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Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch

windowslatest.com

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Re: Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch

#11

Post by dpark »

mancerayder wrote: post #2

This was a fun article to read. Yes Windows is more surveillance software than Android or Apple are - the article makes that case well at the end when talking about how tracking is more explicit and can be turned off on those. But I'm struck with how dumb, or just lacking in paranoia, this seemingly successful and rich hacker is. First of all he's using Windows. Excuse me? Second he used that device to log into perso…

He’s not a hacker in the sense used by people here. He’s a glorified script kiddie. His group couldn’t even deploy ransomware with two admin accounts. They aren’t competent.

Re: Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch

#13

Post by drdexebtjl »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #5
bsian wrote: post #4

>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. Can someone explain the mechanism through which Windows sends this information to Microsoft? Did the hacker use Edge, which communicate…

It's "Connected Devices Platform" telemetry bullshit. See https://github.com/SmtimesIWndr/gdid-reversal

None of it says how the GDID was associated with browsing history. It says it’s associated with a Microsoft account.

Why did Microsoft have his browsing history? Was he syncing it from Edge?

Re: Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch

#14

Post by altairprime »

drdexebtjl wrote: post #3

What isn’t clear to me is how they’re able to say which GDID visited each site and when. Did the hacker not disable telemetry? Was he using Microsoft Edge? Or is it just a GDID->IP mapping combined with network activity? It is obvious that Microsoft has an identifier for my device. They enforce license activation. The problem is that they’re tracking user activity and associating it with this ID, even for a user who,…

This isn’t the pre-Win11 hardware license identifier that we already knew about. This is the “Microsoft Account identifier” that Win11 forces an association with for every install and activation of a Windows 11 hardware license. Presumably that identifier also exists in earlier versions of Windows when using Microsoft Store, or Office, or Sign In With Microsoft Account — but those were things one could opt out of. If the prior hardware license system could be so trivially linked to people, then Microsoft would be behaving like Oracle and issuing pay-or-else demands to millions of end users worldwide; they have not. The news here to me is that Windows 11 has now been proven publicly to correct that oversight, and can begin targeting specific individuals both for law enforcement and for corporate profits.

Re: Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch

#16

Post by hulitu »

mancerayder wrote: post #2

This was a fun article to read. Yes Windows is more surveillance software than Android or Apple are - the article makes that case well at the end when talking about how tracking is more explicit and can be turned off on those. But I'm struck with how dumb, or just lacking in paranoia, this seemingly successful and rich hacker is. First of all he's using Windows. Excuse me? Second he used that device to log into perso…

> Yes Windows is more surveillance software than Android or Apple are

this is cheap

> There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

You can opt out of "some" tracking. But that is all. You have an advertising ID, a Chrome/Safari ID, an IMEI etc.

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