Well shit.

I have Linux, so I don't gave that feature either! What am I supposed to do now? I want to be visible everywhere and tracked by everyone, but I had to chose Linux and again I'm left out!

This sucks

What kind of hacker uses windows?

WTF

I have a Windows PC?

Microsoft continues to outdo itself as the best advertisement for migration to Linux.

I don't have a Windows PC

Well that's terrifying,

but not unexpected...

Fuck this OS, left it behind a long time ago and nothing ever will bring me back. This platform should die, they turned everything good about the platform to trash over years.

There are lots of unique identifiers in computers, not just Windows.

MAC address, serial number, bios uuid.

Linux even has /etc/machine-id

Court filings in the Scattered Spider hacking case reveal Microsoft provided the FBI with a complete IP history tied to something called a Global Device ID (GDID)

It's kinda like a MAC address

Your Windows PC Has a Permanent ID That Follows You – Even With a VPN

Yes, it's bad, but worth pointing out, they didn't identify the user directly by somehow extracting GDID from their traffic, they identified them because their GDID happened to be in the same place at the same time at their hacking efforts that became statistically impossible to ignore.

Realistically this kind of tracking could be accomplished with any software with a unique ID that does, say, daily update checks or usage pings. This one is just extra bad because it's ubiquitous (on Windows) and almost impossible to change, so they have a 1-stop-shop for spying.

Does it follow me after Linux install?

windows is the virus