GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
    • const_void@lemmy.ml
      112·
      17 天前

      Seems like the answer is never. The masses are too addicted to PC games to give it up.

    • whatiswrongwithyou@lemmy.ml
      91·
      17 天前

      The same user posted a thread in this comm about the Linux equivalent, device-id, which is possibly more problematic.

    • iamtherealwalrus@lemmy.world
      43·
      17 天前

      I have tried over and over for 30 years now and every time I discover something is missing, something I’m not willing to give up. Today it was Google Drive. There are multiple solutions for Linux to mount Google Drive as a folder in the local filtersystem, none of them offer decent performance compared to the windows client. Every time I try Linux something like this comes up.

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
        2·
        17 天前

        could you elaborate on what you mean by “performance” of cloud storage? the speed of upload, download?

        • iamtherealwalrus@lemmy.world
          2·
          17 天前

          The time it takes to open and list a directory using Nautilus in GNOME desktop. It can take 5-10 seconds with a directory of 5 files, a lot longer if there are 50 files in a directory. And all the “solutions” I find on the web involve some kind of guesswork and tweaking settings left and right, hoping to somehow hit a magic combination that works.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
      28·
      17 天前

      Imagine your computer has a secret ID number that Microsoft gives it when you sign in with your Microsoft account. This number is like a permanent nametag that your computer wears. Even if you use a VPN to hide your location, that nametag stays the same.

      A hacker used a VPN to hide while breaking into a jewelry store’s computer system. But Microsoft helped the FBI find him because his computer’s secret nametag kept showing up everywhere he went online. They matched that nametag to his social media accounts and other stuff he did, and that’s how they caught him. Most people didn’t even know this secret nametag existed, and you can’t turn it off without breaking your computer.

  • mazzilius_marsti@lemmy.world
    6·
    16 天前

    the fucked up thing is this GDID thing apparently also show up for VM. So that would mean any VM and even a Quebe?

    Fuck microsoft

  • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
    32·
    17 天前

    Smug Reddit-level takes left and right in this thread. The kid successfully hacked a website, you can assume he knows what he’s doing better than you and followed all the best practices short of not using Windows. They didn’t get his account from his Edge credential store. He probably used some Firefox-derivative. Tor browser if he was stupid. He probably “hardened” Windows every way he could think of, again, short of disconnecting from the internet. Windows simply does a good job of spying on you, that’s all it is.

    There are even people in the thread recommending running Windows games on Linux as a way to avoid this surveillance. If you put Microsoft Flight Sim on your Linux computer, then that’s now a Windows computer. Microsoft owns that computer, same as the Windows one. If you install Nvidia drivers, Nvidia owns that computer, and the USA can ask Nvidia for your accounts and whereabouts instead of Microsoft. If you put Steam on your Linux computer, that’s now Steam’s computer and the USA can ask Steam.

    There is no “safe” amount of malware.

      • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
        3·
        17 天前

        The security of Tor is built on the assumption that one actor owning a majority of the nodes is improbable to the point of being written off as a non-concern. The tool has always been run and maintained by the USA government. When they opened access to the public, they owned the majority of the nodes, and with the amount of compute available to the NSA (look up the size of their official data-centres, add in their hacked bot-farms), it’s almost certain they still do. If it wasn’t their plan to always have supremacy, they aren’t doing their job. The purpose of Tor is to hide traffic from USA’s enemies. A few tens of thousands of private users is just reducing their power bill and painting targets on their own backs, not successfully hiding from the NSA.

        • chinaski@lemmy.ml
          2·
          17 天前

          I appreciate the explanation. If not Tor, for very obvious reasons you specified, what is the better alternative?

          • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
            2·
            16 天前

            There isn’t a 1-step perfect solution as far as I know. You can use Tor in combination with other technologies, and it’ll likely help you avoid a lot of surveillance, just not specifically the NSA. (Also keep in mind anyone/commercial actors can run Tor nodes with the intention of spying on Tor users. You need a lot of nodes to catch anyone, but I wouldn’t assume it never happens).

            The main thing is to own your software and hardware, and disconnect what you don’t own from the internet. If you can’t meet those conditions, then it’s impossible no matter how vigilant and knowledgable you are.

            My recommendations is to play your computer games on an offline computer via GOG purchases, or if you want Steam games, then just give up on securing that device. Have two networks. Have your secure computers for your general online tasks and chatting, and have the unsecure computer for interacting with DRM and services that lose a lot of functionality if the surveillance vectors are blocked.

            Bad attempts at hardening often don’t work, and have the adverse effect of making you more unique for fingerprinting. It might be worth foregoing some hardening advice if you can think of workarounds the hostile actor might use, which you don’t know how to counter-act.