Windows Global Device ID: Microsoft’s Permanent Tracker Has No Off Switch

The Arrest That Exposed Windows' Hidden Tracking Mechanism A 19-year-old alleged hacker boarded a flight in Helsinki this April carrying two two-terabyte hard drives, believing his VPN and multiple aliases had kept him anonymous . He was wrong. What tripped him up wasn't a slip in operational security—it was a permanent, server-generated identifier embedded in his Windows installation that he…