Every Windows PC has a hidden ID silently logging what you do. No settings menu, No opt-out, You find out it exists the day windows hands it to the FBI The identifier is called GDID Global Device Identifier. Every Windows install gets one. It's how Microsoft ties a license to a specific machine, which is also why swapping a major hardware component can trigger a re-activation check Most people have never heard of it. It's not something you configure, disable, or even see in normal use The case: Peter Stokes, 19, dual US Estonian citizen, tied to the Scattered Spider group, the same group behind a string of high profile ransomware and social engineering attacks totaling over $100M in extortion He used a VPN. He rotated it across multiple countries. That hides your IP address, not your device's identity Microsoft handed the GDID data to the FBI. Court documents reportedly show it linked to logs of his web activity, tool usage (including Ngrok), Azure sessions, even gaming history, all timestamped He was arrested trying to board a flight to Japan from Helsinki A VPN protects the network path. It does nothing about the thousand small signals your OS, your accounts, and your habits generate around it. Anonymity isn't one setting. It's an entire operational discipline, and most people, including apparently sophisticated hackers, only do half of it