What is "Locally administered address"?

What is "Locally administered address"? What does it mean?

It is basically a MAC address set by a network administrator.

MAC address can be either:

• Universally administered address (UAA), which is a unique address assigned to each physical device by the manufacturer.
• Locally administered address (LAA), which can be assigned to the device by a network administrator or by special software and override the UAA for that device.
• Universal address administered locally, which is a hybrid situation used for virtual machines.

I have a device on my home network that I don't know. It has a LAA and no info comes up from my internet provider. I also have a creepy ex who lived here until recently and now I'm a little freaked out. Xfinity says they are investigating but it's been a week. How do I find out what kind of device it is if not the specifics?

The simplest way to identify the device would be to think of what in your place has access to the Internet.

If a device is hard to identify from its detected name, turning various devices off and on one by one and repeating the scan in-between can help to find out what is what.

If you still have no idea what some devices are, it makes sense to change your WiFi password in your router to stop them from using your network.

I am having the same issue. Creepy ex, unknown devices connected to my internet. COMCAST is of no help. They are awful.

If you believe that you have unauthorised devices connected to your network, you should change your WiFi password in your router. This would be the fist and the most effective step towards solving the problem. Choose a strong password that is hard to guess.

In addition, while you are in your router settings, make sure you are using WPA2 or WPA3 rather than WPA or WEP, and disable WPS.