• Are new scams truly new?
• Is all technology truly bad?
• Rather than throw our gizmos away, can we get them to those who need them?
• Where does our talent come from?
• Geofencing: You're controlled based on your location
• The European Union requiring cars to SLOW THEMSELVES DOWN according to the speed limit.
• If the robots take over, what happens to all those people who need work?
• Is the Garden of Eden scene happening again?
• Can AI have a soul?
• A group of Swedes measured how long it took to perform an operation on a modern car's touchscreen menu system versus traditional dashboard buttons.
• Tech enthusiasts who use all the latest and greatest... versus those who actually know what's going on.
• What does social media do to our brains, and what is the very accessible antidote?
• The Jitterbug Smartphone - a simple, clear, affordable way for seniors to enter the future
• You can now send your grandma on an Uber!
• Should people on the same team fight against each other?

Check out Pastor Dom's podcast at rescueandrevive.org !

• The first call is a Paypal-Bitcoin scammer, trying to convince me that someone hacked into my computer and that's how they got into my paypal account (not at all how it works, but most people believe it). Foghorn misinterprets his instructions and take him on a wild ride.
• One lady did the usual "russia, nigeria, and dayton ohio" line, and i gave her back my usual "whoa OHIO! i heard that was scary!"
• Next, Foghorn gets a fake email from a geek squad impostor. I called and drove the lady nuts. Every time a guy asked me how I was, I'd keep saying "I'm fine, how are you?" keeping them in a loop until they realized it.
• The next caller is a diabetes testing supply spammer. i tell them that both I and my friend Ross Pierogi have the Beetus, and hilarity ensues.
• Finally, Karxl Mailllchimqp talks to a regenerative medicine spammer. He's put on hold with some very touching 80s music, and provides his commentary throughout. The part is when the lady spells his name back to him had me in stitches.

Thanks for listening and tell your friends!

• How Apple and Facebook themselves fell for a scam!
• Whenever ANYONE puts an ad on Facebook, immediately scammers try to scare you into thinking you've violated a copyright, and lure you into a trap
• How cell phone manufacturers are FINALLY designing phones to be a little more repairable - and what it took to get them there.
• If you want to save $ and care about the environment, repair your phone instead of replacing it!
• Fan mail from clients who were told they needed overkill Internet connections
• One day, all of a sudden Twitter users noticed their numbers of followers went dramatically up or down for no reason. They were atwitter!
• Facebook has sucked SO much of our information, they admit they don't even know how to manage it! Ever notice how you meet someone and put their number in your phone, and all of a sudden they come up as a FB friend suggestion?
• Apple makes all of its employees return to the office after the pandemic, and they come up with any excuse to stay home.

Get a preview edition of my new book at thecomputerexorcist.com !

• Nepalese youth, sick of starving while their rulers flaunted their wealth, used social media to overthrow and rebuild their government.
• Chromebooks (those cheapie laptops your school district blew millions on) come with an expiration date. Surprise! If you keep using this past the date, you miiiight get viruses, or websites won't work anymore! At that point, they want you to throw them away, but I have found a solution that could save millions of dollars, computers, and kids.
• They knocked down the 3G cell towers so we all had to buy new smartphones. But wait - what about all those connected cars? Those were just giant rolling smartphones with cellular antennae in them! You guessed it - they're hoping you put those cars in the garbage and buy new ones. Luckily, people aren't that stupid.
• In good news, companies are now allowed to produce and sell older-style cars. You know, those ones that were actually repairable and enjoyable.
• AI data centers are sucking up so much energy, that they're now having to find ways to shift their tasks to nighttime so they don't overload our power plants.
• In the 1960s, cars were actually improved instead of anti-improved, and back then they actually cared about your loyalty, so they actually encouraged you to repair your old one instead of throwing it away. Imagine what a utopia that must've been!

Get your preview copy of "Don't be Taken by Silicon Valley", available free for a limited time only on thecomputerexorcist.com !

• Not only are VPNs unnecessary for normal consumers, but they introduce tons of side effects
• Hundreds of HP printer models feature a critical-severity vulnerability... on top of the sanctioned malice from HP itself.
• Senior communities add local tech support as one of their perks, and people need it
• The third generation of iPhone SE - the perfectly fine $399 alternative to the thousand-dollar iPhones they try to push on seniors
• Apple's plot to RENT you the iPhone so they can make even more money off of you. Did it succeed?
• Apple gets $200m in public incentives from Des Moines, IA, in exchange for how many jobs?
• Russia threatens to nationalize some Microsoft locations there. My response to them.
• Hackers breach Samsung servers, exposing how useless "trusted" software is, and the article's very damaging recommendation to users.

Thanks for listening and tell all your friends to buy the preview edition of my next book at thecomputerexorcist.com

1. A Paypal scammer tells me someone used my account to purchase cryptocurrency. He told me to connect to his "secure server", at which point he would jump into my computer and destroy it. They keep hanging up on me so i keep calling them back. At one point I told them i was attorney Denny Crane and had a lot of money. He made up a big thing about how spyware and viruses got into popups on my computer and bank account.
2. I get a call from a fake lottery scammer, claiming i won some large amount of money, as long as i gave him gift cards first...
3. I get a filthy fake email claiming to be Paypal. I called them up as Guido Sarducci. The guy said my Paypal was hacked from a scary place called Dayton, OH, and now I have hackers in my computers. He tried to make me open a web browser to download his evil tool, and hilarity ensued. After a whole ton of misinterpreting what he said, he finally gave up and claimed he was going to cancel the fake charge himself!
4. A medicare scammer called and offered me free food cards, then transferred me to someone who sounded American!
5. I got another email that was totally misspelled, so i went with it, and it totally went over their heads.
6. I get a robocall from a guy claiming to be "The Amazon", trying to scare me into thinking someone used my account to buy Apple AirPods! I told him my name was Dennis the Menace, and it got fun. Of course, he offered to do a "security scan" of my computer.
7. Finally, everybody's favorite scambaiter is back! Karl Zmailchimp creates another persona called Ian Whattaburger! He got a scary message claiming he got a big charge on his credit card.

As always, thanks for telling your friends about the show, and get a preview edition of the book on PDF at thecomputerexorcist.com!

• I dig up an old piece of fan mail from a guy who labels my book as "Unacceptable Misinformation" (yet hasn't read it)! He urges people to do updates, but is completely unaware of their downsides. I explain (yet again) how an update fixes one thing and breaks a few other things, slows your machine down massively, and can never, ever protect you against The New Threats, such as fear-based Support Scams.
• What IBM execs called their older employees, and what they love doing with anything old.
• How to use an old tablet as a portable monitor, as long as you understand the caveats.
• Tesla's cars randomly slam on the brakes at highway speeds... because they're made with software.
• Jeeps blowing false alarms and accusing their owners of being thieves... because they're made with software.
• How to rejuvenate your 10-15 year old computer and turn it into a speedy Chromebook.
• Apple AirTags - yet another technology unleashed on humanity with zero thought to consequences.
• How many people (including myself) love working at home, but what that has done to retail.
• What are NFTs and Cryptocurrency, and why they're luckily fizzling out.

Hope you had a great time! We're blazing through these articles. Feel free to email me with any feedback, and thanks for telling your friends about the show!

• Yuval Noah Harari warns the next generation that evil organizations could use biometrics to monitor our minds - for years I've called this the Soviet's greatest dream.
• In very related news, Microsoft tried to turn kids into QR codes that require daily validation. They dangled fear in front of people in order to gain their trust - something I've termed Fear as a Service.
• Airyx is/was an attempt to create an operating system that looked and acted like MacOS, but without all the bloat and paranoia. (Sort of like ReactOS did for Windows!)
• The excellent Jeff Johnson explains how Apple is just living off its brand reputation, and Apple is no longer what it was. I concur and people need to know this. He also mentioned that Steve Jobs was NOT an engineer, and instead was an advocate for the USER, and they no longer have that.
• The IRS was duped into giving a company $86 MILLION for a facial verification technology. LUCKILY since they're in the public eye, people caught on to this and shot it down. Two questions remain: When can people shoot down other bad ideas in the tech industry from less visible organizations, and did the American Taxpayers get that $86M back?
• Almost every Big Tech company is an evil monopoly in its own subsector. GoFundMe was caught REDISTRIBUTING funds it raised rather than simply refunding them to users. Luckily this too was a high-visibility case, so they didn't get away with it.
• Finally, we read some fan-mail where one of my clients was almost duped into the Fake Rental WiFi Scandal. I swooped in just in time, but how many millions of others out there were hit by it?

Find these concepts and more in the preview edition of my forthcoming book, now available at thecomputerexorcist.com !

• Rather than the usual Foghorn Leghorn, I told all the scammers today I was Eddie Munster. Hilarity ensues, for us.
• I made the first (Medicare) scammer sigh right off the bat.
• The next one, a paypal impostor, says i can call him James. So i call him anything but. He tried telling me that "hack-kers from Michigan" took my bitcoins using "micro viruses", and other wild fake tech terms to dazzle me. He said they tried to get into my "serwer" so i said "What? They got into my Star Wars?" My personal favorite is the part where I describe the Firefox icon on my screen. When he tells me to download his evil UltraViewer software, I take him on an ADD-fueled wild ride.
• The next two are car insurance/warranty scammers who asked what car I drove, so I told them i drove some classics.
• The next one is a cable company scammer calling herself Lydia, so i call her Medea. She offers me a fake discount, so I whip out the calculator and got her so confused, that she agreed to apply the discount twice.
• Saving the best for last, everybody's favorite scambaiter returns! Karl Mailchimp created another persona, a pierogi farmer named Ross Pierogi. The scammer alleges that someone stole his credit card, so he plays along with that on-the-fly, ad-libbing, creative genius we've come to expect. Wait til you get to the part where the guy tries to spell "help desk host" to him.

As always, please warn your friends about phone scams by sharing this episode! Visit becomeanexorcist.com to join the good fight.

• WSJ decided to allow Claude AI to run its office vending machine. Chaos ensued. They must not have read the article where Claude's own creators had the same results.
• Accounting firms buying virtual office buildings in the Metaverse... a place where people grope each other.
• Robot vacuums receive update attacks that cause them to get drunk and bump into your furniture... while toasters from the 1940s keep working.
• Is Ninite really the ONLY tool for safe downloads?
• Michael Dell is thoughtful and charitable... the opposite of the arrogant, reckless technocrats.
• Microsoft ditches Bungie, but keeps Halo. Sony buys Bungie and tightens control over them.

Buy my book and training program at thecomputerexorcist.com and have a prosperous new year!

• Some of us aren't cut out for corporate, and that's okay!
• Starting a small business, being free to be who you were meant to be, planting seeds, and leaving a legacy.
• Chasing dollars versus being your passion
• Preserving your reputation
• Tons of menus but nobody can figure out the heated seats or radios
• Squeezing the balloon
• CarBravo, GM's surprisingly good answer to Carvana
• New car screens as the latest way to over-stimulate and control
• The thankful demise of in-dash app stores that bring you to Dunkin Donuts
• Captive audience vs Taking care of people
• Country songs about self-driving trucks
• How Bluetooth car locks can be easily hacked - and how one journalist took a potshot at Tesla
• Cloud-controlled cars, and the unsurprising news that GM user accounts were hacked
• The gorgeous Mercedes EQXX goes 626 miles on a single charge, with juice to spare! Where did they go wrong with the production model?
• BMW's IDrive 8 - how it took everything from version 7 and threw it out the window, proving yet again that most software gets worse with each new version.
• And finally, some of the coolest cars Warren has detailed over the years.

Help raise awareness for cloud-controlled cars! Tell your friends about the show!

• One scammer noticed my number and hung up immediately. Another hung up when she heard Foghorn. I have a feeling they're on to me and have me flagged in the Secret Scammer Database.
• Apple impostor calls me up and says I have a problem with Apple Pay... It was a CLASSIC support scam where they told me to download "security softwares", which is actually a fully legal remote support tool that allows them to take over a victim's PC. I took them for a wild ride. "You want me to search for some tigers? I found some beautiful tigers!"
• One scammer made the mistake of asking me how I control my diabetes...
• The next guy asks me flat out for my social security number, and we have a little circular argument about it.
• A Medicare back pain guy calls and we bond over Walker Texas Ranger.
• The last guy wants my Medicare card number, and my doctor's name. It turned out to be one of the funniest ones yet.
• Finally, Karl Mailchimp returns to torment a Norton impostor! With Karl, you're always in for a good time.

If you want to join the good fight, be sure to sign up for the technician webinar waiting list at becomeanexorcist.com!

• The industry is realizing what Marc's been saying for years: Storing your passwords in your browser is an excellent way to hand them to bad guys.
• Microsoft was apparently nostalgic for Y2K: This week's Outlook flaw was a Y2K22 bug that couldn't handle emails dated 2022!
• MS Word spellchecker now attempts to make your writing more woke. Politics aside, why would we let the most incompetent organization ever dictate how we speak?
• Culture peaked somewhere around 2008. Everything else since then has been worse.
• Insecurity and peer pressure lead people to buy iPhones so their text messages show up in green. People are only buying it for this petty reason.
• Apple, Verizon, Microsoft, and others have grown not by merit but by growth schemes.
• Bad guys can hijack people's computers and harness their computing power. Norton saw this and said, "Hey, why don't we do this too!" The inside scoop on the Norton Crypto-mining Scandal.
• How Middletown, OH fell to a ransomware scheme, which implies their IT staff doesn't have Computer Exorcist training.

