this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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Privacy
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Maybe I’m missing something here but how is that not a logical conclusion for any service where you have a unique identifier? If it can get your IP it can get a general idea (CGNAT can screw with it a bit), if it’s allowed network access it can get nearby APs, which are pretty well mapped at this point, and if you allow it GPS, well that’s a no brainer.
The whole point of a lot of these unique identifiers is that they’re anonymous so they can legally collect more data on you.
The goal is that you can’t reverse the ID to find the person, because then it ceases to be personally identifiable information.
Making you sign into a Microsoft account should make people so angry.
...or a Google, Facebook, or... account
But yes
Meaning, having to sign in an account just to use Windows on set up! Obviously you need to sign in to use Facebook's dog shit. I am talking about the operating system itself.
"Officially, Windows 11 Home and Pro editions both require an active internet connection and a Microsoft account to complete the initial setup."
There are workarounds with local accounts but, you shouldn't even have to do that shit with a proper operating system.
For example, Windows 7 didn't do the, sign in to get started bullshit when you first use it.
I was more thinking about 3rd parties using Microsoft, Google, Facebook logins for their shit, so can get tracked even better
But, yes, you're right
It's sad to say, all this tracking might get way worse.
Yeah... I'm currently really shocked and afraid of the ongoing push of chat control on Europe as well
That will be a major impact on privacy and without reason
And they just try again and again - they don't even have a pause, they just start again and hope, that it will go through one time
Not sure how to escape it, and if, you are already labelled a terrorist
Like Spanish police looks if you have a pixel with GrapheneOS, because then they think you're a drug dealer
Or years ago the apartment of a guy in Vienna got raided and all his work IT devices confiscated, just because he ran a remote VPS as Tor exit node
Not sure what we can do
I grew up in the internet and it was a great place.
Now people without any knowledge want to take this all away...