Tonight on CEP! The fascinating insightful Kenley C. Vogt joins us to talk tech ethics, computer history, and his career as a network engineer:

• 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

Today we continue our new format of blazin' through articles. For each news flash, I give my insightful commentary:

• "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

Tonight on CEP, we torment more scammers!

• 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

Today starts Marc's new format of reading headlines of tech articles and summarizing them more quickly so we can breeze through the backlog:

• 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.
• 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/

It's another Torment-a-Scammer episode!

• 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.

Today we celebrate 9000 downloads! Marc goes over some topics including:

• 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

Tonight on CEP!

• 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 !

Tonight on CEP!

• 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!