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It's worth pointing out that this goofball was hunted down by Allison Nixon.
There's a very easy trick to defeat this: use Linux.
No you don't understand... I've spent the last 30 years investing in increasingly awful software companies to create "industry standards" and leaving these companies behind would require me to change and learn!!!
I talked with the women i'm working with where we print our price lists about changing from adobe to something else and she told me it would be a bad idea since it would make both of our work much more buggy and time consuming with more chances of the end result being worse. So i'll keep using indesing and the adobe suite for now but i did switch from sketchup to blender for 3D modeling and it's a bit challenging and more messy then i'm used to but i get better rendering results from what i tried so far.
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So many issues with the world boils down to that last part, people refusing to change and learn. I never understood it, I've always loved change and learning. I've seen so many people go from having that same openness to only caring about keeping everything the same and never learning, it's really disturbing. Some are like that from a very early age, others fall into it at any other part of their lives and it's never a good thing IMO.
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If your system uses systemd, it has an etc/machine-id, which is used for a lot of different things. And changing it will break a lot of stuff, probably until you reboot. I guess you could write something to randomly shuffle it every time you reboot? But it is the go-to way for lots of programs (including browsers) to identify themselves. Which means (unless you have done the work to scramble your machine ID) you can be tracked on Linux as well.
The difference is that Linux isn't sending telemetry to some central entity associating that ID to an IP.
Microsoft’s records showed that at that exact same minute, a Windows device carrying GDID g:6755467234350028 had visited the ngrok signup page. Three hours later, the same GDID visited the retailer’s own website, through the same Tzulo proxy address used to set up the ngrok account.
This article is super vague about this as well. How does Microsoft not only have the GDID->IP link, but they have Web history as well? Are they just exposing all this through advertising telemetry?
Fucking gross. And if you know of anything on Linux exposing/transmitting the machine-id, please do let everyone know because nothing should. Anything that does should be considered malware.
It's not just Windows tracking your web browsing history. GPU drivers do it too. Source: https://www.neowin.net/news/intel-windows-driver-to-now-collect-user-telemetry-data-like-website-categories-by-default/
It’s not just Windows tracking your web browsing history. GPU drivers do it too.
..on Windows. if you explicitly install their malware and agree to data sharing.
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That's wild. Shit like this makes me distrust proprietary drivers
I distrust proprietary anything at this point
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also there's the TPM chip.
Upvoting both comments for awareness, since Linux is the first of a multi-step process, not a privacy panacea.
But we must be clear that in both theory and practice there’s little comparison between systemd and modern Windows machine-user association.
Someone using Windows regularly has a gaping wound, is actively bleeding out. Switching to Linux is just a tourniquet, but every other treatment is at best no-effect until that tourniquet is applied.
E: transpose systemd/Windows for clarity
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I switched to Linux Mint a long ass time ago. Micropenis can go fuck themselves.
So they're saying that all these "secret" societies online, like the Peter Thiel psychopathy, are relatively easily identified and rounded up and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and they're just choosing not to do it? I'm shocked.
I mean Epstein was actively talking about his crimes over plaintext Gmail
Why would they catch pedophiles? Their founder is one
What idiot hacker uses Windows?
A genz hacker. In a world where "hacking" is writing prompts and calling IT help desks.
and calling IT help desks.
It always amazes me how much people shit talk social engineering, when it's been a power house for hackers since the beginning.
The human (or I guess AI now) element is always the weakest link
Wait, calling IT Help Desks isn’t social engineering now?
It always is. Even if you're actually calling for help, you need to basically trick them into helping you these days.
Tbf, some of the best hackers were social engineering their way into the backend just by calling up certain support numbers in the 80s
I refuse to call social engineers hackers, conmen is more fitting.
Hacking is making something work in an unconventional or unexpected way. Social engineers hack people in that way.
Defcon would disagree. I've watched so many presenters talk about all forms of penetration testing, many of which used social engineering and lockpicking as a way to create exploitable vulnerabilities in networks. Whether or not you care to call them hackers... It doesn't really matter, won't stop them from hacking.
The weakest link in cybersecurity are usually the users after all.
You can refuse to call them hackers, everyone is entitled to be wrong about something.
Kevin Mitnick was a prolific hacker who used social engineering regularly to infiltrate, and hackers still do today. Humans are a massive weak point in any org, that's why we have to take quarterly training not to be a moron and let someone into our network through doing something stupid.
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Sounds like the tagline for a really crap movie. How far we've fallen from two people on one keyboard.
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Gen Z knows how to use Windows?
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I can't believe Microslop would do something like this to its loyal customers!
I was gonna comment something about Linux distro also having a machine ID, but then I remembered that it's not in a big database, and it's so well enforced I routinely have multiple machines with the same ID pop up :D
Linux users will probably tell you their id if you ask them nicely and seem interested in their distro of choice.
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The level of naivete to think it's a good idea using a microsoft account on a microsoft product for your illegal activity is astounding. Especially when you consider the amount of technical knowledge required to do such a thing.
I legitimately cannot make that connection, Microsoft has never been shy about tracking you or their tight relationship with 3 letter agencies. It doesn't take a genius to know they are going to snitch, I figured that was a foregone conclusion.
Kids need to learn about OPSEC.
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None of the articles I've read about this explains how the GDID gets mapped onto the user's activity.
"Windows device carrying GDID g:6755467234350028 had visited the ngrok signup page"
So does it mean that Windows monitors your activity outwith just Microsoft services and sends all data to their servers? Is it maybe MS Edge history sync?
My laptop came with Win11, I’ve removed that drive a few months ago and replaced it with Mint.
Does this mean MS has my motherboard, WiFi, other hardware identifiers that would still tie that laptop to their database?
Yup!
Motherboard, CPU, GPU models and serial numbers. Ram size and speed. Those were used during Windows activation as old as windows 95. But likely yes, a full list of every component connected.
Your Android phone collects every WiFi network it has ever seen and sends it to Google, so we should assume Microsoft does the same (Android can locate you without GPS by using your neighbors' WiFi signals as position identifiers, and can triangulate you to a few feet using the relative networks' signal strengths)
GrapheneOS babyyyyy
Cannot wait for the Motorola/GrapheneOS collab phones.
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Cant wait for someone to make or reveal they already have a GDID spoofer and can now make grandma look like the worlds number 1 hacker.
By design.
Ctrl-f NSAKEY (sees nothing)
it seems the internet has forgotten the NSAKEY debacle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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