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Appearing on Discord and Instagram as myself, but only as a ghostly apparition who can barely be perceived.*
*I donβt touch these much, but I am there!
Archive of Our Own
Opted to keep my stories locked to all but signed-in readers, but the libraryβs all there.
Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch, and itβs surveillance states dream
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.
TL;DR
Microsoft helped the FBI track down a hacker and revealed that every windows account has a GDID
This can track your IP and even get past VPN, making privacy experts worried about the implications
There are ways to help yourself to get more privacy, like using Linux or turning off certain things within windows
full thing
The FBI caught a hacker with the help of Microsoft
Microsoft βhanded the FBI a way to trace Stokesβ Windows PC across VPNs, proxy servers, and three countries.
The tool is called a Global Device Identifier, or GDID, and outside a handful of enterprise documentation pages, most Windows users had never heard the term before this case made it public.β
βWe went through the full 39-page complaint, cross checked it against independent reverse engineering of how Windows generates and transmits this identifier, and fact checked the technical claims since the story broke.
Here is everything you need to know about GDID, how it caught Stokes, and what it means if you are one of the 1.6 billion people using Windows PCs.β
what is a GDID?
A GDID is a Global Device ID
Itβs basically βa permanent, unique digital fingerprint that Microsoft automatically assigns to your computer when you install Windows or sign into a Microsoft account.β
Itβs mainly used for software licensing and windows store apps
βbut because it links all your online activities on that computer back to a single identity, law enforcement can use it to track a deviceβs true owner across the internetβ
βIt survives Windows updates. It does not survive a clean reinstall, and Microsoftβs footnote in the complaint admits βone Microsoft user could have multiple GDIDsβ over the life of a single account.β
A GDID is made when you sign into a Microsoft account
βSign into Windows with a Microsoft Account, and a server assigns your installation a permanent ID number.
Windows stores it locally, several background services read it, and it gets stamped onto activity your PC reports back to Microsoft.β
βReinstall Windows and you get a new number, but Microsoftβs own records give every reason to link the new one back to the old, through the same account, OneDrive, and activation history, which is close to what happened to Stokes.β
how it was used
The reason why the hacker was caught was because he used the same computer for everything
There is a bunch of tech words that I canβt explain
But it basically was able to track him, even with him using a VPN
why this matters?
βCostin 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 βsurveillance softwareβ.β
βYes, every major OS keeps some persistent device identity, and every vendor can be subpoenaed.
But what differs with Microsoft is visibility and control, and Windows loses on both against Apple and Googleβs platforms.β
what you can do
βUse a local account instead of a Microsoft Account, but we are also aware of how difficult it has become to skip signing in with a Microsoft account. Fortunately, the company is making it easier.β
βTurn off optional diagnostic data under Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.β
βBlock Advertising IDs by toggling off personalized ads and launch tracking under Privacy & security > Recommendations & offers.β
βDisable Cloud Search by turning off Cloud Content Search from Privacy & security > Search to stop local searches from sending data to Bing.β
July 25, 2024 - This week we celebrate the life of Cathy Rutherford, the amazingly fierce lady with the umbrella in the video above. Your hatred for Thatcher and refusal to be nice about it genuinely remains an inspiration π«‘ [link]
Mina: "Alright, everyone pinkie swear right now to put Vampire Me down if I hop the line between death and undeath."
Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad: "Depressing, but sure, absolutely."
Jonathan:
Mina: "...Jonathan?"
Jonathan: "Yes?"
Mina: "Will you promise to slay me if I get vampire'd?"
Jonathan: "Mina, I will not lie to you."
Jonathan:
Mina: "Jonathan. I need you to look me in the eye and promise to murder me martyr-style if I get too undead."
Jonathan: "Fine. I can promise to kill."
Mina: "Me? Vampire me?"
Jonathan, making unbroken eye contact with the four guys who just promised to behead and impale his wife if she stops being human enough: "I guarantee there will be killing involved if Vampire You happens."
Twenty-one tons of potatoes are up for grabs at Potato Palooza on Monday.
The nonprofitβs set to receive a donation of 21 tons of tubers this weekend from suppliers in the Midwest. Hoping to get the starchy vegetables to people in need, the nonprofit will host a βPotato Paloozaβ event on Monday in Park Hill.
βAnyone is welcome to come. They can bring tote bags, wagons, you could back up your pickup truck if you wanted to,β Hissong said. The event is 9 a.m. to noon at the Park Hill Food Recovery Hub, 6090 East 39th Avenue, on July 27.
"Consensual, but still weird" is underrated in toxic freaky shipping world. There are many ways you can make it weird while still having everyone agree to it
This month people have been tearing Flock cameras off their poles.
This month people have been tearing Flock cameras off their poles. Perched above public streets, they are birdlike things, weatherproof, and they photograph every passing car and file it in a searchable national database.
Somebody cut two of them in half at Washington Avenue and Westcott in Houston, spray-painted the wreckage, and left an American flag on one of them. Police were notified on the morning of the Fourth of July.
Somebody severed a camera in Rutherfordton, North Carolina. The police department posted the photograph itself and collected more than twenty thousand comments. βNot all heroes wear capes.β βGive them a medal.β
Here is what the cameras do when nobody cuts them down. Cops use them to hunt immigrants and to follow ICE targets across state lines and to find women who ended pregnancies in states where that is a crime and to watch exes and to watch women they want, without a warrant and without a judge. A cop types a reason in a box and the box does not check.
A man in Burleson, Texas, told deputies his girlfriend had taken abortion pills. He showed them the photographs, the FedEx envelope, the instructions. Deputies opened a death investigation into a non-viable fetus, and the district attorney told them the state could not charge her, and they searched anyway: 83,345 cameras across 6,809 networks, a month of everywhere she had been. The reason they typed was had an abortion, search for female. The search reached Illinois and Washington, where what she did was legal. They found her in Dallas.
She came into the sheriffβs office a week later, and they thought she had come to explain the fetus, and she had come to report that the man who called them had put a gun to her head.
A sheriff in Jerome County, Idaho ran his wifeβs plate more than seven hundred times in three months. He typed the same reason every time. Test. The attorney general found nothing to charge him with. He retired in April.
The Institute for Justice counts at least twenty-two officers who used the system to track people they were romantically interested in, and calls that almost certainly an undercount.
And the cameras keep falling.
Become ungovernable.
Death is inevitable! Live like you know it! @see-arcane - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
