A good reason to stop using Microsoft's operating system forever. Apple
has the same thing with the hardware, with Linux being the only viable
escape.
<
https://shorturl.at/UcvQ5>
A Hacker's Arrest Reveals Microsoft Can Track Users Via a Windows Device ID Updated Jul 06, 2026
The FBI used a Microsoft device identifier, dubbed GDID, to link a
teenager to a hack attributed to Scattered Spider, raising privacy red
flags about Windows' surveillance capabilities.
The arrest of a teenage hacker has revealed that Microsoft can track a
Windows PC and its online activity through a ?Global Device ID" that
seems to have no easy opt-out, sparking fears about potential surveillance.
Last week, the US announced it had extradited 19-year-old Peter Stokes
from Europe for allegedly being a member of the notorious hacking group Scattered Spider. But the case stands out because Microsoft played a key
role in linking Stokes to the suspected hacking crimes, according to an unsealed criminal complaint.
Stokes allegedly hacked an unnamed luxury jewelry retailer in May 2025
while using a VPN. The 39-page criminal complaint shows the FBI used
Microsoft records to discover that his IP address was associated with a Microsoft device identifier known as Global Device ID (GDID).
?According to a Microsoft representative, a Global Device Identifier in
the Windows ecosystem is a persistent, device-level identifier designed
to uniquely identify an installation of a Windows operating system on a device, either a physical device (e.g., a mobile phone or laptop) or
virtual machine, across certain Microsoft services and scenarios," the complaint explains.
The global device ID isn?t exactly surprising, given that it's standard practice to assign a unique ID to each account or device so a tech
provider can recognize and distinguish between them. But the complaint
reveals Microsoft can associate the GDID with third-party services and
the timing as well, giving Redmond a way to theoretically track a user?s online activity. In other words, Redmond might be able to track the
online activity of your Windows PC without third-party browser cookies.
Stokes was discovered exploiting a web development tool called ngrok to
bypass the jewelry retailer's network defenses. The complaint says
Microsoft had records showing that on May 12, 2025, at 19:21 UTC, the
GDID associated with Stokes? computer ?accessed, among other ngrok
pages, '
https://dashboard[.]ngrok.com/signup,' the ngrok page to set up
an ngrok account.?
The document adds that Microsoft records also showed the GDID accessing ?multiple sites? from servers at Tzulo, a web hosting provider, to help
pull off the hack.
The GDID for Stokes' PC was allegedly 6755467234350028.(Credit: DOJ)
Hence, the fact that federal investigators used the Microsoft identifier
to nab a suspected hacker is raising concerns that it could be abused
for other surveillance purposes. ?Microsoft Windows is surveillance
software,? cybersecurity expert Matthew Hickey alleged in a tweet.
The device ID is mentioned briefly on this support page, but Microsoft
hasn't otherwise commented on it publicly. According to the criminal complaint, a Windows user can reset the GDID on their own, although it's
not easy. ?A GDID remains consistent across Windows operating system
updates on a device, but a reinstall of Windows, either on the same
device or on a different device, will be tied to a new unique GDID,? the
court document says. In a footnote, it adds, ?Thus, one Microsoft user
could have multiple GDIDs.?
Still, we suspect it wouldn?t be hard for Microsoft to tie a newly set
GDID to the old one, since the company could look at other identifiers,
such as a Microsoft account login or an IP address, and match them. In response to the surveillance potential, some users have already been
exploring ways to contain and scrub the GDID identifier.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity researcher Costin Raiu is questioning whether
other tech companies have the same surveillance capabilities, given the
use of unique identifiers.
"I would also ask: how much of this is happening on Apple devices? Is it
on the same scale? Is it happening at an even higher level ? do they tie
it to the hardware, so that even if you reinstall, it doesn?t matter,
because it?s hardware-based?" he said in the Three Buddy Problem
podcast. "Very likely it?s not unique to Microsoft. And probably, if you
want to be fully anonymous, you may at some point have to use Linux,
FreeBSD, whatever, for your development environments, and tunnel
everything through proxies, Tor, VPNs, and such."
--
CrudeSausage
M4 MacBook Air
"Derka, derka, Muhammad jihad!"
--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
