Fake Prop-Data Generator

Last reviewed on April 27, 2026.

When you record a screen for a tutorial or stream, the data on screen has to look like real data — but should never be real data. This tool generates clearly-fake values for the categories that show up most often on the screen of a hacker-aesthetic shot: IPs, MAC addresses, hostnames, usernames, and IDs.

Every value is generated locally in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere. The values intentionally use reserved or documentation-only ranges where one exists, so they will not collide with real systems by accident.

Why "documentation ranges" matter

Several IETF RFCs reserve specific IP ranges and identifiers for examples and documentation. Using them keeps your screen recordings safe from two failure modes: (1) the addresses you show on screen cannot belong to a real internet host, so a viewer cannot accidentally point a tool at them; (2) you do not unintentionally expose anyone's real network address.

• IPv4 documentation: the ranges 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, and 203.0.113.0/24 are reserved for documentation. Real public traffic does not flow there.
• IPv6 documentation: 2001:db8::/32 is the reserved range. The tool produces addresses inside it.
• MAC addresses: the second-least-significant bit of the first byte set to 1 indicates "locally administered." The tool sets that bit, so the addresses will not collide with addresses burned into real hardware by a manufacturer.
• Ports: the values shown are from the well-known and registered port lists; they do not point at any specific server you connect to.

Where prop data fits in your workflow

The most common uses are:

• Screenshot mockups for blog posts and slides where you need a realistic-looking config snippet but cannot show real IPs or hostnames.
• Video tutorials where the camera catches a terminal and you do not want to pause to redact every frame.
• Stream overlays driven by the fake terminal or cyber attack map, where the on-screen "scan results" or "blocked addresses" need to look plausible without being real.
• Bug-report templates, where the engineer fills in real values privately and the public template ships with prop data.
• Penetration-testing report formats, where the report template demonstrates the layout using prop data before it is rendered with real engagement findings (the report itself uses real data; the template ships with prop data).

Decision criteria: how much randomization is enough?

For a screen recording that lasts under a minute, ten values is plenty — viewers do not stare at a single column long enough to notice repetition below that. For longer demos, generate a fresh batch between scenes. If your demo cuts between several runs of the same command, regenerate before each run; that way the audience sees genuinely different data each time, instead of the same numbers reappearing.

For a thumbnail or hero image, generate a single batch and hand-pick three or four values that fit visually — short enough to not wrap, varied enough to read as a real list.

Common mistakes

• Treating the output as testing data. These values are visual props. Do not point tools at them, do not seed databases with them, do not feed them to fixtures. For test data, use a real fixtures library that guarantees deterministic output.
• Mixing prop data with real data. If a screen recording shows three real customer IPs and seven fake ones, you have leaked the three real ones and taught your audience that the fake ones might be real too. Either redact everything or generate everything.
• Showing internal hostnames as props. The hostname generator produces plausible-but-fake names. If your real internal naming convention is recognizable (a unique prefix, a specific TLD, a project codename), the prop hostnames will read as belonging to your environment. Either edit the names by hand or rely on the visibly-fictional examples.
• Copy-pasting "random looking" data without checking. Skim the output before you screen-record — every now and again the random generator produces something that looks like a real product or a real phrase. Replace those values.

Pairs with other tools on this site

Drop the generated values into the fake terminal output for a richer-looking session, or into the box-drawing tool as a framed callout, or into the ASCII banner for a single ID held as a title card. For an end-to-end example of how prop data fits into a stream or video, see the streaming and content-creator toolkit.