this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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Privacy
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I don’t think Microsoft recorded the URLs, just activity from a GDID and IP address at particular timestamps. The authorities would also have subpoenaed records from other accounts they knew were his e.g. Snapchat and Facebook. The GDID was just a way of assigning activity from his device to particular VPN endpoints at particular times. The point of the story is essentially that the GDID allowed them to track his device across multiple IP addresses. But this wouldn’t have been possible without at least some other pieces of the puzzle such as knowing which was his Microsoft account, or Facebook account etc. in the first place.
Read the federal complaint against Peter Stokes. Microsoft has a record of the URLs.