✨ star-crossed lizards 🦎

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!!

Despite making this post in August, this post spikes in brief periods throughout the year, depending on when folks like to start.

Reading all the cool costume projects people are working on

Rowling believes that she has a right to commit sexual violence against women she believes don't deserve rights or safety.

Her response to receiving criticism on posting said upskirt was to essentially argue that the trans woman had it coming and as was basically asking for it because of what she was wearing.

in Coco, Hector is a musician and song writer and he writes a song for his daughter. in the song, he asks his daughter to remember him while he's away and reassuring her that he's always with her, even if they're apart. the song is meant to be sang "simply, tenderly", as stated on the music sheet that Hector made. i can't watch the end scene in Coco without crying because the song is just that beautiful [Hector's version]

in the movie, Ernesto de la Cruz kills Hector and steals his songs due to his own greed. he turns the song into an upbeat, flashy performance, the meaning twisted into a romantic love song where Ernesto is saying goodbye to a lover [Ernesto's version]

what started out as a slow, sentimental song about love for a daughter was turned into something that lost complete meaning. now if we compare that to Stevie Wonder's song, Isn't She Lovely, and what Goose did with it, we see that the comparisons are strikingly similar

the funniest part is that this happens in Coco and is obviously meant to be a very very bad thing he did. not just because he stole the song, but also the song's original meaning. which, when you pour your love and soul out into a song, that's a really fucked up thing to do... which is also what Stevie Wonder did, considering he writes most of his own songs