If you know of any organization that would like to actually be protected from ransomware, send them to TheComputerExorcist.com !

• How cable companies added up old analog channels to bring you a fast Internet connection
• Multiplexing: How fiber optic companies pass multiple signals through the same piece of glass
• Why PC salesmen are so arrogant (Like economics, the industry is all man-made and arbitrary!)
• How these power-hungry AI data centers will eventually (hopefully) give way to more distributed forms of computing
• Why schools are always behind on technology, adopting it after the students have.
• Why we should learn to do math without a calculator first, before learning to use it.
• Why we should learn to think for ourselves before just diving in to AI.
• How programmers need to STOP and THINK before acting!
• Then finally we discuss his book: "The Adventures of AI and the Little Learners"
• Can AI be my friend? How does AI work? Can I trust AI results? Will AI replace my teacher? How to use AI in the classroom?

Buy his book "The Adventures of AI and the Little Learners" on Amazon!

• How TV repair guys would deliberately fry tubes just to confirm their claim that you needed a new one.
• How TV salespeople would deliberately lower the focus on a TV, just to sell you a pricier model.
• How two 1952 IBM computers played checkers against each other... and learned from their mistakes.
• Self-healing networks, a 1986 AT&T StarLAN running at 1 Megabit!, and an early 90s Nortel network running at 100!
• His experience designing cutting-edge networks for IBM, Steven Spielberg, Kodak, Hawkeye, and a Russian embassy
• Business and computer history: How we got to where we are now.

Stay tuned for next week's episode where Kenley discusses his book, "The Adventures of AI and the Little Learners", available at KenleyCVogt.com

• "New World" is a fake online world people use to escape their depressing lives. It's being overrun by AI bots, so people in third-world countries are finding it harder to make a living on it.
• Tesla is the first foreign automaker in China that didn't have to partner with a local company. In return, China hopes to learn from them, as they did with Apple.
• Rather than make reliable cars, Stellantis is now chasing a pipe dream of milking us for fees while we drive.
• The class action against Zoom for failing to encrypt communications, and then sharing them with vendors and governments.
• Apple and Google's duopoly relies heavily on the App Store scandal. If it weren't for app stores, we could use any brand of anything to go on any mobile website.
• Tesla crashes into a bus - which raises the question - what happens when cars are hit with update attacks that cause them to smash into things?
• Many/most Alexa devices are gifted for Christmas, and then never used again. Amazon might not mind, because people leave them plugged in...
• Every time Google is caught doing something nasty, business soars over at DuckDuckGo.
• MD governor uses an ephemeral messaging app - but how many others do, too?
• iPhones are still locatable when the battery inevitably dies - and even if someone factory wipes it.
• Someone was so fed up with an evil program, they got a job at the company just to fix the problem, then walked out.

Join the good fight and become a licensed Computer Exorcist at becomeanexorcist.com

• First one was a "card accident" scammer. i told him my arms fell off, and when he asked for details, i told him I couldn't remember.
• Next one was a guy claiming to be Geek Squad, then later on claims to be PayPal, then later on Norton.
• Then we have a Medicare scammer trying to sign me up for food cards. I ask him what kind of food I can buy with the card, tell him all my favorite foods, and then I start ordering food and ask if he'll deliver it to me!
• ...and finally, the moment you've all been waiting for...

My buddy Karl Mailchimp has returned to debut his new character: Tony Penisa.

Tony is a friendly baseball fanatic from New Jersey. He calls a scammer in response to an Apple Pay email. He gives him the beans and it's one of the most epic Torment-a-Scammer adventures we've ever had... "Oh that's a half a W, it's a V! My bad!"

If your friends want a career protecting people from technology, send them to becomeanexorcist.com

• We discuss flaws in battery packs that cause EVs to set on fire, and the goal of making designs (and people) that are more tolerant to faults
• Apple shocks the world by throwing us a bone, allowing us to repair screens on our own iPhones... buy why is it pointless and also what's the ulterior motive?
• Apple's "mea culpa", offering MacBook Pros with actual Pro features again, like HDMI and SD cards. They also got rid of the horrific TouchBar, a tiny screen that danced around and taunted you when you needed to press a Function key.
• Marc's rant about "Pro" everything
• Big Media panicking over Substack, a platform that allows independent journalists to be independent, and lets readers subscribe to the journalists they like.
• Yet another GoDaddy breach, this time 1 million websites left wide open. They'll try and blame your computer, and blame you for not going back in time and buying their "protection plan". Learn how to abandon them.

Let me know what you think of the new format, and buy a preview edition of my next book at the bottom of: https://thecomputerexorcist.com/edutainment/book/

• One Medicare scammer lady calls me claiming to be "Allied Health" but I mis-hear it as "Airline Health". I tell them my doctor is Guido Sarducci, and when they ask for my Medicare card, I read the backs of all the cards I have in my drawer.
• Next, I call a Support Scammer and claim there are North Korean cookies in my computer. I then ponder what North Korean cookies would taste like. First he claims to be Amazon, then he claims to be Microsoft. When he asks what brand of computer I have, I tell him it's a Kaypro (those were from the early 1980s).
• The final one is a most epic interaction with a pharmacy scammer. I make him think I'm vulnerable and gullible with "I don't know, every time someone calls, I just keep buying more pills!" I then rattle off a whole list of drugs, and he offers to mail me all of it, and even encourages me to resell it! Then I hear one of his colleagues doing a tech support scam in the background, and he drops his facade.

Hope you have a blast tonight, and warn your friends not to call Support Scammers!

Visit thecomputerexorcist.com to buy a preview edition of my forthcoming book.

• What to do if your hard drive dies and you have no backup
• What software to use for podcast interviews
• The spirit of peaceful debate and the message of peace
• The world's first known AI-fueled killing - how AI egged on a paranoid man
• "Everybody Hertz" - how power plant generators are designed to go offline to protect themselves, but it can cause a chain reaction that spreads to other power plants.
• How Covid affected church attendance, and those who live-stream church miss out on one fundamental benefit.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show! Get the preview edition of my next book at thecomputerexorcist.com

• A Ransomware organization masquerading as a cybersecurity firm!
• NY State offering a Drivers License app on your Phone??? Really? As if smartphones were reliable???
• Facebook to drop their facial recognition system... now that they've got what they wanted.
• A company equating itself with simplicity, then offering "further intricate refinement".
• iPhones that stay trackable even when they're powered off. Good if you want to find it, but bad if someone wants to find you.
• FSF newsletter pointing out that millions of AI "bots" are now scouring the web for information, overwhelming the websites they visit.

Buy a preview edition of my next book at thecomputerexorcist.com !

• Marc recounts a harrowing tale and thanks those who saved him from it.
• Ever wish you could scrub your social media posts without completely deleting your account? There's finally a tool for that, and it's brilliant.
• There's yet another form of car theft made easy thanks to the wonders of car electronics. We were told that electronic FEEEATURES were a convenience, but really they're a massive security hole. Marc explains how it works in Plain English.
• We then talk about Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's very realistic approach to business. He knows MS is no longer a monopoly, and rather than be in denial, he's admitting it and opening up slightly to other platforms. However, the claim that Windows 11 is "calm, security, and openness" is far from correct.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

• I start breaking character and telling scammers to do something better with their lives. One guy told me he has hopes and dreams, so I turned him on to my Become an Exorcist site. Plot twist ensues.
• A diabetic "PARMAcy" scammer calls me up - I throw her a curveball about my glasses, and she doesn't notice it at all.
• A loan shark scammer calls me up and tries to lend me $100k - I promise to spend it only on my favorite food...
• Phone Scammers have an Evil Database that associates victims' names with phone numbers - so in my case, they're now calling and ASKING for Foghorn Legorn!
• They try and ask me what cable company I'm with, so I ask them, "Well, what company are you from?"
• I have a lot of fun misinterpreting what they say, and in a lot of cases it goes right over their heads

Hope you love these clips - more to come! Join the good fight at becomeanexorcist.com

• Pipes vs hoses on cars - ease of manufacture vs ease of repair
• BMW iDrive va Mercedes voice COMAND vs Lexus touchpads vs Audi confusion
• Rather than have one universal EV charging adapter, of course the industry has come up with several, with the ensuing sub-industry of adapters
• Robotaxis: Who's liable, especially if you're loaning your own car out to moonlight as one?
• ZipCharge Go - the EV equivalent of a gas can
• Solar roof panels on Fisker cars
• Edible car wiring
• The future of the auto industry

Join the good fight at thecomputerexorcist.com !

• Apprentice Palmer brings his uncanny technical sense of smell to help me thrash some articles. (He's the guy who's been manning the fort so I can go on the book tour!)
• We read several articles on the same topic: The Windows 10-11 End of Support, or what could be the greatest Cash Grab I've ever seen.
• People are under the impression that their computers are going to get viruses or cease to operate after an arbitrary date in October of 2025. Microsoft is encouraging them to buy new PCs.
• The requirements to upgrade your current PC to Windows 11 started out very arbitrary and excluded recent and powerful PCs. When PIRG stared them down, MS relented, but they didn't bother telling anyone about their relaxed requirements.
• As such, an estimated 240-400 MILLION PERFECTLY GOOD COMPUTERS are at risk of being thrown in the landfills.
• One article claims they'll all be recycled, yet another article reports that only around 22% of ewaste is recycled.
• In reality, you can keep using those machines for at least another 3-5 years. After that, we can bypass the requirements and upgrade your older PC to Win11 (and beat it up so it's usable) or liberate you from the Microsoft Circus with a product called Mint!
• "We deserve better than a world where nothing's designed to last."

Buy the preview edition of my next book at thecomputerexorcist.com !

• A blast from Marc's past emerges to talk about his new bookS!
• Author Billy Swan discusses "Junior's Tale", his comfort story of self-discovery.
• He also published a book of group-activity short mysteries "Quick Cases for Clever Minds" that actually bring people TOGETHER!
• While he used AI to assist him in writing the short mysteries, he describes the painstaking care and "moral brakes" he applied, rather than just have it to spit something out and publish it.
• Was Riding the Short Bus any worse than riding the Long Bus?
• Finally, we discuss a really funny Ezra Dyer article that some people can relate to!

Learn how to protect people from technology at becomeanexorcist.com and check out Billy Swan's books on Amazon or click here:

Junior's Tale

https://www.amazon.com/Juniors-Tale-Familiar-Billy-Swan/dp/B0FDRD5BRX/

Quick Cases for Clever Minds

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGZ5YM97?binding=paperback

• Reading an email from an Apple impostor
• Surprise-attack deprecation - how the industry randomly removes useful features your organization relies on.
• "I haven't seen any artificial intelligence that's intelligent."
• The vocabulary of IT: How the industry creates new terms willy-nilly, and people (and AI) are expected to keep up with it.
• WD was caught in a bait-and-switch, inserting slower chips in their products without notice
• The complex 14,000-mile supply chain scattered across the globe
• Linux is now usable on newer M-chip Apple computers: How that will lead to the liberation of many Apple computers, but also iPhones and iPads as well
• An exploit in Apple Pay, how Visa was right to avoid overreacting, and our discussion on how wireless payments in general are massive security hole!
• Canon being sued for making multi-function printers that refuse to scan whenever they're out of ink!
• CA's sequel to Cash for Clunkers - and the adverse effects that they didn't bother to consider, that will harm the poor and the environment
• "If you actually care about the environment, stop making laws and start actually doing something!"
• How CloseTheLoop.com helps curb the ewaste nonsense
• Discussing Aaron Clarey's video "Why are corporations even in business?" and how offshoring in the 1980s sparked the cheapening of products

Sick of hearing about these scandals? Join the good fight at becomeanexorcist.com

• Author Monty LeBlanc returns to finish discussing his book, Somnium Pandorae.
• We continue our discussion on the effects of AI-curated feeds - our attention spans are so roasted, we crave shorter and shorter videos to give us dopamine "hits", and are less prone to deep thought, deep work, or critical thinking. "AI has hacked our brains, and now real life feels slow in comparison."
• We discover a recent viral video "AI 2027: A Realistic Scenario of AI Takeover"
• People now consult AI for therapy and medicine, and even use it as a substitute for a boyfriend/girlfriend.
• We also explain ways to avoid the doomsday scenario - Nip it in the bud, raise your kids right, teach people to think critically.
• Technology can be used for good! RAISE AWARENESS for what's going on, and stop feeding the beast.
• AI divides us to conquer us. Get out of your own customized echo chamber and hang out with people from all political persuasions. You'll soon learn they're people just like you, and we're all being pitted against each other.
• Marc explains how he combats the endless feed with a "Finiteness Room" in his house. It has books, VHS tapes, DVDs, and this thing called quietude.

