Many people are generally skeptical about their online safety and privacy of their data. No matter what measures you take, be it using a VPN, leaving minimal online footprint, or using anonymous accounts, it never feels like you’re completely safe. And since you can’t prove that you’re being watched, it’s easy to think of yourself as paranoid. Until a case like Microsoft’s GDID surfaces.
General public recently became aware that Microsoft has been quietly tracking Windows PCs through a special key that most users have never heard of. Microsoft never publicly detailed it, and it took a federal court filing for the company to fully confirm its existence.
The identifier is called GDID, short for Global Device Identifier, and it recently helped the FBI catch an alleged hacker, who as part of a hacking group, breached security of a jewelry store. The suspect was using VPNs, proxies, and multiple aliases to stay hidden, but GDID still helped the authorities identify him.
And while GDID helped FBI catch the threat actor, the case also exposed something a lot of ordinary Windows users are uneasy about. It shed light on a tracking mechanism that’s baked into the operating system that runs on around 1.6 billion PCs worldwide.
