The general public is quite ignorant about technical matters. This becomes evident when, just as a trivial example, you complain about technical inaccuracies in a hollywood movie. You'll immediately be told in no unclear terms that the general public neither knows nor cares.
People attacking that which they do not understand is just as old as recorded history. I'll take that phenomenon as just an axiom of human behaviour.
Exactly. The general public does not care about tedious technical things you can do. Nor should they. Spoofing your MAC address simply isn't interesting to other people.
> People attacking that which they do not understand is just as old as recorded history. I'll take that phenomenon as just an axiom of human behaviour.
This is sad cynicism. In general, people don't just arbitrarily attack things they don't understand. And people certainly don't attack things they don't care about. You kind of have to care about something in order to put in the effort to attack it.
Clarke's quote isn't "anything you don't understand looks like magic". Spoofing a MAC address is not especially advanced. It certainly doesn't look like magic. And people who spoof their MAC addresses don't look like witches.
The "witchhunt" -> "advanced technology looks like magic" connection had the potential to be interesting, but I don't think it worked out well. And I agree with rayiner that it came off as self-aggrandizing more than anything else.