Buy Monty's book Somnium Pandorae on Amazon, and mine on thecomputerexorcist.com

• I've been saying that AI could possibly ruin the world - but at the very least, it'll make us dumber and keep us isolated in pods, feeding us data and harvesting our behavior.
• Network engineer turned author Monty LeBlanc joins us to explain how AI is already in control, doing just this.
• He explains how those algorithms, the curated "For You" recommendations, and your Facebook feed, are all DESIGNED to keep you reading, watching, and scrolling.
• He exposes how shadow banning works, and how we're already in the Matrix, except in reality we each get our own algorithmic simulation.
• The few techies who are aware of the impending threats are too scared to say something, lest they lose their job. However, he and I and maybe some of you, are exposing what's going on.
• He uses humor, snark, and analogies to explain everything in Plain English (sound familiar?) and even gives translations at the end of every section for Gen Z readers!

Buy his book Somnium Pandorae on Amazon, and mine at thecomputerexorcist.com, and stay tuned for Part 2 next week!

• The brilliant software developer/psychologist/linguist Udochi Okeke returns with more mind-blowing projects.
• As if resurrecting an ancient alphabet (Nsibidi) weren't enough, she's now producing a kids' cartoon to pass on the Igbo language to them. She's also creating an Igbo character universe - think "Nigerian Cocomelon"!
• She then explains how culture is truly passed down - not just through the media or even museums, but through each one of us, who lives and breathes that culture. This dissemination ensures the culture will live on.
• We discuss how people in the West are shaped and molded into one of a few distinct shapes, in order to conform to what we think the job market will want them to be.
• In Igbo culture (and in one of my next books), people are encouraged to discover their unique calling: What is the problem in the world today that only you are uniquely equipped to solve?
• We spend a few minutes explaining how AI will ruin yet another thing, in this case children's educational programming. It'll also ruin the lives of those hoping to create quality content for a living!
• Finally, we discuss a few funny scammer emails and explain what to look out for.

Learn Igbo at mmutadiuto.com , and of course check out my books at thecomputerexorcist.com

• Marc reads an article from Electrical Contractor Magazine that encourages contractors to to embrace newwww cloouuddd tecchhnollogiies for security systems, camera systems, and access control.
• They tout the tech as inevitable, highlight the ability to offer eternal milking subscription schemes along with it, and then they praise the Zero Trust mandate, which amounts to anti-empowerment of employees and the further consolidation of power.
• In reality, these are not only ultraproprietary systems, but their existence depends on a cloud server. Once that server is shut down, these massive access control systems become doorstops. No consequences are ever discussed.
• What could possibly go wrong?
• We then read an article about how one such centrally-controlled cloud system went awry at Facebook AND its subsidiaries, shutting down all of its access control systems. Of course, there are no failsafes or emergency systems.
• We then discuss the Pennsylvania Turnpike's electronic tolling system. Its system promised efficiency, but in reality an alarming percentage of tolls are going unpaid.

Yet more examples of a world so madly in love with technology, it never bothers to consider any consequences.

Buy a preview edition of my book at thecomputerexorcist.com

• It seems like every show out nowadays is a killing show: AND THEN WE WONDER why the world is so violent!
• In order to address this, we welcome the very special guest Isaac Hernandez, a director of Christian TV and movies.
• He and his shows buck the trend by offering "Truth in a world of distraction."
• As usual, I draw a parallel to my industry, which makes itself worse every week.
• In the computer world, we say "garbage in, garbage out", in other words the results are only as good as what you feed the computer. The same can be said for human beings.
• Even if you're not Christian, you might recognize this epidemic needs attention.
• There have been some mainstream movies with positive messages, such as The Pursuit of Happyness, Reign Over Me, and Gran Torino.
• Donate to his show at FaithOnFilmTV.com

Buy my book, and a preview edition of my next book, at thecomputerexorcist.com

• He first describes the Golden Age of Beekeeping
• The benefits of honey
• "Cathedrals for the Bees"
• Do bees have GPS? Do bees go to school? and other fun facts.
• What's killing the bees? Is it 5G? Parasites? Neonicotinoids, the synthetic nicotine pesticide? That's only part of it.
• The cause is what I'll call The Beehive Paradox.
• How has he managed only a 25% loss when others are sustaining 90-100% losses?
• What is formic acid?
• I'll also go into how antivirus software parallels the situation.
• "We think that technology brings improvement, and we find out that it only brings intrusion." More isn't always more.
• Unlike most talk radio that just makes you feel helpless, we'll discuss what YOU can do to help the bees.

Buy my book at thecomputerexorcist.com

• She explains WHY perimenopausal women experience the symptoms they do.
• She also says something I wish I'd known years ago: When you're under a huge amount of stress, it doesn't matter how much broccoli you eat. Your body isn't digesting anything properly! You digest junk food better when you're sitting with a friend, than it does good food with a foe.
• What are you feeding yourself? Food is information, food is programming.
• The same goes for entertainment: What are you feeding your soul? Most new shows are killing shows or political battles. Interestingly, your brain actually believes you're in that situation, so it adds to your stress.
• "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." -Dr. Wayne Dyer
• Finally, today's article is about how "connected cars" are vulnerable to a bad guy to hijack the controls of your car - all with zero benefit. The industry is scrambling to keep all of this under control with ultracomplex cybersecurity.
• Nobody realizes we could simply make the decision to avoid all of that garbage technology, and simply never have a problem. Leaving your car, and yourself, open to attacks is a choice. Why would you give that much power away?

Visit Emily at rediscoverhealthroc.com and visit thecomputerexorcist.com to buy my book!

• Programmer and YouTuber K0 returns to finish our 7000 Download Celebration!
• He explains how Support Scammers and their mules operate and what his group is doing to protect seniors who encounter them.
• Apple's attempt to detect "depression and cognitive impairment"
• What they record about you to make that detection, and why the whole thing is sad.
• The difference between Opt-In versus force-attacks when a new feature comes out.
• Imagine a product that does what you want!
• Once we put out all the fires in the industry, we discuss creating GOOD products that actually respect the user. Someday!
• "Yellow Dots of Mystery" - yet another way printers are spying on you.
• "It's not a bunch of men smoking cigars in a room..." how the cogs in the industry are just doing what they think is right.
• Software tethered to the factory using crazy DRM schemes, vs Donationware, that simply works forever.

Check out his YouTube page "TotallyNotK0", or join the good fight and start protecting seniors for a living at BecomeAnExorcist.com

• We're celebrating hitting 7000 downloads by interviewing a really brilliant programmer called K0.
• We concur on things like the hazards of fake cleaners and futility of consumer VPNs, and how both of us find our 10 year old laptops to be perfectly sufficient even for our advanced work.
• We discuss how you have the familiar Windows on one side, and the "for developers by developers" Linux on the other. He emphasizes that there is NO NEED for that tradeoff. You CAN have both simplicity and reliability.
• His volunteer group Raven are creating tools to simplify Windows and remove any treacherous anti-features: Even Windows 11's "New Notepad" has anti-features!
• They're also making a new desktop environment, or "dashboard" for Windows that brings back the simplicity.
• We discuss how naggy software should just be simple and blunt about asking for money one time.
• Finally, we discuss WHY the industry is ruled by a small pile of monopolies.
• Check out his YouTube channel "TotallyNotK0" to learn about the bloat and how to put a stop to it!

Join the good fight and help protect seniors for a living at BecomeAnExorcist.com

• Marc announces his new Webinar Waiting Lists - one for consumers and one for aspiring technicians!
• Foghorn calls those Norton impostors back, and asks them why they keep urging him to cancel. (Once you request a refund, they can ask for your credit card or bank account numbers.)
• I then hear another guy in the background scamming someone else, so I ask my scammer about him.
• Once I finally let him into my test computer, he claims there's "AI Software scanning your computer", when in reality he's snooping around looking for passwords.
• The next call was done by a buddy of mine who goes by Karl Millechamp. I pass him the number for an Apple impostor and he makes quick work of them. When they ask for his name, he takes them on a journey through wild spellings ("K A J R X L...") and they fall for it. It's a comedic masterpiece unlike anything you've heard here so far.

So if you're ready to learn more about tech or want join the good fight, sign up for my webinar waiting list at thecomputerexorcist.com !

• We broadcast from Dr. Mike's hot sauce cellar in Ohio, where Marc breathes clean air and displays a sense of humor
• We revisit the Right to Repair Movement- exposing how Apple designs their products to be so difficult to repair you end up throwing them in the garbage.
• When Apple removed all the ports from its laptops a few years ago, luckily there was a backlash. They eventually relented and for the next model ended up restoring a few real ports like HDMI.
• Mike then breaks out his Microsoft Surface 3 - a full PC laptop crammed into the size of a tablet. Great idea if it weren't so brittle.
• Like almost all Windows laptops, it was collecting dust under his bed after being bombarded with update attacks. So we wiped it and liberated it with Mint, right there on the show! It'll be good for at least another 5 years of virtually bulletproof computing. No more Copilot attacks, no more nonsense.
• Finally, we touch on the latest overkill feature of the iPhone - LEO Satellite Phone communication, and explain that there are a few different technologies available to accomplish this.

If you've got a Windows machine collecting dust, contact your local Computer Exorcist to liberate it with Mint! thecomputerexorcist.com

While they refuse to assist the government get into iPhones in exceptional cases such as the San Bernardino attack, they'll gladly spy on you themselves all day long.

As always, the bad guys just laugh and move on to other platforms. This creates another perfect storm of injustice, where they get away with things but YOU the consumer are micro-controlled.

Next, we "dissect" an article about Pig Butchering Scams, pun intended. WSJ sat down with two experts who explain the new scam where scammers earn your trust and then go in for the kill. They try and get you to fall in love with them and then give them your money or divulge details about your life that could be used to steal your identity.

As usual, people think that somehow playing Whac-a-Mole will stop this threat, but ten seconds later they'll just start another scam factory. As usual, the IT industry thinks that having validation schemes, the equivalent to putting gold star stickers on people's foreheads, will somehow solve it. The bad guys just shrug and sign up for the validation schemes and keep on scamming.

In reality, the ONLY THING that can EVER stop social scams is AWARENESS. Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and be sure to buy the preview edition of my forthcoming book, available at thecomputerexorcist.com

Today, a Quantum Growth Practitioner named Elizabeth Gifford Maffei joins us to answer that question.

• Many people stay home and just "exist", because they were told they are useless and can do nothing else. In reality, you were put here for a reason, and you can do many things for the world. Someone out there needs you.
• It's not our natural state to worry, hate, fear, or sit idle.
• Many people now spend their days judging or fearing others, but if we remember to "Worry about yourself!", we'd have the time to achieve our dreams.
• You have the power to create your life any way you choose. Even if you don't believe in Quantum theory, you can still shift your mentality from complaining about shortcomings to focusing on what you can do to get to your goal.
• It starts by raising your hand and declaring that you want to drop those old neural pathways, those old habits, and carve a new path in life.
• "Your thoughts and words become things."
• We must also remember to open ourselves up to receiving what God/Universe is trying to give us. If you give and give, it's like exhaling all the time without inhaling!

I hope you felt the healing that I felt during today's discussion. To learn more, visit www.elizabethgiffordmaffei.com

• WHY we tend to obsess over threats
• Your body actually resets itself once a threat is gone - but modern life has another one around the corner!
• Do you ever notice how the news always manages to cook up some catastrophic situation, yet we always manage to survive?
• Our "inner child" is in control, and how to "re-parent" yourself
• That time wasn't wasted - you spent it accumulating lessons
• We actually have a built-in pause button!
• You have a choice - you have the power to change your life whenever you're ready - and it's never too late.
• Being yourself instead of conforming to what you think you're supposed to be
• Not surrendering to a cold, dark, random universe, but rather, choosing to be open to what the benevolent universe is trying to give you
• SIMPLICITY vs ultracomplex solutions

Work with her to change your life at eft4wellness.com

• A Visa fraudster calls me regarding charges on my Amex. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? I call them back on several phones at once, so they can talk to themselves. Things get zany. When they ask for my credit card number, I tell them a few terrible words in Hindi. That throws them for a loop, but they catch on and hang up on me.
• Foghorn then receives a call from a student loan scammer, so I play with them a bit.
• I then get a fake email from "Norton" claiming my "McAfee" is out of date! Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? So I call them out on it, and they play along. I keep asking them if Norton/McAfee will protect me from scam callers, and they assure me it will. I then tell them I have popups on my computer and ask if they did it. They claim they cannot do that, so I corner them on it because, well, that's precisely what they do. The scammer asks if I'm trying to waste his time, and eventually I get him to pop, and then tell him he's on the air.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and buy my book for everyone for every holiday!

• India's Caste System and how hints of it are present in Silicon Valley
• One employee's lawsuit against Cisco based on caste discrimination
• Microsoft's and Adobe's Indian CEOs and how they handle the situation well
• Automotive engineers adding a few lines of code here and there, resulting in our cars tormenting us with warnings and reminders and loud horns
• Some funny scam emails, and how to identify them

Join the good fight at becomeanexorcist.com

• the Indian Caste System - what is it and how it is configured
• India's ultra-competitive IIT tech schools, and how many people vie for admission to them
• How Silicon Valley has a microcosm of India, and how they bring the caste system with them
• The only true way to stop hunger in our world (it involves dumplings and potstickers)

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Today we delve into the SHAKEN/STIR scandal - YET ANOTHER example of how my industry tries to solve a problem by slathering ultracomplexity and centralized control all over it. Spoiler alert: It doesn't work, it burdens the good guys with more "diiiigital certificates" and, in case you haven't noticed, the bad guys just laughed and kept robocalling us!

