- Microsoft's Global Device ID (GDID) uniquely identifies Windows installations and survives reboots, updates, and removal.
- The GDID was used in a US court case to identify a suspected member of the 'Scattered Spider' cyber gang despite VPN use.
- The GDID is part of Windows telemetry sent to Microsoft servers, regardless of account type (Microsoft or local).
- Users concerned about privacy can create new virtual machines to change their GDID or switch to operating systems like Linux.
- Similar identification mechanisms likely exist in other major operating systems like Android, ChromeOS, and macOS.