Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#91

Post by drdexebtjl » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:28 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #81

tremon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both systemd and dbus have a similar device id for Linux, which e.g. Chrome reads at startup: https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/systemd/machine-id.5.en.h... https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/dbus-bin/dbus-uuidgen.1.e...

That's good to know, thank you. I'm been considering moving away from systemd, and certainly don't use Chrome. The number of things you need to try to keep track of merely _improve_ your privacy is maddening. The whole world seems to be against you.

D-Bus is much harder to get rid of than systemd.

It’s best to focus your efforts into rotating these IDs.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#92

Post by gruez » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #32

midtake wrote: post #8

To me this indicates that Microsoft has some sort of traffic analysis performed on endpoints, then linked to GDID. I'd guess this is part of Defender's real time protection or MAPS. Fun fact, Microsoft Defender MAPS was previously named SpyNet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Active_Protection_Se... The GDID identifier seems software in nature though. They could be more aggressive and tie it to the baseboard'…

that's the idea behind SecureBoot and the TPM chip is to provide the GDID based on hardware fingerprint. Some games already do this as "anti-cheat" measurements (tracking you) and Microsoft has been doing it since Windows 7 days. It's just that the TPM now gives you that hardware authority.

>that's the idea behind SecureBoot and the TPM chip is to provide the GDID based on hardware fingerprint

hard drive and motherboard serials have been around far longer than TPMs. Not to mention TPMs are far cheaper to replace than hard drives.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#93

Post by diogenescynic » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

I assume this likely true for nearly all device manufactures. I assume all devices have some kind of unique ID that they use for tracking, whether they said so or not.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#94

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC

materialpoint wrote: post #87

istoleabread wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big news: Fork found in kitchen

Since you did not understand the point at all: There are regulations in place to force sites to "ask" for permissions to use cookies and track you. The point is that the regulations completely fail to force the sites to not blatantly lie, and wrap the "consent" with "we care".

No site is forced to implement cookie consent. They all have the option to only use strictly necessary cookies without notification.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#95

Post by account42 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

totaa wrote: post #69

Kipters wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR only covers PII, this is a randomly generated ID that changes on every install on the OS. You can mix it with other info to track a user, but it's not enough to de-anonymize someone on its own.

unfortunately under GDPR, anonymous IDs are personal data as they are used to single out a data subject.

unfortunately???

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#96

Post by blaqq2 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

diogenescynic wrote: post #93

I assume this likely true for nearly all device manufactures. I assume all devices have some kind of unique ID that they use for tracking, whether they said so or not.

I'm more surprised that this already isn't a known fact. I wonder exactly how far into each device activity is being tracked.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#97

Post by llm_nerd » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

lorislab wrote: post #74

The interesting part is not really the existence of a machine identifier. Almost every modern OS has some equivalent. The bigger question is the boundary: which components can access it, and when does a local identifier become a remote tracking identifier? A machine-id sitting on disk is very different from an OS vendor correlating it with network activity.

This is the part that isn't clear and is by far the most interesting. At what stage and what point did the GDID get correlated with a tool/web request. As is it almost sounds like Microsoft "telemetry" gathers everything and they did a bulk search for certain activity, pulling the GDID and correlating it with a user.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#98

Post by nashashmi » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

So this kid uses his home computer at his home, and they trace him down with the IP address, and the IP address also makes a request for Windows Updates. And that narrows down the Device ID. The device id is now traced to this kid.

This is the kind of stuff privacy advocates have been raising the alarms about. This is the kind of capability that de facto erased all privacy assertions. And further led companies like Google to take advantage of this and erase assumptions of privacy all together.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#99

Post by jcarrano » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #15

cheschire wrote: post #12

Well they can’t use that to track users of Linux. I was a big fan of Microsoft ten to fifteen years ago. I’ve since transitioned my whole family off Microsoft products now over to Linux, Apple, and proton. Edit: and Brave. I really thought their corporate culture would’ve changed after the late 90’s but I guess this is a good lesson for founders. The culture you build into your company will likely outlast your tenure…

Both systemd and dbus have a similar device id for Linux, which e.g. Chrome reads at startup: https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/systemd/machine-id.5.en.h... https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/dbus-bin/dbus-uuidgen.1.e...

In dbus, it seems the feature is intended for two processes to know they can access the same shmem and other system resources. I'm struggling to understand in which circumstances would that be useful.

Re: Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID

#100

Post by mysteria » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 2:32 PM UTC

llm_nerd wrote: post #97

lorislab wrote: post #74

The interesting part is not really the existence of a machine identifier. Almost every modern OS has some equivalent. The bigger question is the boundary: which components can access it, and when does a local identifier become a remote tracking identifier? A machine-id sitting on disk is very different from an OS vendor correlating it with network activity.

This is the part that isn't clear and is by far the most interesting. At what stage and what point did the GDID get correlated with a tool/web request. As is it almost sounds like Microsoft "telemetry" gathers everything and they did a bulk search for certain activity, pulling the GDID and correlating it with a user.

From reading the official criminal complaint [1] it looks like Microsoft literally logs all web requests along with the GDID and sends it over as "telemetry". It basically associates the URL, the client's IP, and the GDID together.

Or I suppose it's possible that it only sends the domain and not the full URL, but that's enough for the police to go to the hoster and demand logs containing the full URL for said IP.

1. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndil/media/1450651/dl?inline