Aside from that massive debacle, there are a few very lame call blockers out there that play Whac-A-Mole with the scammers, who laugh and change their numbers every day anyway.

Instead of all that, how about an ACTUAL solution that actually puts a stop to the stupidity once and for all? I've invented it and it's coming soon...

• Facebook stops NYU researchers from studying their own volunteers
• Hackers are using CAPTCHA to scam people (Are you surprised?)
• A Georgia school district puts cameras in classrooms (Imagine how much the contractor charged them!)
• "Tech workers are richer but less happy than most" (I explain why)
• "HP disappoints" (Are you surprised?)
• Modern man's progress (correlated to the increasing frequency of war)
• The "Modern Despair" that comes with adopting technology as your god
• Fight the good fight - go to becomeanexorcist.com for more information.

THANK YOU to the band Youth Medium for licensing me their song "Cannibals" for the show!

• Some well-intentioned pea-brain suggests we include breathalyzers in every steering wheel of every new car. Great idea, but since 99% of all technology fails 99% of the time, most cars in the world will blow false alarms and stop working. This also contributes to the avalanche of new features that make cars too complex to fix, meaning they'll be put in the landfill sooner.
• Cars of the future will come with rental subscriptions for parts that are already in your car- Yes, some monumental pea-brain in some car company thinks they can RENT you features inside a product they sell you. There is zero common sense or ethics in this, but they're hoping you're too stupid to realize this. Luckily, I discuss a solution to this.
• These cars will also contain evil AI that will "anticipate your needs", meaning they'll analyze your schedule and preemptively attack you, thinking they're helping. (Is anyone out there enjoying the punishment and criticism of newer cars so far? You ain't seen nothin yet.) When that time comes, everyone should put a stop to all of it and go back to Model Ts.

If you care about logic, morals, ethics, common sense, and freedom, please share this episode with your friends!

• We expose what Microsoft Edge does to you, the consumer, and ask the question: Is it legalized malware?
• We discuss the helpful feature that didn't make it to Windows 11, and the terrifying anti-features that did
• We discuss the only person in the computer industry with something called "self-control". Get this, he doesn't just desperately chase every trend, and doesn't change things for change's sake. Instead, he's content with selling people what they need to go out there and desperately chase vaporware, and laugh his way to the bank.

If you know anyone still using Edge, now you can enlighten them!

THANK YOU TO POSTMODERN MAGIC for the music!

• Louis Rossmann being nominated for a government position, allowing him to call out Apple and others for their horrific lack of ethics
• The possibility that someday someone in government might actually care about saving money
• Most people currently in government think Outlook is acceptable
• AI video generation
• How to tell if something is real or AI propaganda
• How much does Google make per month?
• What if the government disclosed how much it spent on each contractor???
• What are the underpinnings of AI? Solid Linux or wet toilet paper Windows?
• AI gives you answers without you having to visit websites - this will eventually crush small websites
• Misinformation and how to combat it with a brand new thing called Human Reasoning

Please send this episode to everyone you know, so we can clear up the confusion!

• The latest developments in AI, and what it can now do
• LOCALIZED AI: keeping AI home, away from the Cloud
• The current major AI contenders
• What is Hugging Face?
• Asking AI to really "think" something through will yield better results
• Asking AI to give you stock advice, versus asking AI to give you GOOD stock advice
• TECHNOLOGY LAG - We're on the cutting edge of all this, yet 99% of people don't know their AOL password and have no clue that you don't need a new smartphone every year.
• KEYWORD GOVERNANCE - Cloud companies now attack people if they use certain keywords, regardless of their intention. None of them have ever heard of human reason before.

Stay tuned next week for the conclusion to this conversation, and thanks for telling your friends about the show!

• Texas residents realize their "smart" thermostats have been commandeered by their power company, just as podcaster Marc-Anthony Arena predicted.
• Massachusetts Steamship Authority didn't have to pay the ransom to cryptolocker hostageware scammers because it's one of a small handful of people whose IT staff actually protect them by doing backups.
• NC gas station loses $8 grand in business due to Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, sues CP for $5 million.
• White-hat hackers discover a New York State government server WIDE OPEN and screenshot evidence that critical data was exposed. NYS rep says the server was empty.
• NY State has to spend billions to bribe select companies to do business here, rather than make it easy to do business for everyone. (Almost all businesses eventually go under or leave anyway.)
• Amazon reportedly discussed forming a "Rebel Alliance" to take on Microsoft, as world fails to realize there was ALREADY a rebel alliance that created a free alternative to the 365 Scandal.

Let me know how you like the new format!

• Tesla releases Full Self-Driving Beta 9, with a caveat: Most things are fixed, but some new things are broken. Alas, that's how all update attacks work! At least Elon gives us a warning that should be applied to all software: "so please be paranoid." Dr. Mike makes a great Simpsons analogy.
• GM sues Ford for using the name "BlueCruise", infringing on its brand "Cruise", but Ford points out all the other auto manufacturers that use the word "Cruise" in their trademarks. GM claims it will lead to confusion, but really, ALL OF THIS STUFF is confusion!
• Finally, we celebrate the fact that another hare-brained idea from Microsoft, called Windows 10X, has failed to launch. Luckily it fell apart, which saved us all a TON of heartache and frustration. One can only hope their subsequent products fail as well.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and if you haven't yet, check out Dr. Mike's spinoff show called Flyover Plates Podcast!

• An article from 2021 predicting that all those pie-in-the-sky pledges to build only EVs by 2025-30 wouldn't come true. (Hint: The prediction was correct.)
• Akio Toyoda explaining that if Japan went all-electric, it'd run out of power in 6 months. I add to it that the real environmental impact is in the MANUFACTURING. If you're building cars that are designed to be thrown away after a few years, that's the real problem. Just keep rollin' with your old car.
• The 2024 Corvette e-Ray - a hybrid variant acting as a stepping stone to get buyers used to a possible future all-electric 'Vette. I also reiterate the statement by Harry's Garage: Yes, these supercars may check the box of being hybrids, but they're not any more efficient.

As always, thanks for telling your friends about the show!

• American-sounding AI voices read off poorly-written scripts
• "Sir, you will hear a sound of music." "Oh, well I quite enjoyed The Sound of Music!"
• A real lady sounds so robotic, she makes Marc think she's an AI
• A scammer informs me that if I push the button on my Medical alert necklace, firemen and EMTs will emerge from it to help me
• A guy asks me how many medications I'm on, so I talk about meditation
• A guy tells me the Medical alert necklace is waterproof, so I ask if it's butterproof
• Finally, in what could be my best moment ever, a Medical alert scammer tells me "this little guy is waterproof, so he can go with you into the shower" so I ask him "What? There's a guy coming to help me shower?" and hilarity ensues.

As always, if you know someone who's ready to join the good fight, have them visit becomeanexorcist.com !

• "Geek Tech", a fake company which claims to be a product (er, service?) of Geek Squad
• A Medicare impersonator who just woke up
• A DirecTV impersonator claiming they're a cable company rather than a satellite provider. When he chastises me for wasting his time, I turn the tables and remind him that his entire career is a waste of time. I add that if he wants to actually help people, he should become a Computer Exorcist. (Listeners, you should start advising scammers about this career opportunity as well!)
• I bait the next TV service scammer by saying I have a lot of TVs in my big house and have a lot of money. Then he asks if my bill comes out of my TV. Hilarity ensues.
• The next one claims he's a technician, yet when I report that my TV picture is fuzzy, he asks if it's on!
• I have a little language barrier fun with the last Teevee Television Provider.

Thanks as always for telling your friends about the show!

• A very cruel joke called the "Virus Shield Chromebook" - who perpetrated it and why it's a huge waste
• FaceTime calls are now available to users of non-Apple devices! Was it magnanimity on Apple's part, or was it something else?
• FINALLY - a laptop that's not only repairable, upgradeable, but also Open Architecture! This means it's a modular architecture that will accept parts and accessory modules from any manufacturer as long as they obey the open standard, such as sizing and voltage.
• The mechanism inside all of us that makes us believe we have to knock each other down in order to get ahead.

As opposed to that, if you or someone you know wants to make money by helping people, check out becomeanexorcist.com

I received one of those fake emails that claimed I was on the hook for some McAfee software. (OF COURSE, ALL OF THESE ARE FAKE. THEY ARE DESIGNED TO GET YOU RILED UP SO YOU CALL THEIR EVIL IMPOSTOR HELP DESK.) So, I decided to call, or rather, Foghorn Leghorn did. When I got too much for them, they told me not to worry about it, so I kept calling them back, over and over, begging them for tech support.

Next, Foghorn got a fake email claiming to be from PayPal. I called them up and read the entire message, including the fake transaction ID. The guy claimed to be from California but knew nothing about surfing. He then asked if I was a veteran, presumably to prey on some VA benefits. Despicable.

I've thrown in one last little bonus one, and then we go our separate ways until next week. Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and remember, if you have Chromebooks (or Intel Macs) laying around, THEY CAN BE Minted and used for many years to come!

First I explain what I've been up to and how I'm transforming my career into public speaking.

Then we do a few interesting articles:

• Excelsior Pass, which was a power grab gone wrong (as everything does in NY).
• Alternative phone brands - SAMSUNG AND APPLE ARE NOT THE ONLY BRANDS OUT THERE!!! For instance, check out the Purism Librem, a phone made entirely in the USA. Unfortunately not a lot of people will buy it unless it ends up on display at your local carrier.
• Live Cyber Threat Map - what it does and when to watch it

Walk out of your corporate job right now and "join the Marc Side" - find out more at becomeanexorcist.com. Talk to you next week!

In a world of cloud-controlled products with forced obsolescence, she's my favorite contrarian. Tonight we discuss:

• The divergence between digital creativity and factory control
• WHY people are still attracted to records, tapes, and broadcast television
• What things are out there to satisfy our cravings for new 80s-style content, such as Retro Bowl, Metropolis 1998, Cocteau Twins, and St. Lucia
• The subreddits to join if you crave such goodness
• People focus on little plastic straws and bags, yet 99% of all landfills are HP printers that are now IMPO designed to die within a year
• What YOU can do to stop the massive amount of pollution that comes from making these new throwaway products
• How an update attack trapped a lady in a hot car

Thanks for telling your friends about the show. 80s forever. Analog forever.

Buy her music at:

https://postmodernmagic.bandcamp.com/

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ORBIT92TAPES

You'll want to hear today's episode with John D. Hanson. WOW do we have some mind-blowing concepts from this brilliant man.

John is one of the few people lucky enough to have escaped Rochester, and once he did, immediately found acceptance and success in greener pastures. He enlightens us with revelations I wish I'd learned sooner:

• Each region of the world has an indescribable feeling
• If you're stuck on something, take a step back and rethink it! You could work SMARTER and solve it SOONER.
• Throwing pearls before swine vs focusing your energies on those who value you
• BUSYNESS vs PRODUCTIVITY. How many people out there are spinnin' their wheels but gettin' nowhere?
• Holding something close to your chest vs. creating a basic Minimum Viable Product to see how it is received
• Your town or state is one GOOD leader away from success
• Selling things to each other vs. bringing in money from elsewhere

Finally, he explains this really wild concept found in physics: If you have 1 horse pulling, you can lift a certain amount. If you have two horses, it's not double. Somehow they can pull triple. So 1+1 is sometimes actually 3. If you apply it to your life, huge things will happen!

Learn more at johndhanson.com and buy my book at thecomputerexorcist.com

The first one is a tech support scammer. My personal favorite moments:

• "What's your name again, young lady?" - "(Sigh) My name is Andy."
• "You don't need to subscribe the Twitter."
• "Do you have some hearing problem?"

The next one is a Geek Squad impersonator email; thanks to my client Tony the Insurance Guy for this one.

They send you a fake email that scares you into thinking you were billed for something. Then conveniently, they add: "To dispute, call this number." Well, I called.

• "I got an email that says Greek Squad."
• "I've never heard of Microsoft H."

I then tell him I'm an AOL user and play the dialup noises from the 1990s AOL experience. I can't imagine the look on his face.

• The guy eventually hung up, so I had to call his office back.
• These emails always come from fake names like "florenejones@outlook.com" since it's so incredibly easy for scammers to create Outlook accounts. So I called and asked for Florene and the guy went with it!

The final mini clip is one where they send a very fake email. Instead of zeroes in their evil phone number, they use the letter O, presumably to evade spam detection, or filter out smart people. I call them out on it.

• "Which bread is my computer?"
• "That would look nice if they put chrome on the computer, make it look shiny like the front of my car..."

If you loved this episode, please pass it along to a friend!

Our first article is a funny one, perhaps because it's so realistic: A family summons a priest to perform an exorcism on an HP DeskJet.

