You must log in or # to comment.
Take from the article: do these 20 steps to avoid
My take; use linux.
And don’t look at /etc/machine-id.
What’s it used for?
You can use vAlpine or other distros that use OpenRC, or init.d Not to mention machine-I’d is use for enterprise deployments, and some encryption
/etc/machine-id predates systemd, it’s from DBus.
or G’d forbid Void Linux with runit
This is enough to never use Windows as your primary device.
deleted by creator
The connection is that Windows records everything you do. So the FBI asks for every Windows user who accessed a specific site around a date/time and Microsoft can provide that.
You accessed a site over VPN? Your ISP has no idea it was you, , and the VPN didn’t keep records, but Windows recorded that and sent it back to the mothership with your unique identifier.
glad i ditched window for home use around 1995
Where did you read that?
Windows does not record everything you do, and especially does not link everything to an ID. Only the MS authentication and MS store stuff uses this GDID.
The GDID isn’t even linked to your name if you don’t use a Microsoft Account. The FBI had to jump through hoops to get the information they wanted and only managed to do so after 4 separate instances where they tracked every social media the guy owned and compared it with logins that happened.
The FBI can use any form of ID to track, and if Linux had a store it could use that ID as well.
From the article:
Microsoft’s records showed that at that exact same minute, a Windows device carrying GDID g:6755467234350028 had visited the ngrok signup page.
Seems pretty clear to me. Microsoft tracked acces to an independent sign up page using the GDID.
Exactly, authentication. They had used the sso with their microsoft account. Thats what linked it together, not windows
my guess is edge history synced to ms account
Exactly it, and their claim that it is stored with bitlocker level encryption is obviously meaningless if they have the keys.
Fun fact, windows 11 backs up your bitlocker private key with Microsoft if you sign in with a Microsoft Account.
There’s a database somewhere with every bitlocker key to almost every Windows 11 device on earth.
I’m sure they let the NSA and the FBI right in. The CIA probably has sleeper agents working devops at Microsoft so they don’t even need to access it procedurally. $10 says Israel can access it too, because why the fuck not.
Is that even necessary? Didn’t YellowKey make bitlocker on Windows 11 a joke?
My guess is oauth. He basically used fake Microsoft account to access services during the hack and them used his actual microsoft account to access something else. He used VPN for the hack but he connected from his actual IP to the second service. The only thing linking those was the GID. So they figured out his actual IP address and checked other logins from this IP around the same time and found out his other accounts.
SOAP in 2026? I need a REST.
Everything after CORBA was a step backwards.
I have terrible news for you about most payment processors and banks…
When Windows provisions a device against a Microsoft Account, a system service called wlidsvc talks to
login.live.comand gets back what Microsoft calls a Device PUID, a Passport Unique ID, inside the server’s SOAP response. Server assigned. Windows never computes it locally from anything on your PC. It receives a string and stores it.The PUID lands in your own registry hive, in plain text, at
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\ExtendedPropertiesunder a value named LID. From there, the Connected Devices Platform, the same background service (cdp.dll, running as CDPSvc) that powers Phone Link, cloud clipboard, and Nearby Share, reads that PUID and registers it into Microsoft’s Device Directory Service, which is the identity graph behind all of Microsoft’s cross device features. There, the number gets a lowercase g stuck in front and gets written as g:decimal. Delivery Optimization then reports that same value back to Microsoft’s servers as UCDOStatus.GlobalDeviceId every time your PC shares or downloads update data peer to peer.It likely uses the motherboard’s burned-in TPM module API to generate the unique hardware ID on, and associate with the account/license.
It’s quite interesting to compare the percent these civilian-scoped features are actually helping and not used for tracking and control of masses, since every accountable fraudster/killer/thief/professional knows about these and could not care less about it.
Yes, it may help for telemetry, and is great to have for an accountable business, which is understandable, but there’s a hope these are not used against the civilian, too, respecting the personal lives and the right of human choice out there…
Ave Linux, the transparency, indeed…
The following is a related piece of information, yet I am sorry, but I am not sure about the accountability and accuracy of the paper, since it was written by the sorrowful LLM Claude:
- https://github.com/SmtimesIWndr/gdid-reversalWhen Windows provisions a device against a Microsoft Account, a system service called wlidsvc talks to
login.live.comand gets back what Microsoft calls a Device PUID, a Passport Unique ID, inside the server’s SOAP response. Server assigned. Windows never computes it locally from anything on your PC. It receives a string and stores it.It likely uses the motherboard’s burned-in TPM module API to generate the unique hardware ID on, and associate with the account/license.
Bruv… it literally says exactly on the statement you quoted that the ID is generated by Microsoft, and explicitly that its not generated on the device. Why would you then go on to speculate that its generated on device by the TPM…?
AFAIK the TPM doesn’t generate anything, its role is for storing cryptographic information - not creating it.
Motherboard TPM sends a cryptographically verifiable serial number ID to Microsoft -> Microsoft generates a Device PUID (this ensures all DPUIDs are in the same format) -> Microsoft send generated DPUID back to the device which is stored within the TPM and is cryptographically verifiable to applications which wish to access and know it, and ensure it is genuine and authentic.
TPMs all have a unique identifier burned into them.
Please do consider checking out how TPM may be used, and I’ve provided a reference for more context.
Ok, that’s enough. Bye Windows.
stallmanwasright.jpg
notaboutthekiddiddling.jpg
fairpoint.jpg
If you’re a hacker and use Windows, you deserve to get caught tbh
Soooo, what does it stop Google or Meta from using same thing that Windows already offers to track users? Because as we all know, shit like this is NEVER only used by the good guys only.
The device id isn’t ever sent to Google or Meta servers. It’s created via login data on the windows machine and then sent to Microsoft with other telemetry info to be able to cross reference errors occurring with other telemetry.
At least my old company used to do something similar to track usage of internal tooling (and more importantly to alert us when users were seeing a bunch of unrecognized errors so we could alert and investigate quickly).
That being said why would Google or Meta care about Microsoft’s unique identifier? They most definitely have their own they are using to track telemetry data you send them to understand usage patterns and problems.
Google has been tracking you for over 15 years, what you mean?
Not if you’re not using any of their shit and actively blocking their garbage. But if they can just tap into the OS global ID that Microsoft slapped into the OS that’s an issue.
My dude, if you are completely de-googled but still running windows (and, even worse, using a microsoft account), that is on you…
I still use Windows because despite Proton, it’s a hassle to run games on Linux, especially multiplayer ones or use advanced features of Radeon Adrenalin that I just need. As for Microsoft account, fuck that shit.
Microsoft being microsoft. Cancel Bill Gates, Windows is a trojan. Use linux.
Switch SYSTEM and RESTRICTED permissions on the registry key to DENY. It might stop even RO access to that LID value.
Windows is just bloated mallware.
What about Windows in a VM?
Here’s how to limit it.
Install Linux.
