There are lots of unique identifiers in computers, not just Windows.
MAC address, serial number, bios uuid.
Linux even has /etc/machine-id
yes, but what secret undisclosed id systems, that weren’t definitevely known to exist untill legal proceedings ‘oopsied’ them into reality?
Your Windows PC Has a Permanent ID That Follows You – Even With a VPN
Yes, it’s bad, but worth pointing out, they didn’t identify the user directly by somehow extracting GDID from their traffic, they identified them because their GDID happened to be in the same place at the same time at their hacking efforts that became statistically impossible to ignore.
Realistically this kind of tracking could be accomplished with any software with a unique ID that does, say, daily update checks or usage pings. This one is just extra bad because it’s ubiquitous (on Windows) and almost impossible to change, so they have a 1-stop-shop for spying.
All tracking is done by amalgamating as many different overlapping signals and indicators together as you can, and then establishing basically a confidence score/threshold.
This one is extra bad because it was never disclosed previously.
Trust = Gone, what else is MSFT hiding?
I think the ngrok tunnel server they setup to exfiltrate data actually sent the GDID to the ngrok servers. This GDID was then linked to non-VPN IP logs by Microsoft.
Microsoft continues to outdo itself as the best advertisement for migration to Linux.
For Microsoft Linux, right? Right?
There is actually a Microsoft Linux distribution: Azure Linux (previously named CBL Mariner), based on Fedora. And funny enough, it’s initial release was appropriately on a April 1. Even Microsoft understood the joke, have to give them that.
Still too cursed.
I have a Windows PC?
you wouldn’t download an operating system
People should stop doing that
I haven’t since middle of last year.
Your network interface has a permanent ID that follows you
If that’s really a concern, USB or PCIe NICs are always an option as a replacement, whether temporary or permanent. More advanced users can create virtual connections to route traffic through (macvlans) with custom configurable MAC addresses and/or use virtual machines that offer the same feature if a guest OS is preferred or necessary.
The identifier the article is talking about is instead persistent on any Windows OS regardless of hardware, including if the OS is a virtual machine. Using the OS at all on the Internet ensures Microsoft can always track it.
It’s news to me. I gotta get Mint on it.
CachyOS has been phenomenal for me. Coming up on 7 months now without using windows beyond as a moonlight client on an ARM64 laptop (and windows server, because sysadmin gotta sysadmin.)
How else can you appreciate your RAM’s obligatory RGB features?
It’s really good for turning off the RGB
Save on power
Fewer distractions
Fuck this OS, left it behind a long time ago and nothing ever will bring me back. This platform should die, they turned everything good about the platform to trash over years.
Court filings in the Scattered Spider hacking case reveal Microsoft provided the FBI with a complete IP history tied to something called a Global Device ID (GDID)
It’s kinda like a MAC address
windows is the virus
Does it follow me after Linux install?
Well, there is
/etc/machine-idon Linux…What happens if you erase it though? System32 moment?
Does this only apply to Windows 11 or also to 10? I know the ID even works if you installed Windows on a virtual machine. I’m on Linux, but I have Windows 10 installed for very specific tasks (in example to update firmware of my 8bitdo gamepad and configure its settings, because they suck and don’t provide a Linux tool for this).
I have a comment about updating the 8bitdo firmware on Linux, maybe it’ll help you… Let me look it up.
Edit: here you go! Good luck :P
apparently they do now - kinda? https://web.8bitdo.com/ but seems to require a chromium-based browser
Firefox supports webusb too so I think their app is just out of date maybe…
You mean the firmware can be updated over the browser?? Well, I use Firefox and they don’t support Firefox. Another L from 8bitdo. (But thanks for the link nontheless!)
Surely using a chromium browser just for this is better than having a whole windows VM just for this.
That’s not the point.
clicking through that link, it obviously blocks my zen browser, and recommends google’s chrome, chromium, ms edge and opera.
this seems like a massive L still. hopefully it’s not hard-coded to require those 4 only, and a stripped down chromium browser can be used. I don’t have a race in this horse yet, becauseI did consider 8bitdo controllers once my gamesir controller dies. maybe I’ll just have to save up for a steam controller, even though Valve still doesn’t ship to my country, and I refuse to buy from scalpers. even legit businesses here are scalping hard… fucking scalpers.
my first draft comment to you was a bit hopeful that maybe stripped down chromium browsers can replace your singular use windows VM. I apologize for assuming
Firefox and forks have supported webusb for awhile now, so I think 8bitdo just needs to update their website.
I guess someone needs to try with up-to-date Firefox and a spoofed Chrome user agent string
As for the Steam Controller, I have purchased it and want to warn you about something. The controller is designed to work only as a controller, when Steam is running. Which is a deal breaker to use it outside Steam for me, because I don’t want to have it running in the background when not playing on Steam. So I end up using it in Steam only. There are third party efforts for drivers to make it usable without Steam, but they have all their own quirks. However the SDL 3 library now supports Steam Controller. So any application updating to SDL 3 comes with free Steam Controller native support, in example RetroArch.
https://github.com/franfermon/8bitdo_update might still work? But the author does recommend using the 8bitdo’s service as first option.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I’m not taking a risk with firmware updates. Also I already have a virtual machine setup for this.
Windows
What’s that?