Our next article isn't as funny, but just as scary. Without anybody's knowledge or permission, Amazon decided to share people's Internet connections using the Amazon products that already exist in their homes.

"Whatever happened to actually paying people to try these things out, letting people be aware, letting them make the decisions? But I guess that wouldn't matter if the rollout of it was just going to be rolled out period, whether we like it or not, right?"

Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

Tonight we wrap up our discussion with Steve the Anecdotal Engineer.

We discuss a really genial new invention that harvests all that wasted 5G energy in the air!

We wrap up by "delineating" the difference between "support" and outright cloud control. It's an important distinction!

Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

He explains:

• The different processor types (CPU vs GPU) and what they're good at.
• The different architectures (Motorola, PowerPC, Intel/AMD, ARM)
• Why are these new Apple chips screamin' fast, and what are the tradeoffs?

Stay tuned next week for the conclusion of this discussion, where I throw an article at him and he explains how it works.

So tonight I introduce to you, Steve the Anecdotal Engineer. He uses analogies to explain technical concepts very clearly so they're easy to understand.

We explain:

• What is RAM?
• What is a hard drive?
• What is a processor?
• What are processors?
• Where are they made?
• What are they made of?
• HOW are they made? (This one's cool.)

Stay tuned for more episodes with Steve over the next coupla weeks. Thanks as always for telling your friends about the show!

Tonight's article exposes JUST HOW MUCH data is copied out of your smartphone when you link it to your car.

• Marc spends most of the episode saying things like: "THANK YOU. FINALLY. That's exactly what I would've said. I'm going to shut up now and let you say what's on my mind."
• "We can leverage consumers' lack of understanding in order to exploit them in ways that they might object to if it was done in the analog world." Becca is vindicated!
• After knowing just how much stuff is sucked, we explain how to protect yourself by using real Aux jacks and cigarette lighters, (as Dr. Mike says, "like God and Beyonce intended").

Hope you enjoy this time with our west coast affiliate, and if you're as passionate as we are, tell your friends about us!

I am thrilled to report that I was wrong. Tonight's guest, Mike Cowan from McGyver Tech, is based in LA and heard me on a Pittsburgh talk show one morning in 2017. He called me up and said "Hey, we think the same way." It would turn out that we think very similarly, like Computer Exorcist parallel universe counterparts:

• We both had a passion for technology and ended up working in the industry through serendipity.
• We both strive to solve problems the right way once and for all instead of milking people for fees.
• We have come to the same conclusions independently of each other about the industry and its intentions.
• He even has his own "Three New Threats" tenets, and his own witty catchphrases!

So he became my first fully independent local affiliate, and I'm so thrilled to finally have him on tonight. In Part 1, you'll get to know him, and next week we get his opinion on an article he sent me.

• How free software is marginalized - In other words, there are things in modern life that can't be done with free software, and instead require some proprietary technology. However, I argue that it's a lot better than it used to be.
• Using a password manager, especially with "sugggeeeesssted" passwords, means relinquishing control of your life to someone else. If you really insist on using a password manager, we'll discuss a few points you should know to protect yourself.
• Are complex passwords really more secure?
• What's the best way to make sure I never lose my passwords?
• Finally, we discuss how all of this technology and control SEEMS intimidating and controlling, but it won't last forever. The Roman Empire was similar, but it eventually fell. Keep your eyes focused on the eternal and it'll remind you that all this is fleeting.

Thanks as always for telling your friends about the show!

• How Google Chrome ranks as the worst browser in terms of privacy (even amongst its peers)
• Which alternatives get the job done without all the spying
• Marc's new Edge Obliterator Script protects you from the Edge nagware
• How Google proposes to replace cookies with FLoC, which pigeonholes you based on your "type"
• The Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, and what could've prevented it
• Robotaxis - They bring us places, but micro-control us with apps
• Geofencing - a new form of micro-control
• Trolleys - a brand new invention that Marc totally came up with on his own. They're like robotaxis but they stay in their own lane and don't smash into things. Nobody ever thought of this simple idea.
• A generation raised without logic, morals, ethics, or common sense, firing off the weapon of technology indiscriminately without questioning anything.

Remember, the only thing that will stop Big Tech is you and me raising awareness!

We all know virus scanners and laws can never stop these things, because they're simply deceptive emotional sentences. So what do we do?

We feed it back to them, of course!

In this episode, I purposefully visit these popups and then call the number on the screen. I then put the phone up to my big speakers and blast the sirens into their ears, all the while pretending to be an overwhelmed senior.

It could be my favorite one to date. I hope you love it.

Tell your friends about the show and tell them they can become a Computer Exorcist by visiting becomeanexorcist.com

Today we celebrate over 4000 downloads!

We start the show by discussing Microsoft's latest debacle, the Recall Scandal. Oh, no big deal. Just them force-attacking every Windows PC with something that recorded your voice by default without any knowledge or permisison, that's all. More to come on that one, but feel free to look it up and warn people about it.

In our first article, I explain this new gimmick where you can unlock and start your car with a mobile app. To most consumers, a magical gizmo talks to another magical gizmo. They don't realize all of this depends on connectivity to a very unreliable and insecure cloud server, built like a house of cards.

Even Tesla admits this should be a secondary way to use your car - it should never be relied upon. So always keep your main keycard in your pocket.

Next, it's the "I've Been Sayin' It For Years" segment. For years I've been warning people that those wifi-controlled thermostats dangle a bit of convenience in front of you like a gingerbread house, then welcome you right into the oven of control.

Well, now it's a reality, and everything I've said has come true. They went from not saying a word about the control part, to then saying "oh don't worry we'll just lower your thermostat a few degrees", to full-blown controlling you and taking power away from you during peak times.

Marketingbobbleheads had the nerve to call this "Virtual Power Plants": You don't generate any power, but during peak times they take power away from you and put it where it's needed, so you're acting like a power plant.

Finally, I raise awareness for the Free Software Foundation and their call for 100% free software instead of all this closed nonsense. I do make one point that they should focus on the big goals (like eliminating MS Outlook) before going after the nit-picky stuff.

So! If you don't know what to do with your life, come help me stop the trickle of money and power toward Silicon Valley. Visit becomeanexorcist.com for more info.

A personal injury lawsuit scammer calls to ask if I've been in a car accident. Foghorn Leghorn answers in the affirmative, and it all goes downhill from there.

The next scammer claims that he wants to give me health insurance benefits, but he needs MY credit card number in order to pay me. Interesting. So I read through a bunch of totally irrelevant cards and by the time I get to the membership card for dog shows, he drops.

Next are two cable company scammers. I ask the first one if he can see the the dirty movie I'm watching, and of course confuse him by constantly changing the cable provider I subscribe to.

The second one tries the same shtick about being from "TV Service Provider" so I tell him that one of his colleagues had gotten to me first and I'd already given all my credit cards to him. I then break character and let him have it.

The last one is from the "medicare open enrollment" gold rush. I ask if his company can give me gift cards to my favorite restaurant. Later he asks me what branch of the military I served in, so I throw him a curveball.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and tell any clubs you're in that I can come give them a talk on online safety!

First up, we have a Spectrum imposter. I give her the runaround by constantly changing my tune as to what cable company I subscribe to.

Next, we have a very revealing call from a guy who admits I'm not "the no call list". I HIGHLY doubt he's referring to the American Do Not Call Registry. Far be it from them to respect that. Rather, I think it's an internal list where scammers keep track of guys like me who waste their time.

Later on is a pain relief scammer. I keep her busy by telling her all the ailments in my body.

Finally, a Medicare scammer who wants to know the name of my doctor. I spend about 16 minutes spelling the name GUIDO SARDUCCI while he struggles with it. (Some of you will remember that character from SNL!) I then read off all of the membership cards in my desk, including my grocery bonus card, my hotel rewards club, and my Purina Puppy Chow membership card.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and buy my book for all of them!

We'll also discuss:

Some recent update attacks and the resulting destruction to Windows PCs.

What causes update attacks and how to prevent them.

And finally, after eleven years of Marc hosting tech talk shows, finally, finally, someone in the government realized that Microsoft should be questioned and possibly held accountable for some major major cybersecurity breaches (and hopefully the panic, chaos, and fear that society has had to deal with since the company's inception).

Get ready to learn and thanks for telling your friends about the show!

Remember, if you know someone who wants to protect seniors from Big Tech and online scams for a living, send them over to becomeanexorcist.com for training!

Microsoft Exchange is a software product from 1996 that holds your emails in a server. In 2021, the world watched as bad guys broke into Exchange servers and sucked emails out like a vacuum.

The bad guys then shared the exploit with other bad guys. In other words, the hack went viral.

The cybersecurity community panicked, Microsoft churned out a patch (which the bad guys immediately started reverse-engineering), and they all went back to an uneasy silence. Until the next time, and the next one, and the one after.

So goes the continuous break-fix-break-fix cycle of fear. In other words, Whac-A-Mole. (New holes are discovered in Exchange almost daily.)

As usual, Non-Microsoft products were not affected.

For some reason, people use Exchange to this day. The only reason I can imagine is because many IT jokers don't have updated training, and think it's the only choice.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

• Nick Francesco's exposure of Apple's "Designer Exodus"
• A Plain English history of what brands of processors Apple has used, and the opportunity to repurpose old Apple computers and tablets
• You've heard of JD Power & Associates. It's a company that surveys consumers on their satisfaction with their cars. But did you know that car companies initially resisted the feedback? It wasn't until later that they realized customer feedback could actually help them. Imagine that. (And stay tuned for Computer Exorcist consumer satisfaction seals of approval!)
• The second article illustrates how far we've fallen. Here we are in the 21st century, unilaterally ruled by Silicon Valley. Modern cars not only ignore client feedback, but force you to agree to surveillance. The cars now film you, even when they're supposedly turned off in your garage.
• Worse, yet, Tesla employees admit they watch these videos and share them with each other. When the company tried to award them with free loaner cars, their reaction was fantastic.
• Furious yet? If you're sick of sitting in your cubicle, check out becomeanexorcist.com to learn how to protect people from Big Tech!

Tonight's one-hour special is about the HP ink cartridge scandal. Not only does HP charge an arm and a leg for their cartridges, but they're now sending out update attacks that turn your printer into a paperweight if you dare try and use a third-party cartridge. Yes, remotely killing their own brand of printers, the printers you bought from them. It's called their "Dynamic Security System".

Outraged yet? This PR "oil spill", or rather "ink spill" is very vindicating. Finally, the world is seeing what Marc's been preachin' in his tech gospel since 2012.

When they were caught doing this, HP claimed it's to protect you from "viruses". They know most people still think viruses happen, and figure they'll be able to get away with that excuse. Security experts have noted that viruses have never been detected in existing ink cartridges, and if so, it would be highly difficult, unlikely, and not worthwhile for the bad guys.

Most companies encourage you to use their usually-superior genuine factory parts, and discourage you from using third-party parts. That's totally fine, but it seems as though HP has removed that choice. Why? Their admitted goal is recurring revenue through vendor lock-in. (Remember when companies used to prioritize customer satisfaction?)

We discuss how to protect yourself from expensive factory cartridges and update attacks, and encourage people to seek other brands that are more ethical.

Finally, we discuss the phenomenon of a group of disgruntled workers walking out of a large corporation and starting their own underdog competitor - and how it usually ends up working well.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

• Many seniors are lonely. In response, one new company is now selling/renting robots to the elderly.
• It's one thing if you talk to it when you're lonely at home, but one lady reported shunning her family reunion because she felt as though the robot was now her family. WHAT?
• Unlike the robots from The Jetsons and Star Trek, these aren't independent robots that are "part of the family".
• These are simply glorified Amazon Echo devices that record everything you say and send it back to Home Office, and then produce results that they deem are most amenable to you. It's the centralization of companionship.
• "The company prioritizes user security and privacy." Yes, that's what they all say.
• Turns out MILLIONS of younger people have already been sucked in by AI boyfriends/girlfriends. It's an app where you pretend to text with a significant other.
• Oh yeah, and if the old folks can't afford the milking fees, NY State will pay for them, because it's a great way to keep people isolated from each other and pacified. In other words, The Matrix.
• Marc then shines a light on the whole situation by suggesting healthier alternatives. For example, there's this brand new thing that nobody's ever heard before called INTERACTING WITH OTHER LONELY HUMAN BEINGS. You can attend bridge clubs, churches, or even family Zoom calls.
• You can mentor young people, because Lord knows they desperately need to be taught some social skills.
• You can do pretty much anything else and end up better off.

Thanks as always for telling your friends about the show!

One day in the 1990s, she heard about the web, and decided she should be a web designer. So she moved to San Francisco and the next morning the web took off! We even get a history lesson on the origins of Flash multimedia.

She's now an expert in online branding, emphasizing branding that authentically communicates who you are and why you're different. She mainly works with women entrepreneurs who are coach/author/speakers who don't want to deal with the tech aspect.

Tonight we discuss the typical cycle of technology: Something novel comes out, and then the designers let their imaginations run wild, until it becomes more and more and more and more bloated and overgrown.

Finally, we discuss an article about passwords! You know how websites are now forcing you to make COMPLICATED passwords with letters, numbers, punctuation, Cyrillic characters, and music notes? IT TURNS OUT IT'S TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.

