Network card identification

How to identify who manufactured your Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) and its MAC address:

Getting the MAC address on MS-Windows machines

First, use netstat -n to determine your network IP address nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
Then, use nbtstat -A nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn to determine the MAC address of your card.

Getting the MAC address on Linux machines

Run the command

/sbin/ifconfig eth0

This will show the MAC address for the eth0 interface. Run the command without any parameters to show all interfaces. Other information, such as the IP address for each interface, is shown.

A similar command will work under most *nix operating systems. Naming conventions for interfaces vary ('edN' on FreeBSD, for example).

Finding the Manufacturer from the MAC address

Finally, use the first 6 hex digits in the MAC address to look up the vendor on the IEEE site. This is reputed to be the definitive list.
Some older (but more compact) lists may be found here (UCSC) or here (CaveBear) or here (MIT). There are some further links on these sites which may be of help. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers are listed, especially some newer ones in the Far East.