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.
Just called my senator and the aide said "Yeah, you're not the first person we've heard from about this today." It is 9:45 in the morning and she already had that weary tone.
Actually when I say “fuck all billionaires” I particularly mean Taylor “having my wedding in the middle of the busiest city in the world on the busiest weekend in the world in the part of the city the majority of commuters need to get through because fuck working people” Swift
If the trash pickup people stop doing their job for two weeks you'd be throwing a fucking tantrum. Same for the janitors who keep your office spaces and bathrooms clean. (And that's before the various illnesses start to spread all over your city from the build up of pathogens.)
The people responsible keeping our spaces clean (and thus, mostly disease-free) should both be paid more AND thanked more.
Who would have guessed the guys who named their company after the tool the all powerful villain from Lord of the Rings uses to spy on the heroes are like *evil* evil.
Since Netflix is removing She-Ra February 21st here’s a link to a Google drive with all five seasons <3
EDIT: I am not the creator of any of the drives I post on here I found these on Reddit and wanted to share them, I’m not responsible for any problems with the drive (not mad)
DOGE as an organization has been linked to 300,000 deaths due to its cuts and multiple significant data breaches. All the while, DOGE did not actually reduce the government’s deficit.
[...]
After watching hours upon hours of this footage, what stands out to me is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the arrogance. The surefootedness that this was the correct thing to do despite no experience in government. The presumption that they were entitled to use their own uninformed judgement to cut funds to things that they don’t personally value but do positively impact others. Even by their own metrics of merit based activity, this campaign was a failure. Fox believes these particular cut contracts did save hundreds of millions of dollars, but the cuts ultimately did not reduce the deficit. Not even close.
It makes for strangely captivating viewing, seeing someone part of a team that has caused so much damage coldly explain the flawed thinking behind what they did. The answers are sometimes defensive and coached because they’re in a lawsuit, of course. But taken as a whole they show at least these members of DOGE are essentially unapologetic for what they did.
In a statement published last week, American Council of Learned Societies President Joy Connolly said, “Our lawsuit reveals this administration’s contempt for that principle and for public investment in research for the common good. DOGE employees’ use of ChatGPT to identify ‘wasteful’ grants is perhaps the biggest advertisement for the need for humanities education, which builds skills in critical thinking.”
Barred from publishing details of Iranian missile impacts or interceptions, local and international journalists are struggling to tell the f
Reporters and networks are prohibited from publishing the precise location of Iranian missile impacts, or even filming or photographing the extent of the damage in a way that could give away the location — restrictions designed, in the words of the army’s chief censor Col. Netanel Kula, “to prevent assistance to the enemy during wartime.”
Outside of wartime, Israeli law already gives the military censor the authority to prevent certain information from being published, even retroactively. This can include aspects of Israel’s arms deals or intelligence activities, among other security-related topics.
But just as it did during the “12-Day War” last June, the censor has tightened its restrictions amid the current U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The police have already detained several journalists it deemed to be violating these censorship regulations.
[...]
“It’s hard to understand what is actually happening,” a senior manager at a foreign media outlet working in Israel explained. “In a lot of cases, we have official reports that there were no strikes or damage only to discover later that a target was hit. We can’t report or confirm so we don’t know if it happened or not.
“We have a partial understanding of the reality on the ground,” the senior manager admitted. “Our coverage of the war is not truthful.”
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