Books and Berries

so I was listening to music and got this message… at first I assumed that my boyfriend sent the wrong person a message asking for toilet paper, but when i got up to bring him some i saw his phone on the bed and realized 

he’s the one who gave him those earrings…

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

There's a Niibashi for that:

There's a Kagiura for that:

"you know you're being incredibly unreasonable about this."

eddie's expression shifts, fractionally different from the tamped-down irritation that he had worn the entire call, after he had walked in to the tail-end of her conversation with buck. buck would probably be able to tell the exact nuance of this type of eddie-storm, but they're having another one of their moments, so.

not that eddie's been any less snippy with her, recently.

"i'm not doing anything," eddie says, voice tight. it's so ludicrous that hen snorts, the ambulance rattling around them. she feels kind of bad for jones, driving up front.

"if you furrow your brows any harder, you're gonna keep those wrinkles by the end of the day, diaz."

hen watches the way eddie's jaw shifts, his teeth clenching. "i just--" he hisses out a breath, slow and deliberate. "i don't want them to...have to diminish what they have."

she feels a little flare of irritation. "that's not what this is, eddie."

"what is it, then?"

"they're figuring it out," she stresses. "on their own terms. they shouldn't be rushed into deciding what they want to be for each other."

it feels like double-speak. for some reason, eddie looks away. "they already know what they are to each other," he grits out. "it doesn't-- it doesn't need to be a big deal. they can just...be. you're getting him too into his own head about it."

"i'm getting him out of his head," hen informs him. "buck's doing his best right now--"

"-- i know," eddie frowns, insulted.

"-- but. it's a difficult situation. he was a donor, not a dad, and he's just having a little trouble adjusting his thinking, for the best way to approach theo."

something about that makes eddie's fingers clench together, his countenance darkening even more. "he is a dad," he says, and it's sharp-edged in a way that hen doesn't appreciate.

"not right now," she tells him, no room for error. "maybe someday, but-- it's not fair to either of them, right now, for them to have to decide."

eddie looks away from her. "i don't want buck to believe that he wouldn't be a good dad. you know he'd be a great dad."

hen heaves out an irritated breath. "that's not what i'm saying and you know it, eddie." annoyance crawls into her voice despite herself, denny's small face flickering into her memory. "it's not that easy. it's a choice."

"buck's already made his choice."

"and you know this because--?"

it's the wrong thing to say, she knows immediately. eddie's entire bearing goes sharp.

"you're right," he says, flatly. "maybe i don't. maybe i would, if buck would actually talk to me for once."

the ambulance rolls to a stop. eddie shoves the door open before hen can respond.

"eddie," she calls after him anyways. halfway out the doors, eddie pauses for a fraction of a second. it's enough. "you know this isn't about you, right?"

a flinch. he doesn't turn around, footsteps disappearing deeper into the station. behind them, hen hears the rumble of the engine entering, familiar boots hitting the ground.

she sighs. counts to ten inside her mind. gets out of the ambulance.

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so good drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

That's

That's Roy Mustang

Just the opposite.

Roy "I grew up with 10 sisters so I know how to disguise covert information reconnaissance as flirting" Mustang.

"I grew up with 10 sisters so I know how to weaponize my sexual charm to disarm others and win favor."

Roy led every higher-up to believe he was just a fuckboy and a manwhore in this for his own ego and that they shouldn't view him as any kind of violent revolutionary like "no sir I'm just a slut."

Which. is an absolutely batshit primary character backstory to mention once, late in the series, and then immediately move on from.

And actually Hiromu Arakawa did it so well that every single fan interpretation of Roy Mustang for the FMA03 anime treated him as an honest to god man-slut. Bought his whole act hook line and sinker.