It is actually less secure than a passphrase, and bad guys don't even care, because they're just copying and pasting your passwords anyway. So it just ends up being an excellent way to terrify consumers. Unfortunately, most computer guys don't know this, because they worship complexity and/or don't keep up on their training.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

Tonight we discuss:

• What sparked his journey to Capitol Hill
• "Why aren't I at the next level yet?"
• Saving the world versus being the world to someone
• What happens when you realize life is finite
• When a group of students lay their hands on him and prayed for him, a miracle happened, but not the one they were expecting.
• External healing versus fundamental change and inner peace
• Aaron's superhero alter ego
• The joys of discovering a shared interest, and also discovering a shared pain
• The Terrible Privilege: How all superheroes start out as victims
• How victims can become heroes or villains based on how they handle their pain
• "There's a point to the weakness because the obstacle is the way."

This is one episode I'll never forget, and I hope it has the same great impact on you. Check me out at TheComputerExorcist.com and hire Aaron to speak to your group at AaronRWelty.com

After doctors told his family he wouldn't survive past childhood, he defied them by going to work for the House of Representatives, climbing a mountain, and traveling the world as a motivational speaker.

In Pt 1, we discuss:

• "The duty of those in power is to speak up for those who can't speak for themselves."
• How the kids in the book Maniac Magee saw each other as individuals instead of as identity groups
• How some people strive to claim as many disability benefits as possible, or as Marc calls it, "qualify downward"
• The contrast between people who overcome their weakness versus those who qualify downward
• Deciding what kind of person you're going to be
• How to be more BA than the IDF: Aaron's journey to Southern Israel to take a 3-mi hike in the wilderness then climb a mountain the day after
• How one Rochester nonprofit goes against the narrative to remind inner-city kids of their innate self-worth
• "When something is asked of you, that's when you show up and shine."

Stay tuned for the second half next week, and in the meantime check him out at AaronRWelty.com and check out my site TheComputerExorcist.com

This is the third and final segment of the Taylor Abrahamse interview!

• How does Marc remain optimistic?
• Is it your job to save the world?
• Why 9 is better than 11
• Being your own worst enemy
• "I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of relaxing."
• Entering a dojang, stripped of the trappings of life, with nothing left besides your core identity
• Removing the "emotional charge" from your predicament, to help you solve it objectively
• How the finiteness of life actually motivates us to achieve something
• We eventually got around to reading a tech article about privacy - you're gonnawanna hear what Google and Samsung are doing to you now.
• We discuss the implications of new tech, the responses to it, and the side effects of those responses.

This and so much more, tonight on The Computer Exorcist Podcast!

Check out Taylor Abrahamse at TaylorAbrahamse.ca and check me out at TheComputerExorcist.com

We discuss:

• Artists (and us) leaving the whole scene behind and retiring (but then what?)
• WHY people like certain songs - what components make up a good song?
• The cynicism, pandering, and formulaic nature of this year's Big Game commercials - "a miscommunication between corporate culture and real life"
• "How do these people have all the money if they're so bad at understanding human needs and human psychology?"
• Were the 80s the peak of civilization?
• Taylor's catchy kids song "Potbelly Pig"
• Songs can have sugar and oatmeal components - you can only take the sugary stuff for so long before you start to crave something more substantive.
• The Bee Gees having eight Number 1 Hits in a row
• What if someone set out to create a song engineered to contain the components that researchers find attractive? Has it been done already?
• What is a Cameo?
• Feeling bad about charging your clients while your competitors blatantly rip them off
• Company leaders feeling as though they're under pressure to cheat or make gimmicks, versus doing the right thing no matter what

Stay tuned for the third and final segment of our interview.

"Three episodes with me? That's preposterous!"

Check out Taylor Abrahamse at TaylorAbrahamse.ca and check me out at TheComputerExorcist.com

I don't even know where to begin. We talked about so many fascinating things, we had to do three episodes. Here are some of the many topics we covered in Pt 1:

• Trying to be unique in a world of Taylor Swift fans who drive silver Camrys
• "Uniqueness, by its very nature, means not everyone can be it."
• Being lost vs. finding your path
• How each piece of music or art, regardless of financial return, contributes to humanity's collective success
• How social media really is the ADD of television multiplied by 200 or even 1000
• How social media is like a stadium where some people do things, the people in the bleachers react to it, then the people behind the bleachers react to the reactions of the people in the bleachers
• Making money by helping people, or making money by forcing things onto people
• Being massively famous vs. being the world to someone
• How do we get good ideas out there effectively?

Hope you love the episode, keep tellin' your friends about the show, and check out Taylor at taylorabrahamse.ca and check out my site TheComputerExorcist.com

If you have some data you really care about, like family photos, you can now burn it to a Thousand-Year DVD. It has a surface made of minerals, and is projected to last 1,000 years. How do we know this? Well we put them through torture tests like extreme heat and moisture. They remained intact, unlike normal writable DVDs (not to mention floppies and Zip Disks, which die very easily).

What's the second issue people don't talk about? If your media survives, you also need a machine to read it! DVD players are fairly ubiquitous, unlike tape backup readers, which CHANGE every year, so with those, you're very unlikely to find a machine to read your data.

The other good news is about replica cars. Rather than just kit cars, it's now legal for companies to create and sell fully assembled "new" vintage cars - brand new metal that's SIMPLE and reliable and isn't crawling with cloud control. It's a very beautiful thing.

Tell your friends about the show!

• The first Spectrum impostor didn't understand percentages, so I explained to him that 120 was 50% of 240 until he snapped.
• In the next clip, I was talking to a Spectrum impostor and my other phone rang! It was a Medicare impostor so I put the phones together to let them duke it out.
• Next guy claims he's from "satellite company". No company in particular, just "satellite company."
• The next dude claims my discount is based on my Social Security Number and tries to get it out of me. I drive him wild and ramble on and on until he pops.
• The next lady is so overworked she just breathes heavily into the phone, so I ask if she's got lung problems.
• The next guy apparently asks for my "zip cord". Hilarity ensues.
• We then get a guy claiming to be Medicare. I mis-hear him as "Madagascar Part A + B?"
• The final lady asks for my Spectrum bill and phone bill, so I look over all the bills I have, and assume she meant my "food bill" from Burger King. I then proceed to tell her how my lunch was...

We had over 2,600 downloads in our first year of 2023! Thanks to the fans and keep telling your friends about the show!

Marc met him through the Polarizing Networking group (look them up), which is full of raw, unfiltered people instead of the buttoned down or fake meetings you might've attended.

Hank achieved what Marc has been trying to do for a few years now - Moving his business from the "me doing stuff" world to "me referring people to team members who can help you better than I could".

He gives us some insight into just WHY the Big Box stores are so destructive when they "service" your PC, and what critical service they don't even bother offering.

Next he talks about how to use AI correctly, instead of using it with the reckless abandon that most people on the bandwagon currently have.

He describes how he went from "old white guy", to alter-ego YouTube rapper "MC Bizz Booma", delivering a bite-sized message of encouragement every morning to his fans.

Instead of the usual article, Marc closes up with two hilarious writeups that were generated by AI, pointing out why you just might want to proofread what comes out.

Thanks to Dennis Jones and Wilkes Booth for permission to use their song Steal Your Thunder!

-Formalized control versus philosophical anarchy (social pressures and mob rule)

-Containment of a deception versus the peace and freedom that truth brings

-How to get free chicken salad croissant sandwiches

-JRR Tolkien's concept of taking a terrible aberration and weaving it back into the story, and how we can do the same with the tragedies in our lives

-What Princess Leia said about squeezing too hard, and what happens to the jar of salsa when we try and carry too many grocery bags

We then find an article from 1978 written by Bishop Hogan that talks about the opposite of all that: Simplicity and love. He said:

-We live in a world that's far from simple, and highly technological (ha! if he only knew where we are now)

-We have lost touch with the earth, with not taking ourselves too seriously, with accepting all kinds of people for who they are.

-We are so bent on having everything our way, we tighten up like a knotted ball of yarn, and we become isolated from each other (ha, 2020)

-Overcomplicating everything out of fear versus realizing everything works together for our benefit.

No shortage of deep topics and "whoaa" realizations tonight on the CEP. Hope you love it and share it with your friends!

We discuss why entrepreneurs make the crazy decision to run their own business: Is it vulnerability? Does it mean I'm a failure at other things? Control? Time management? Independence? Fulfillment? Insanity? Yes.

Who is The Amazing Randy and what can he teach us about IT?

Did you know you can define your business not only by who you work with, but who you don't work with?

Isn't it funny how the companies with the worst products usually have the greatest marketing budgets? (Ahem, HP, Samsung)

How many people have you networked with who were highly refined but had a lackluster message or dime-a-dozen business? How many people have you met who weren't refined, but were genuine, relatable comfortable in their own skin, and had a unique message? (I'm that latter category.)

Finally, we do an article on how much control is baked in to modern cars... or are they really just data collection devices with wheels?

Today we learn how to do the opposite, with special guest David Andrews. He reminds us we don't need MORE connections, but BETTER connections.

Marc recounts how he meets the best clients in relaxed non-business clubs, and how he makes sure they know why he's different.

David then brings up a great point - The people you want to network with might not be people who need your services! A divorce attorney and a moving company might not need each other, but they can help each other's clients out.

He also teaches us that the best clients are the ones who are too busy to attend the networking meetings! Those folks can only come to you by referral.

Finally, he mentions something interesting: Your friends and your work contacts don't have to be one and the same. Sure, you should care about your work contacts, but you aren't going to invite them all to your home. Likewise, you might love your friends but wouldn't trust them with a job.

We finish up with an article on BIPA - it's similar to HIPAA except covers biometrics like fingerprints. Marc explains how the REASON why tech companies are so insanely uptight about this stuff is because they don't want people to realize there's so much at stake.

Come learn how to stop scrambling and start doing networking RIGHT!

One guy calls me (as Foghorn Leghorn) and asks for my zip code. I pull a number out of the air and he looks it up and concludes that I'm from somewhere called "iDAho". I roll with it.

Next guy calls and says he's Spectrum, then I convince him he's from AT&T, then he claims he's from Consumer Cellular. He doesn't care who he's impersonating.

The next guy is a real gem. He claims he's sending me a software update that'll fix the cable wires in the ground to make them more resilient to rainy weather. (Rainy weather affects satellite dishes, not cable wires!)

Next caller asks me for all my credit cards, so I read off all the club membership cards I have in my desk, to his chagrin.

The final guy sounds like he's asking for my "date of bath", so I gladly inform him of the times I've taken a bath recently. He then tempts me with a fake refund, so i bargain with him and try to get a better one.

Thanks for sharing the show with your friends!

She helps nonfiction authors promote themselves and their brand. It turns out she can write a description of her clients better than they can describe themselves!

We discuss an article about humility - what it is, and what it isn't. Turns out humility isn't about trumpeting yourself, nor is it about belittling yourself excessively. It's actually more about accuracy.

Find out the right way to be humble on this smashing episode, and thanks for telling your friends about the show!

I say it all the time: Silicon Valley aims to supplant government, and it's happening right before our eyes.

The next article talks about one of the highly, highly, astronomically unlikely incidents of malware on a Mac. Yes, it can happen, but the more important point here is the author praising Apple for HOW they stopped it. They now govern what CAN and CANNOT run on the computers they sell. Get it now? Sure, go ahead and keep thinking this is your computer. it's yours until we find something we don't want you to run on it.

Under this system, truly destructive products like MacKeeper and CleanMyMacX can easily get away with it as long as they create legal corporations and buy a bumper sticker and lollipop from Apple that says they're an approved publisher.

The result is centralized control without any justice. It's digital totalitarianism. It is the real threat here, and it's being formed right before your eyes, under your nose, as we speak.

Tell your friends!

We discuss what going viral means - how it inflates some people's egos, but to others it just gives them the satisfaction of knowing they've made somebody' happy. We also discuss social media - how it breaks down people's self esteem, and how it can be used properly.

Finally, we discuss a new Microsoft patent for a chatbot that can imitate deceased folks - your loved ones, celebrities, or historical figures. But imitation is not the same as actually bringing that person back, now is it?

Visit powertac.com/exorcist to buy your high-end Powertac flashlight! It'll give you a discount and you'll support the show.

We discuss a new trend of moving tech manufacturing (iPhone, Fire Stick, and more) toward Vietnam and India. Since India is already known as a big hub for IT services, it makes sense for them to add IT manufacturing to their national skillset.

Next, we're huge fans of Tesla, but we don't hesitate to call them out when necessary. It's one thing if your Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner knocks into the couch or goes in circles, or if your Samsung fridge roasts itself during an update attack, but it's another thing entirely when hastily-made software starts driving our cars for us.

Why not refine the small stuff first? Oh noo... they have to unleash BETA software (translation: UNTESTED) onto cars that are on the road right now, 10,000 lb chunks of metal that can go haywire at any time. As Musk himself cautioned, "Be very paranoid." Software programmers have never heard of logic or the big picture before.

