Cola Reserves a Massive Range of MAC Addresses

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 2, 2014 @05:16AM from the maytag-and-starbucks-champing-at-bit dept.

An anonymous reader writes "GNU MacChanger's developer has found by chance that The Coca-Cola company got a range of MAC addresses allocated at the OUI, the IEEE Registration Authority in charge of managing the MAC addresses spectrum. What would Coca-Cola want around 16 million MAC addresses reserved? What are they planning to use them for? Could this part of a strategy around the Internet-of-things concept?"

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yep vending machines by globaljustin · 2014-01-02 05:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's for wireless enabled purchases at vending machines.
I did an RFP for this in grad school. In our scenario the beverage company was working with AT&T to enable the wireless internet connection.
They'll probably "partner" with other vendors of consumer goods...whatever the marketing people come up with.

--
Thank you Dave Raggett
1. Re:yep vending machines by ahabswhale · 2014-01-02 06:17 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I believe it's for more than just vending machines. The new computerized soda fountains that have been popping up in various fast food restaurants all report back to the mother ship as well.
  
  --
  Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
2. Re:yep vending machines by bws111 · 2014-01-02 07:33 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Fountains are a good bet. For instance, a certain large, well-known company that owns theme parks and resorts has recently added RFID chips to the soda cups they sell. When you go to a self-service fountain, the fountain checks if the cup is allowed to be filled. They check to see if the cup is from this location, if it is within an allowed 'free refill' time, and if it is being used too often (you must wait a few minutes before it can be refilled). No more buying a single cup and walking around all day getting 'free refills'. No more buying a single cup then giving all 8 kids a soda by pouring from the purchased cup into your own cup over and over.
Re:Not cans by asliarun · 2014-01-02 05:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

On a slightly related note, there is a very nice Microsoft Research paper on password theft and bank fraud, and who actually gets affected.
I will admit that most of what I actually thought of this subject was quite wrong.
Linkage: http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/161829/EverythingWeKnow.pdf
FFS, Slashdot. by ledow · 2014-01-02 05:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

What I read: "One of the world's largest companies has need of an allocation unique identifiers for network hardware".
Fuck, they sell 1.7 BILLION coke products every single day (their 2010 annual report, on their website FAQ too).
That means they sell over 1000 products a day for every MAC address they just reserved. They could use them to control the various parts of the fucking production lines via Ethernet and it still wouldn't be enough for their normal, everyday usage of such things. It's certainly no "Internet of things" heap-of-crap headline.
How the hell did this make it onto Slashdot?
Re:Not cans by CohibaVancouver · 2014-01-02 08:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Some ticket/food/item only costs $2-3, I get 17 $1 coins jingling around in my pocket.
This seems unlikely. No vendor would give away all their change like that. They'd give you a ten, a five, then coins.