It’s news to me. I gotta get Mint on it.
Your Windows PC Has a Permanent ID That Follows You – Even With a VPN
a month ago by alessandro to c/pcgaming
tanisnikana 31 points a month ago
Prove_your_argument 5 points a month ago
CachyOS has been phenomenal for me. Coming up on 7 months now without using windows beyond as a moonlight client on an ARM64 laptop (and windows server, because sysadmin gotta sysadmin.)
HerbGrower 17 points a month ago
People should stop doing that
one_old_coder 2 points a month ago
They should have stopped decades ago. Mint or Ubuntu are easier to install than Windows 2000 and way more powerful.
HerbGrower 2 points a month ago
Yeah, been using Linux as my only OS since late 2000s
BlameTheAntifa 9 points a month ago
Without a window, how else can you appreciate your RAM’s obligatory RGB features?
Racoonwithbenefits 24 points a month ago path: 0 24924738 24924938 24924982, hotness: undefined, score: 24, children: 3
Racoonwithbenefits 3 points a month ago path: 0 24924738 24924938 24924982 24928844 24929968, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
BlameTheAntifa 5 points a month ago
My joke was not clear enough. I appreciate you for your helpfulness.
ArmchairAce1944 4 points a month ago
I haven't since middle of last year.
amphy 12 points a month ago
If that's really a concern, USB or PCIe NICs are always an option as a replacement, whether temporary or permanent. More advanced users can create virtual connections to route traffic through (macvlans) with custom configurable MAC addresses and/or use virtual machines that offer the same feature if a guest OS is preferred or necessary.
The identifier the article is talking about is instead persistent on any Windows OS regardless of hardware, including if the OS is a virtual machine. Using the OS at all on the Internet ensures Microsoft can always track it.
randombullet 7 points a month ago
It's trivial to spoof
Marshezezz 3 points a month ago path: 0 24924738 24927170 24933892 24938106, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
BCsven 1 point 25 days ago
I had a Samsung media player for the US market, its functions were super limited (music, video, images, shit games) compared to the Korean market release ( previous list, better games plus two player live Bluetooth games, subway maps for major global cities, multi language dictionaries. Note taking app, ecpanded themeing of interface)
I found the firmware updater online, the Korean releasr OS version , and part of that process was just Editting the bluetooth MAC manually in a text file prior to reflashing....it was an eye opener to MAC/NIC stuff not being as locked down like all the software licensing vendors portrayed it was.
thingsiplay 22 points a month ago
There is actually a Microsoft Linux distribution: Azure Linux (previously named CBL Mariner), based on Fedora. And funny enough, it's initial release was appropriately on a April 1. Even Microsoft understood the joke, have to give them that.
nirodhaavidya 29 points a month ago
Court filings in the Scattered Spider hacking case reveal Microsoft provided the FBI with a complete IP history tied to something called a Global Device ID (GDID)
It's kinda like a MAC address
christopher 24 points a month ago
I don't have a Windows PC
ShankShill 8 points a month ago
I do.
Though, those socket A boards kinda suck even after a recap. 98 runs great when it boots!
Gotta power cycle the PSU to get it to boot the first time. Tried 3 PSUs before the recap and nothing changed.
christopher 1 point a month ago
That reminds me I want to try Windows 3 in a virtual machine just for fun. See how fast it boots
GrindingGears 2 points a month ago
It always booted fast enough (well as fast as computers were then). It was pretty fucking useless though. Dos was still way more useful and efficient in those days.
christopher 5 points a month ago
True. Mom had a computer with Win 3.11 on it. I played on that thing for hours when I was younger. I played an unauthorized dos Star Trek game a lot.
one_old_coder 1 point a month ago
Office like applications and fonts disagree. DOS was annoying, Windows was pretty.
lazynooblet 18 points a month ago
There are lots of unique identifiers in computers, not just Windows.
MAC address, serial number, bios uuid.
Linux even has /etc/machine-id
GrindingGears 2 points a month ago
I mean if you have a phone in your pocket, you are completely dicked. I'm not saying we should be accepting it (dont), but it's completely fucking hopeless right now. We are boxed in on all fronts.
sp3ctr4l 2 points a month ago
I mean sure, if you're fully running a mainline corporate phone and OS, with none of your own privacy or security measures utilized.
I don't think its really possible at this point to actually bring your signature and foot print down to literally 0, but you can do a fair deal of uh... privacy hygiene, to minimize those.
It's not totally hopeless. You... just have to actually learn how to actually be private, with technology. It's not easy, but it is also not impossible.
And that is just passive resistance, becoming un-surveillable, to a meaningful extent.
GrindingGears 3 points 25 days ago
It takes a lot of finagling. People like you and me, we can minimize it. Custom Roms, PiHoles, VPN, onionized, etc. But the general joe? No chance.
I also don't fully 100% believe that there isn't technology at this point that renders all of the above moot. We probably just don't fully know about it all yet.
lazynooblet -1 points a month ago
That you know of 😂
Ludicrous0251 15 points a month ago
Your Windows PC Has a Permanent ID That Follows You – Even With a VPN
Yes, it's bad, but worth pointing out, they didn't identify the user directly by somehow extracting GDID from their traffic, they identified them because their GDID happened to be in the same place at the same time at their hacking efforts that became statistically impossible to ignore.