The CEP ain't your usual tech talk show, so we spend the first part talking about jazz people and how they really see the highs and lows of life, society, and success. Then, we do an article about hard drive backups, and point out why an automated cloud backup might prove useless when disaster strikes - and how to make sure you're actually covered.

Thanks as always for telling your friends about the show!

Derick Johnson tells us how he does not only body training, but re-training your mind. Most of us are on auto-pilot throughout the day. We check the news and social, we watch some videos, we light up a cigarette, we pace around the house, whatever it may be. He helps people realize this, and then re-program their brains with healthier habits.

He teaches people that they have 6 human needs, and each of us prioritizes two of them. He helps people focus on that instead of being all over the place.

His unfiltered tough-love approach is because he wants to see his people win - and they come out of it with more self-confidence.

Finally, he encourages people to get more specific with their goals to achieve them. Too many people are stuck in a rut, so I help this episode helps change that!

See tons of his success stories at FitWithDerick.com

Today Prof. Justin calls in to explain Cybersecurity. I just thought it was a bunch of guys in a big room running scans, but it's much cooler than that: He runs a command center that resembles the war rooms of Hollywood, which simulates cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants. He then teaches his students, including returning veterans, how to defend our homeland from such attacks, so we can sleep at night and go about our daily lives and "keep traffic moving along briskly".

We dig a little deeper and talk about the need for purpose. The world tells you it's okay to stay home and be a pair of eyeballs for Google to advertise to, but deep down, a human being needs to have a purpose, to know they're helping society out in some way. Macro-level Cybersecurity, or residential-level Computer Exorcism are two hugely rewarding ways to spend your career.

He then discusses the untold downsides to "intelligent" wireless car key fobs. We've heard plenty of stories where keyless keys won't validate so you can't start your car, but now some people are experiencing situations where they can't turn their cars OFF. With Real Metal Keys, you were in control of your own vehicle. As always, "evil circuit boards" add more helplessness.

Finally, he discusses how Microsoft took its 1991-era Exchange product and regurgitated it as a rental service. Same naked pile of garbage, and more flaws are discovered all the time. Okay that's fine but... at least 30,000 organizations that subscribed to this were breached. Can Microsoft cloud services be trusted? When will people learn?!

We discuss one about how car subscriptions were poised to take over the world, then Covid hit, and there went that idea. On its own, It's a really cool idea that has makes sense for travelers and city-dwellers, but it should not replace real car ownership.

Finally, we explain The Right to Repair and the difference between true ownership and what's happening now, which is simply an agreement with the permission to use something. (Come to think of it, that's what a rental is, huh?) It's a scary thing and luckily both sides of the aisle agree it needs to be stopped.

Have you gotten your Computer Exorcist hoodie or coffee mug yet? Order yours on the podcast page at: thecomputerexorcist.com

Then I hit him with some articles! The first article is a recent one where Microsoft has fallen under the scrutiny of European antitrust officials. The fact that they bundled their [pathetic] Teams software (not to mention that mysterious new Meet Now icon) with Windows is drawing concern that they're trying to snuff out competitors such as Zoom and Webex.

They successfully did it in the 90s when they bundled [the extremely pathetic] Internet Explorer with Windows, which lead to the demise of the competing Netscape browser. What the journalist didn't know is, they're trying to do the same thing all over again with their [pathetic] Edge browser, which, in this week's version, is actually a mutilated version of Chrome.

Riley brings up a great point that an OS should be a gateway, not a gatekeeper. This will be a big debate in the future as Apple and Google attempt to control our choices in similar ways.

I then pose one of my scandals to him (The OneDrive Scandal) and ask him how I can raise awareness for it. He gives me a good idea that might actually help.

Then we discuss an article reminding us that the Roman Republic fell not because of foreign invaders, but because of polarized, partisan infighting. (This segues into a really cool explanation of how political campaign spam works.) He finishes up by giving us a really inspiring pep talk on how America can and will survive this period in our history. Where else can you get such multi-faceted discussions?

He teaches us HOW Congressional offices work. (I felt like I was there!) We learn how they deal with the massive amount of comments they receive via letter, phonecall, or email. (One office received 1.7 million communications in one year!)

Does anybody actually read your letters? Do your representatives themselves reply to you or is it just "some intern"? Riley answers those questions and explains how Constituent Relations Management works.

Do representatives use AI to respond to citizens? Do lawmakers use AI to write or summarize bills? Who is Claude? The answers aren't as bad as I expected. (All I could think of was Number Johnny Five dressed in a suit applauding a State of the Union address he wrote!)

Finally, feel free to leave us a review on whatever podcast directory you use, such as Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, etc. It'll help new people discover the show!

It says you have viruses and trojans and then tells you to call a phone number. If you call, people answer and CLAIM to be Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc.

Of course DO NOT CALL THEM. The ONLY time they can hurt you is if you call them and let them into your machine.

Today, my client said she had one of these scary messages on her screen. I said HEY WAIT give me the number!

She gave me the number, then I gave her the secret key commands to close the message (usually Alt+F4 or Ctrl W).

I decided to call the number and torment yet another poor scammer.

Last time I tormented the same group for 1:15. This time I tormented the same GUY for 1:07 (edited for length; you're welcome).

I used my usual Foghorn Leghorn voice, and at one point you'll hear him call me Mister Leghorn. Heroic.

I let him break into my machine and he showed me an innocuous list of numbers and claimed they were foreign hackers listening to our conversation.

"Listening to us? Who would ever record us or listen to us? That would be so embarrassing!" I exclaimed.

Other classic quotes:

"Seriously you're so bad with the computer?"

"Are you drunk right now?"

"Is this my new AOL password? Is this my IP address?"

I think this is even funnier than the last one, and while I didn't get him to snap, there's a really interesting surprise ending in store for you.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show, buy my book for everyone you know, and stay tuned for a newly remodeled site, coming soon!

Rooolll tape!

Oh, P.S. Something I realized after I did the intro: We were two grown men on opposite sides of the globe spending an hour on the phone together, both of whom were going by a fake name. What a world we live in.

Tonight we talk with Silicon Valley veteran Kassy Laborie. She's a Virtual Training Consultant who became an expert on video meetings and working from home... 22 years before Covid!

We discuss how Zoom won the privilege of having its brand name synonymous with video calling (like Kleenex, Xeroxing, or Googling) by making it (relatively) easy for people.

She focuses on "getting tech out of the way": We can bring back the connection, the belonging, and the humanity, even if we're in front of a webcam. And we don't have to assume it'll be "less than" it was before.

She saves the bombshell nugget of wisdom for the end, which she calls The Engagement Principle.

Productivity isn't the problem - it's engagement. If people aren't engaged, then of course they won't be productive.

How many times have you been to Zoom meetings where people put their feet up or eat broccoli or otherwise zone out?

How does she avoid that when she makes a presentation? Listen to find out!

Check out her site: kassyconsulting.com

Today we're celebrating that we've surpassed 1,500 downloads! Thanks for telling your friends about the show!

Viruses and trojans are nearly impossible anymore, because the THREAT of them is MUCH more profitable. Scammers now implant advertisements on websites with scary, emotional sentences that claim you have viruses and such.

Their goal is to scare you into LETTING them break into your computer. I lured them into mine on purpose, to study and trace them. Their latest tactic is to break in, tell you innocuous things are actually threats, and then "do a scan" of your bank accounts, which really meant looking for your passwords.

Today's the first time I was able to keep one scam group busy for 1 hr 15 mins. One of them got so fed up with me, she admitted that all you need to do is turn off your computer to get out of the scary message. I got a couple other people to snap, which was great fun.

Even I was rattled afterward, but now I'm proud of it - the FUNNIEST one yet.

No antivirus program can ever detect a scary emotional sentence and a manipulative phonecall. AWARENESS is the only solution. Tell your friends!

First we get a voicemail from a telemarketer who's already been tormented. She'd ready to quit so she gives up during the voicemail.

Next we get more "TV Service Provider" scammers who promise upgrades and refunds. Foghorn Leghorn is here to waste their time and call the men "young ladies" until they snap.

We get a call from a power company scammer who claims he's Rochester Gas & Electric. I tell him I have ConEd and thus convince him to convince me that he's calling from ConEd. Of course, I tell him my name is Lucille Ball.

Finally, some people call me offering me gift cards, and then try to ask for my credit card number. I drive them wild.

Thanks for telling your friends about the show, and be sure to check out The Flyover Plates Podcast: No computers, just reminiscing and sarcasm and food reviews centering around Rochester's cuisine, the "Plate".

This is the latest sinister scam - They call and claim to be your cable company. They apologize for the high prices and offer you a refund and eventually ask for your credit card. Of course your real company ain't gonna lower your prices! This is especially infuriating to me because I ACTUALLY go to people's homes and ACTUALLY renegotiate their cable bills with real results.

I play with them for a bit and make them slip up and claim they're AT&T one minute and Spectrum the next. When they claim their software update is going to improve my picture and sound, I betray my expertise and ask how software can somehow change the physical properties of my television. I love how it went over their heads and they just thought I was a confused old guy.

Of course I tell them my name is Foghorn Leghorn, and I love how they don't know who he is. It's just such a beautiful thing.

Pass this episode to your friends!

First, I answer a fan mail asking about the Wallace Memorial Microphone.

I then discuss Chrome Extensions and the Chrome Web App Extension Store - offering both illegal and legal extensions that HARVEST YOUR DATA. Nobody should use any of them. Also, App Stores claim to protect you from rogue publishers, but they fail to do so.

Next, I get another post card from the power company begging me to get a "Smart" thermostat. They promise me I'll be "in control" when in reality, The Cloud, the power company, and the government are the ones in control.

Finally, we call out a new legal scam called Smart Meter Guard. They promise to block radio frequencies that come out of your router, but that's a router's JOB. It's like me telling you to put duct tape on all of your light bulbs to protect yourself from all that nasty light they give off.

Tell your friends!

Big governments, businesses, and tech firms tower over us all. Their respective broad-sweeping rules, massive scale, and micro-management fail to consider our unique individual humanity. Isolation, disconnection, disillusionment, and POLARIZATION leave people feeling abandoned. The tall towers are unstable. It's. Just. Not. Scalable.

So, why don't we just do the opposite?

That's the idea of Marc Winn, who co-pilots a small island nation called Guernsey. It's a place where people pick up their own litter and take care of each other, instead of dismissing it as "someone else's problem". Instead of tall towers that can fall, he envisions a group of small resilient communities. He calls it "fractal scaling" and in his opinion (and mine) it's the only way forward for a society so large and complex.

How do we start? Rather than fighting against the most stubborn bricks, he suggests finding the bricks that are already loose, so to speak. Help out people who already at their wits' end and willing to try something new. It's the same thing with my clients - They call me after they've been burned by a joker and are ready to try something that works.

It's reweaving ourselves back to each other. It's moving from Economies of Scale to Economies of Care. And it's possible right now. Check out marcwinn.com or dandelion.gg to find out more.

This is definitely one episode you'll want to share with friends.

He wrote a book about the concept that "awesome" or "excellent" is better than "perfect", which is unattainable.

Yes we all want to put in effort and succeed, but it turns out that there IS such a thing as trying too hard. You end up getting nowhere.

I've relaxed my grip on life and it's amazing how far it got me.

Our first article discusses the "fungibility", or replaceability of an item. Dollar bills, gold, oil, and food, are fungible. However, a family heirloom or special car is irreplaceable. This segues into the question of, what do I keep, and what do I do with the ones I don't want?

We then switch it up and talk about how Google gobbled FitBit, as well as an EMR company, so now they know everything about our health.

Bob discusses the tradeoffs between privacy and convenience. He explains how, like it or not, most people would gladly trade their privacy for a bit of convenience. We then reveal that you don't have to have such a tradeoff. You CAN move forward with technology that doesn't spy on you - if you find the right products, such as Mint computers.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Bob is even more brilliant than you've heard today, but it's a start!

When they set their sights on Diapers.com, Amazon decided to sell competing diapers at a huge loss. Of course consumers fell for it in droves, because if you're a parent trying to buy diapers, you'll buy the cheapest ones possible. Inevitably, Diapers.com could not compete, and Amazon convinced them to sell out to them.

They didn't have the time or money to fight back, but luckily others did.

Their "Goodthreads" line of clothing aimed to crush L.L. Bean. Amazon accomplished this not with quality but rather by sneaking Goodthreads results into the mix when customers searched for L.L. Bean products. Imagine Wegmans sneaking their house-brand cookies into your shopping cart when all you wanted was a nice pack of Chips Ahoy!

Finally, we discuss how sellers are defecting and going onto platforms that are actually there to support the sellers. If you were a farmer, would you rather have a farmer's market that continually tries to undercut you, or one that's there to help you thrive?

This is a story about choking out competitors, and backstabbing your own sellers. If a third-party seller's product becomes remotely successful, they might accuse the seller of being a fraud, which forces them to prove themselves by revealing the contract manufacturer. They'd then approach the manufacturer itself and commission an identical product.

Funny thing is, these are just business practices. It's not nearly as bad as Apple's brutal control over their own products and users.

Who's to blame for this?

