20s / French / Humor, Art, Cats, social issues, BG3, COD MW2, DATV, LADS and the occasional fanfic. Header by dawntidcs. Anti-social pessimist. /!/I barely tag anything (nsfw, spoilers...) Random depression/anxiety-related posts./!/
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.
I couldn't help myself so we're back with another Valko study!! This time working on his hair and overall features. 😌🥰🐺 His glasses look as me acting up-
"Peggle make phone calls" has become shorthand for "fuck it, whatever" for me but no one ever knows what im talkingabout and it's also longer (longhand?)
on twitter this got a bunch of responses like “wow even the evil fujoshis? the homophobic yet hypocritically fetishistic ones? what if the fujoshi is racist?” and like well no obviously not in that case.
everyone needs to hear about the situation in india right now. the youth of this nation are going through hell and back to protect the foundations that our country was built on in the first place, while the adults who are supposed to actually be in charge try to silence our voices.
NEET, which is an exam taken by millions of students per year and is the ONLY gateway for medical admissions across the country, had its papers leaked. so many took their lives because this exam meant everything for their future. and NTA, the agency who conducts this exam, was not held accountable.
there was national backlash. cockroach janta party (initially a satirical political party formed by abhijeet dipke in retaliation to the remarks of the chief justice of india calling the youth "cockroaches" and "parasites of society") started protests at jantar mantar, demanding the resignation of the union education minister, dharmendra pradhan. the movement also asked for ten million inr (~100,000 usd) in compensation for the families of students who died by suicide and wanted NTA be held accountable.
sonam wangchuk, a climate activist and education reformer, also went on a hunger strike at jantar mantar to protest against this corruption in india's higher education system. his fast began on june 28, demanding the resignation of the union education minister. his fast lasted for 20 days until delhi police FORCIBLY removed him and admitted him to safdarjung hospital on july 18.
because of this, cockroach janta party announced "chalo sansad," a march to the parliament beginning on june 20th, 9:00 am ist. but the police seems to be responding with water cannons, mobile jammers, and baton charge. all of this, because of a peaceful protest led by people no older than 30.
and yet there has been absolutely no indian media coverage about a movement that spans the entirety of this nation. so, please, if you see this, keep talking about us. we will not let those old bastards stoop any lower than they've already had. we will not let them ruin our country any further. we will not be silenced
please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.
first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.
now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:
in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.
and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.
and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.
it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:
• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.
• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.
• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.
• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.
• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.
• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.
and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.
what i'm asking:
if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.
if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.
india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.
tw // forced displacement, state violence, destruction of indigenous land
there is something happening in madhya pradesh (india) right now that not many people are talking about.
it's called the ken-betwa river linking project. ₹44,605 crore (46 million USD). india's first ever river interlinking project.
the project is being built inside the panna tiger reserve. to make way for the daudhan dam, over 6,000 hectares of protected forest land will be submerged. 12,000 trees have already been felled inside the reserve. estimates for the total number of trees that will be destroyed across the project range from 2.3 million to 6 million. the supreme court's own central empowered committee flagged this. the panna tiger reserve had tigers declared locally extinct in 2005. it took years of work to bring them back. the project will now drown the habitat that recovery was built on. it also threatens the ken gharial (crocodile) sanctuary and critical vulture nesting sites downstream.
22 villages are directly affected in the first phase alone. over 7,000 families. gond and kol adivasi (tribal) communities who have lived on this land for generations, whose entire existence — food, income, culture, identity — is tied to jal, jangal, zameen — water, forest, land. they are being told to leave.
most families have rejected the rehabilitation package. the compensation is below market rate, surveys have discrepancies, and many families have received nothing at all. homes have been demolished during the monsoon season. people are living in the open, in the rain. there are videos of a tribal family sitting among the rubble of their home circulating on social media. the administration says precautions were take but families say they were inside when the walls came down.
when they protested, the government of india filed false criminal cases against them. cut off electricity to villages. demolished schools. and then, on july 19 at 5am, police moved in and forcibly broke up a 17-day sit-in on the banks of the barana river. the protest leader amit bhatnagar, who had been on hunger strike for 11 days, was taken away. the police say he was hospitalised because his health "worsened." (exactly what happened with sonam wangchuk) the protesters say he was detained before he could speak to the media about alleged corruption of ₹400 crore in the project. the protesters' slogan was: nyay do, ya maar do — give us justice, or kill us.
this is being done in the name of providing water to bundelkhand, a drought-prone region. that's a real problem that deserves a real solution. but the people being displaced are asking something reasonable: show us the surveys. pay us fair rates. give us land for land, not just cash. consult our gram sabhas the way the law requires.
india has some of the most biodiverse forests on earth. the adivasi communities who have protected that land for centuries are not obstacles to development. they are the reason any of it still exists. and they are being evicted, intimidated and arrested so a dam can be built inside a tiger reserve that the government's own courts said should not be touched.
Not gonna lie this makes me a bit irritated. Here's the real version of this photo:
Instead of a cutesie reference to film censorship it was an explicit statement of defiance of Maryland's criminalization gay sex, which was not repealed until 2002. This wasn't a guy saying "Oh they can't put what I do in the movies according to a completely voluntary industry code" he was saying "The State of Maryland wants to put me in jail for being gay and having gay sex."
It wasn't a guy being cheeky about sex in an ambiguous, cute way. It was a man stating, in no uncertain terms, that a whole state of the United States considered him a criminal for being homosexual.