Realistically this kind of tracking could be accomplished with any software with a unique ID that does, say, daily update checks or usage pings. This one is just extra bad because it's ubiquitous (on Windows) and almost impossible to change, so they have a 1-stop-shop for spying.
sp3ctr4l 11 points a month ago
All tracking is done by amalgamating as many different overlapping signals and indicators together as you can, and then establishing basically a confidence score/threshold.
This one is extra bad because it was never disclosed previously.
Trust = Gone, what else is MSFT hiding?
BigTrout75 15 points a month ago
Does it follow me after Linux install?
Sickday 4 points a month ago
Just want to point out that /etc/machine-id is unique to systemd systems. AlpineLinux, for example, doesn't generate this file on install.
forestbeasts 2 points a month ago
We tossed systemd out the window on our Debian. Stuff broke when we removed /etc/machine-id.
Turns out dbus ALSO uses it, but if it's not in /etc, it makes its own at /var/lib/dbus/machine-id (which was symlinked to /etc/machine-id on our system).
So we just wrote 00000000000000000000000000000000 to it instead. 🙃
-- Frost
Someonelol 3 points a month ago
What happens if you erase it though? System32 moment?
e0qdk 2 points a month ago
Honestly not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it breaks something with D-Bus based on skimming the man pages, but I've never dug into it. Its not exposed in containers I run though, and I haven't run into anything that broke there as a result... 🤷️
Sickday 2 points a month ago
You can check the man pages for this file, but in short it gets regenerated. It's used to determine whether this is the first boot or not.
affenlehrer 1 point a month ago
phoenixz 12 points a month ago
Well shit.
I have Linux, so I don't gave that feature either! What am I supposed to do now? I want to be visible everywhere and tracked by everyone, but I had to chose Linux and again I'm left out!
This sucks
TrippingBalls 3 points a month ago
I bet you don't get those aggravating pop ups and ads either.
You're missing out on the typical PC user experience
ForgottenUsername 8 points a month ago
Well that's terrifying,
but not unexpected...
ExtremeDullard 8 points a month ago
Windows
What's that?
TrippingBalls 5 points a month ago
What kind of hacker uses windows?
WTF
thingsiplay 4 points a month ago
Does this only apply to Windows 11 or also to 10? I know the ID even works if you installed Windows on a virtual machine. I'm on Linux, but I have Windows 10 installed for very specific tasks (in example to update firmware of my 8bitdo gamepad and configure its settings, because they suck and don't provide a Linux tool for this).
Malix 6 points a month ago
apparently they do now - kinda? https://web.8bitdo.com/ but seems to require a chromium-based browser
thingsiplay 7 points a month ago
You mean the firmware can be updated over the browser?? Well, I use Firefox and they don't support Firefox. Another L from 8bitdo. (But thanks for the link nontheless!)
jaygray91 4 points a month ago
clicking through that link, it obviously blocks my zen browser, and recommends google's chrome, chromium, ms edge and opera.
this seems like a massive L still. hopefully it's not hard-coded to require those 4 only, and a stripped down chromium browser can be used. I don't have a race in this horse yet, becauseI did consider 8bitdo controllers once my gamesir controller dies. maybe I'll just have to save up for a steam controller, even though Valve still doesn't ship to my country, and I refuse to buy from scalpers. even legit businesses here are scalping hard... fucking scalpers.
my first draft comment to you was a bit hopeful that maybe stripped down chromium browsers can replace your singular use windows VM. I apologize for assuming
thingsiplay 5 points a month ago
As for the Steam Controller, I have purchased it and want to warn you about something. The controller is designed to work only as a controller, when Steam is running. Which is a deal breaker to use it outside Steam for me, because I don't want to have it running in the background when not playing on Steam. So I end up using it in Steam only. There are third party efforts for drivers to make it usable without Steam, but they have all their own quirks. However the SDL 3 library now supports Steam Controller. So any application updating to SDL 3 comes with free Steam Controller native support, in example RetroArch.
MangoPenguin 2 points a month ago
Firefox and forks have supported webusb for awhile now, so I think 8bitdo just needs to update their website.
thingsiplay 1 point a month ago
That's not the point.
Malix 2 points a month ago
https://github.com/franfermon/8bitdo_update might still work? But the author does recommend using the 8bitdo's service as first option.
thingsiplay 3 points a month ago
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not taking a risk with firmware updates. Also I already have a virtual machine setup for this.
MangoPenguin 2 points a month ago
Firefox supports webusb too so I think their app is just out of date maybe..
sneezycat 4 points a month ago
I have a comment about updating the 8bitdo firmware on Linux, maybe it'll help you.... Let me look it up.
Edit: here you go! Good luck :P
DarrinBrunner 2 points a month ago
I have a photo scanner I can't get to work on Linux Mint, so I have an old laptop with Win10 on it for that single purpose. I haven't booted it in months, but I do need to get back to that project.
It doesn't need or get internet access.
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