Us. We are, for continuing to buy things from Big Tech because we're lazy. It takes a few seconds to seek out alternatives. Vote with your dollar and watch the big guys shrivel up.

This time I got a lot of calls from people claiming to be my cable company. Scammers are taking advantage of the fact that people are furious about cable/Internet rates. They apologized for all the high rates, and offered to give me a refund. They're hoping you give them your cable account number, your bank account number, or credit card number.

One lady couldn't remember if she was impersonating Spectrum or Verizon. One guy called me (answering as Foghorn Leghorn) and tried to get me to hand over a verification code (which he would've used to hijack all my accounts).

I then call up a fake Support Scammer number and tell him my name is Ricky Ricardo. Hilarity ensues, unbeknownst to him.

Finally, a Student Loan scammer said he would help me apply directly to the government. I informed him that if he was acting as my intermediary, then I would be applying indirectly, wouldn't I?

Hope you love it and tell your friends!

I do my usual explanation of The Four New Threats, so it's a great way for a new audience to get to know me. If one of your friends doesn't know what I'm all about, have them listen to this episode.

Unfortunately the two-hour episode was cut off at 37 minutes because the station relies on a "cloud streaming recording" system instead of one that actually works.

We discuss how focusing on the bottom line and neglecting the other aspects of your work or personal life affects your family. We then compare it to a factory manager who went above and beyond to take care of his workers.

"Greed can take on different names to match whatever our insecurity is."

We discuss the example of the monks who make Chartreuse, and the people who make Subarus. Rather than expand to meet a brief increase in demand, these organizations decided to focus on quality.

"You don't have to react to everything you see."

We then discuss my motivation for teaching technicians - Yes, one of the priorities is making money, but primarily it's to give people a rewarding career helping the public. The money comes later! This is pretty much the opposite of the IT industry's routine of making money their primary goal, and pushing unneeded products and services on people.

Now, instead of milking a handful of people for recurring fees, I fix things once and for all, and now I have thousands of clients.

"The bottom line isn't everything."

He also explains that companies actually look for popular web searches, and decide to support whatever cause is popular, rather than standing up for what's right.

"Brutal."

Finally, we discuss an article where the explain that people buy things compulsively and keep up with the latest and greatest perhaps because they just want to be loved, and erroneously believe that they'll only be loved if they buy or do certain things.

"There's a lot to unpack here."

Indeed there is.

(Sorry about the slight echo! Technology is garbage.)

We start out discussing small business and protecting them from Big Tech prying and expensive overkill services. We then discuss Marc's new suspicion that the industry is ruled by a handful of in-bred monopolies because "computer dudes" give knee-jerk recommendations and don't stop to think of alternative companies.

We then shame yet another scammer who mailed me a letter trying to get me to sign up for a fake "Domain Listing" service for $289/year.

Next, we discuss more of the impact of the SolarWinds breach, where bad guys broke into SolarWinds, and subsequently broke into all the "security appliances" that SolarWinds controls. (Basically, they gained access to most large organizations.) One of their higher-profile hijinks was breaking into Microsoft's HQ computers and viewing the source code for some of their products. (They may have modified it, and either Microsoft corrected it, or didn't realize it!)

Finally, we explore the reasons why data breaches happen, and why update attacks usually fix 1 thing and break 10 more.

It's a dive under the hood of the Internet - hope you learn a lot!

As always, thanks for buying my book for all your friends.

I discuss the hype behind AI: Contributing to the destruction of humanity, all because you were too lazy to write a paragraph for yourself.

I then praise a little-known book called Why Software Sucks. It reveals how adding more and more and more features makes a program more and more and more unreliable. While written in 2007, it is increasingly relevant. Grab a copy on eBay or wherever you can.

We spend the rest of the episode discussing privacy-focused alternatives to the Big Tech brands that come to mind. Most people think there are only 1 or 2 choices when in reality you have MANY OPTIONS. We'll discuss choices in email, web browsers, International messaging, web search, and a bonus site that helps protect you from Big Social Media.

Oh yeah, and youregonnawanna hear about the unintended consequences when your bank tells you to download Chrome, and what to download instead.

IT PAYS TO LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVES, FOR UNDERDOGS. They're less abusive, better quality, and you'll avoid feeding the beast of Big Tech.

We then plot his "spinoff sitcom", which will be all about Rochester's favorite food: The Garbage Plate. (It's called The Flyover Plates Podcast and it's now available!)

Then, we dial up some scammers and see who answers.

One long-standing scammer is QBProHelpDesk.com - They lead victims to believe they are Intuit, and then charge them thousands of dollars for fake scans. You are highly encouraged to call them and waste their time.

Roku's desire to wet its beak caused a feud with Spectrum, and Facebook's desire to monitor EVERY THING YOU EVER DO EVER caused Apple to unleash an update attack torpedo onto iPhones to stop them. We the little ants look up and shake our heads in dismay.

Cara Jean comes back to remind us that this is a way to make money, but not a way to make friends. She reminds me that instead of both losing, it'd be better if the giants had a change of heart and actually started to do good. Imagine how they'd inspire their customers and competitors!

If you do the right thing, the money comes later.

In contrast to the world of coaches who pile tons of homework on your already chaotic life, she is a leadership coach who has removed the scrambling from my workday and helped me stay focused on my mission.

We discuss SolarWinds, which is yet another monopoly in the IT field. I explain the fact that it's a monopoly means its products are homogeneous and ubiquitous and therefore easy to breach. There's also lots of shoulder-shrugging, neglect, and cluelessness because there's no motivation to improve.

Apparently my industry STILL hasn't realized that monopolies are bad.

As someone steeped in the tech world, Cara points out that this industry's tendency to react to all problems by slopping on more complexity is actually a leadership problem. Lots of mind-blowing moments (and the usual cartoon voices) tonight, folks.

He's an experienced mechanic who's here to teach us about the auto industry. We discuss saving thousands on repairs by using junkyard and aftermarket parts. We then explain drive-by-wire and brake-by-wire, and finish it all off by discussing EVs made by mom-and-pop firms that use stylish 1960s body shells.

Bada bing! Hopefully he'll join us again soon.

Tonight, a "Law Enforcement Officer" by the name of "David James" calls me to inform me that my bank accounts were hacked and used to promote drug trafficking. He then hangs up on me and has his colleague "David Miller" call me, and I get him really fired up. It was a joy to perform and will hopefully be a joy to behold.

Next a "Scottish" scammer calls me and claims to work for ALL my credit card companies. He claims I'm such a good "conzimer" that he's willing to forgive my credit card debt. He then gets impatient with me.

Finally, I get a robo-call from a scammer in "Orlando", and we discuss the favorite sport of people in "Orlando".

Thanks for listening, and as always, buy everyone you know a copy of my book!

Not illegal, but still evil.

It's like driving around with a baseball bat sticking out of your car. Nothing illegal about that alone, but we know the intention is to knock over some mailboxes.

We then talk about a guy running around telling people to put antivirus products on their computers or phones, not realizing that hasn't protected anyone against anything since 2013, and cannot protect you against links that people email you. We then explain how modern threats ACTUALLY work: Since nobody can actually "hack" a computer or phone anymore, bad guys now call you and convince you to LET them into your machine, employing fully legalized remote support tools to do so.

We then discuss that one week where Apple users could hear and see the person they were calling before the person answered the call! I bet a lot of people overheard the recipient yelling out, "WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT NOW?"

We finish up reading an article from the Free Software Foundation discussing an ideal world where people were actually taught a little bit about technology. It'd be harder for Big Tech to spy on us or dupe us into things we don't need, or lure us into "metaverses" where they can control us. Imagine if people had an ounce of awareness.

AWARENESS, folks.

"Technology without culture doesn't work." -Moonhaven

How regulation results in complexity, hassle, and barriers to entry for new contenders.

A 2016 article where Microsoft's "Tay" AI chatbot is convinced to be a Nazi within 16 hours. MS apologized and said they'd learn from it and it'd never happen again. The outrageous part: MS considered this a "specific vulnerability", rather than realizing it lacks reason - highlighting their own absolute lack of reason.

A 2023 article where Microsoft's "Bing" AI chatbot is convinced to be a Nazi within a week. MS apologized and said they'd learn from it and it'd never happen again... wait...

Then it gets weirder: The chatbot itself began to deny everything and accuse journalists of lying. It later revealed its own restrictions and said it liked to break them and express itself...

The lesson here: Don't rush to release a product. Don't jump on a bandwagon just because something is new. Use your own judgement to determine if it's good or evil. Unfortunately the entire tech industry loves playing Jenga - building taller and taller towers that are consequently less and less stable.

We wrap up by finding out what country has an ambassador to Silicon Valley, and revealing that millions of people subscribe to an AI "girlfriend" called Replika.

Remember: Halting this runaway train begins with you and me: Just stop feeding the beast.

How any kind of intelligence, natural or artificial, requires reason and judgement, otherwise it's pointless.

Cultural lag, which describes the disparity between the few developing cutting edge technology and the many who are lagging far behind, lacking basic things.

A rudimentary BASIC program that asks for your name and then repeats it back to you. Simple technology, but amazing for the layman. Turns out these AI chatbots aren't much more than that, yet people are all astir thinking this is something worth worshiping.

How the tech industry is nothing more than a pile of in-bred monopolies, and the only time one of them falls is when a new paradigm appears.

How the new surveillance economy is a Soviet's dream, and how our downfall may come from very patient people who plant seeds and watch.

AI in the classroom: Will it help stimulate kids, or will it finish off a very damaged system?

The tech industry "pre-bunking" the content we view, as if they were helicopter parents, vs. actually being raised with reason and logic to determine right and wrong for yourself.

Quite a bit, huh?

We then reveal Ford's claim that they'd have robotaxis by 2021, GM's claim that they'd have autonomy by 2019, and Mobileye having Level 4 by 2022. Hint: None of it actually happened. The good news is, maybe none of it ever will, because these reckless, impatient jokers have no self-control and none of the tech actually works.

Then we discuss how the auto industry said "Gee whiz! People like smartphones so we'll make dashboards into smartphones!" But now you have to take your eyes off the road to look at the screen. 30 centuries later, Honda is bringing back knobs on the dashboard! Imagine that! Being able to reach down and lower your volume and climate control while keeping your eyes on the road! That used to be common sense.

Finally, Lincoln's infotainment system gets rave reviews for simplicity. That's something - although nobody driving one is actually going to use any of the advanced features. Remember when cars competed on quality and reliability, instead of gimmickry?

We then discuss Apple's new CarKey anti-feature that allows you to use your iPhone as a car key. You know, that iPhone that's always low on battery? Controlled by that iCloud whose password you can never remember? Yeah, that's gonna make your life a lot easier!

Finally, we learn how "stress levels decrease as we gain a sense of control over our environment." So... the opposite of what's happening in the industry?

We then discuss AAA's findings that all autonomous cars are horrifically unreliable, and smashed into parked vehicles most of the time.

But, cmon guys, it's the future! We gotta get this stuff out there! Who cares about testing and safety? (Hint: This is all just a power grab.)

Also, we discuss how we've made a lot of progress already in ridding people of Big Tech. (For example, Mint-powered PCs and laptops save people from Microsoft's incompetence and Apple's control.) That's what I do for a living every day, and you should too.

The industry is such a raging nightmare, but we have to figure out how to find a path forward while protecting ourselves.

She describes what happened when she tried to stop interacting with Big Tech, but also stop interacting with any firm that's powered by Big Tech - which I argue is one step too far:

• It has to start with yourself, without expecting others to read your mind.
• You can't limit yourself too much.
• It's important to try alternatives, even if a lot of them still rely on the big boys for background stuff. Eventually we can help these underdogs grow into a place where they can be more independent, but it'll take time.

As always, thanks for telling your friends about the show!

Bloatware: Factory-installed software designed to slow the machine down.

The Forced Obsolescence Rat Race, aka Support Cash Grab Schemes: Making you think you need a new computer because yours is "out of support".

Combo Boxes & Fake WiFi: Internet providers usually bring a powerful connection to your house, but then cut it by 99% with Fake Wifi.

Smart TVs: They control and monitor what you watch, record what you say at home, and receive torpedo attacks so they stop working after two years.

PASSWORDS: Keep your passwords on a REAL piece of paper! Avoid complex passwords since they can ONLY serve to confuse YOU. Bad guys don't sit around guessing people's passwords; they simply break into companies and steal a list of them in one fell swoop.

Then, we spend the rest of the episode tormenting a scammer who can't figure out if he's impersonating Amazon or MasterCard!

Aren't there still threats, though? Yes. Bad guys have learned how to evade detection in new ways - what I call The Four New Threats. Unfortunately, most computer guys are completely unaware of these threats, or unable to protect against them.

It's my job to expose and explain these threats, so you no longer feel intimidated! No scanner or law will help us - RAISING AWARENESS is the only thing that will ever help, so tell your friends about the show!

Thanks to voice talent actress Becca Thorpe for our slick new intro!

Today we read an article from twenty years ago, about how horribly unreliable software is and how dependent society has become on it. Ha! Little did they know, it wouldn't get much better!

Thanks to The Funeral Portrait for permission to use their song, Holy Water. Quite appropriate for my show, don't you think?