VPN provider built a script to block Microsoft’s hidden GDID tracking on Windows — Windscribe’s “deGDID” erases existing identifiers and blocks new ones from being created

Last month, we covered a federal criminal case in which Microsoft’s Global Device Identifier (GDID) helped the FBI catch an alleged hacker. Despite the noble cause, the implications of a persistent tracker built into Windows became difficult to ignore, and it was enough of a tipping point to convince Windscribe to do something about it. The VPN company has created an open-source project and script called “deGDID” that aims to strip GDID off your PC — but does so at the cost of breaking some Microsoft cloud services.

You can find the script on GitHub and run it via PowerShell with admin privileges. It’s completely free and works in a very straightforward manner. There are three main execution flags that dictate how deGDID operates: –Status, which is read-only and tells you if a GDID is active on your rig; –Status –Redact, which generates logs with the GDID redacted so users can share diagnostic data more…