This morning on CEP! I start going through articles, and then a surprise special guest stops by. We catch up on some articles:

• 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 that cell phone store jokers 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

It's time to take a break from articles to have some fun! Most of y'all know the drill by now: We torment phone scammers and expose to you HOW they deceive, so you can WARN YOUR FRIENDS.

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!

Tonight on CEP!

• 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!

Today we go over some evil tech schemes from 2022 and give thanks that most of them fell apart, as all evil things eventually do.

• 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 !

Tonight on CEP! It's a New Year's Special Edition TaS Episode!

• 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.

Tonight on CEP! It's a year-end roundup of article headlines!

• 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!

Tonight on CEP! My special guest is Rochester's own Warren Buff-It! No, he's not the Oracle of Omaha, but he details cars for the stars. We discuss:

• 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!

Tonight on CEP! Another Torment-a-Scammer Medley!

• 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!