AnonymousTypewriter

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

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.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.

I also made a PDF version!!

For comprehensive deets, tomshardware explains

It's not about being tough on crime, because the absolute toughest most brutal measure you could take against "crime" as a social problem is to alleviate poverty, and increase access to education, healthcare and social mobility.

It's about performing "tough on crime" as an aesthetic by enacting violence against a prop, i.e. minorities and the impoverished, who are fetishized and objectified to represent "crime." They are brutalized as punishment for crime, but never with the purpose of alleviating the problem of crime.

nothing weird about that whatsoever. i like this manga artist i'm going to read his earlier works!

*reads an older, fetish-y manga that obsesses over body hair and how the protag is often mistaken for a little girl and outright says he wishes he was like the girl protag because she has so much body hair, and is essentially pushed into helping her*

hm, well, there's not really a theme here or anything they're different

*reads an even older fetish-y manga obsessing over genitals and has a guy get pushed into helping the girl protag*

ok there's a theme developing here

*reads another early work of his where a boy's existence mixes with a girl's existence and they become "one" after said girl is bossy and pushing him into it*

no man you can't be serious this is all coincidence

*writes a vampire story where a girl forcibly turns a boy into a vampire and offers him to run away with her and begin a new life*

ok but this one can be seen as such a stretch it's not the same thing by a long shot i'm just finding false connections

*his most notable work is about how perversion is something all of us have, what defines the end of adolescence, and the story involves a pushy girl bullying the protag and makes him crossdress at points*

come on man, you can't be serious, you can't put it in every manga

*his newest manga is about an aggressive nonbinary trans girl and the main boy protag at one point says "even i don't want to be a boy sometimes!" when screaming at a transphobe harassing her*

you can not be serious man, you can not be serious

*in the afterward in a volume of the previously mentioned trans manga, the author says he would dream of being a cute girl when he was a kid*

this image? we have every reason to think it is a cucumber, like it was made in clay models in burials period, it's painted green, it's on the small side of things (9.6 cm or 3 3/4 inch)

oh right and it was placed on a model offering table with small model bread and drinking cup