Techniques are presented herein that leverage the ability of wireless clients to employ a non-constant media access control (MAC) address (to, for example, avoid long-term tracking and identification) and which support a method for segmenting a MAC address field while making sure that wireless clients can still use a per-association non-constant or randomized MAC address (thus solving the tracking and radio collision issue). Aspects of the presented techniques ensure that collisions are prevented on the Distribution System Medium (DSM)/Distribution System Services (DSS) and ensure that a wireless infrastructure can still identify a wireless client across associations and during roaming. Use of such (composed) client MAC addresses in a Layer 2 (L2) infrastructure avoids full randomization and allows for decentralized client lookup and access point (AP) access identification
