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.
Speaking of Ojibwe! There’s a new point and click game to help teach the language! It’s called Reclaim! Azhe-giiwewining, and is currently on sale on Steam!
So, an interesting thing Devotion does is that it defines each gender.
Not in terms of who gets to belong to the gender, but in terms of once you belong to this gender what rules are you bound by. How does society position this gender. What is considered good performance of the gender and what is considered traitorous.
This is already rad as hell, but it kicks the doors off a more world-buildy fantasy design space as well, because if you use these same design principles but you create new genders...
Well, you can build your world on a very bone-deep level by figuring out the ways in which it categorizes people.
Look. Let's say you define "charcoal burner" as a new gender. It is assigned to those who are born in or that have associated with charcoal burner communities. Charcoal burners are rugged, unrefined, not to be permitted in polite areas. They are allowed to do drudgerous work and wear thick clothing and considered traitorous if they try to rise in station and---
wild that TMEs expect trans women to behave exactly how they expect men to in the bedroom because most of the trans women I know aren't even that interested in anything resembling sex, they want to play with knives and get hurt
I'm gonna speculate here but I think a lot of trans women, on top of having sexualities very informed by our trauma, revel in kink in part because traditional modes of sex are not available to us. a lot of us don't want to top and many of us have reasons for not wanting to do anal. dysphoria often prevents us from anything below the waist altogether. of course we lean into things that hardly resemble "sex"
to be clear this is a beautiful thing, but can we have a moment of silence for the women with debilitating bottom dysphoria combined with a set of kinks that doesn't lend itself super well to non-genital-related play? these women are going through insane sexual dissatisfaction. ask me how I know!
seriously cis people (or rather, if I'm to be a bit bitchy about it, non-dysphoric people in general) take the ability to have their genitals involved in their sex for granted, meanwhile a very large proportion of trans people straight up can't. I just think that's a struggle that should be more understood!
it doesn't help that it's constantly erased by people who expect us to sexually think and behave in accordance with our assigned sex! the erasure of the concept of bodily dysphoria has definitely benefitted people who want to extract sex from us. even by addressing this I feel like a square, because it's not cool for trans women to have boundaries and limits regarding our bodies. it's cool to be sexually available and repress your dysphoria. it's cool to let people take advantage of you
I know there's a lot of baggage and discourse surrounding the idea of dysphoria being understood as a disability, and I'm not intending to make a suggestion for the next DSM here or whatever, but I do think straight up not being able to have any kind of sex involving one's genitalia constitutes a disability
"you only like her because shes a woman" yup "you let female characters get away with too much" yes "if a man did this you would hate him for it" indeed
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