Compute This 5-25-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Shrock Innovations presents the midwest number one independent computer repair
company with service centers and Lincoln, pah Maha, Papillion, Des Moines,
and across the country via the Shrock Desk. This is
compute This.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning, folks, and welcome in to compute this. Do
you ever have that feeling like you're forgetting to do
something and you can't remember. Well, obviously you can't remember
what you're forgetting because you know you're forgetting it. So
I just remember what it was and I got it done. So,
oh yeah, what was it? I had to open up
the Facebook tab for Facebook dot com slash Shock Innovations
and remember to mute it so I can comment with

(00:39):
the members of Shrockville who join us live at Facebook
dot com slash Shock Innovations. Yeah you yeah, yeah, So
I mean this is not a shameless plug for Facebook
dot com slash Shock Innovations, where you can watch the
show live if you want to, and comment and do
everything from me anywhere you're at, you know, if you're traveling,
if you're you know, visiting, if you have events going on,
you can pop it up on your cell phone at

(01:00):
the graduation you know, you you can do all the things,
all the things, and then you know, now the camera's moved.
Something happened. Oh you grabbed your microphone. Yeah, and grabbed
the mic didn't moved the cameras. So now there's a
bar at the top of the screen. But I'll fix
that during the commercial break. So there you go, folks,
there's your inside baseball for the day today. Sorry, that's
all good. Four zero two five. If that's the worst
problem I have in a day, that's a win. Four

(01:23):
zero two five five eight eleven ten or eight eight
eight two five zero two zero nine to one. Last week,
if you missed the program, I'd encourage you to go
to Shock Innovations dot com. You can check it out there.
You can, you know, watch the video, you can watch
the aftershock, you can do all the things there. Last
week we shared some of the limitations that we're encountering.
You know, even though the tariffs have been reduced on

(01:44):
Chinese imports, for example, a lot of plastics and things
like that are still there's a there's a bubble in
the supply chain essentially, and so we're seeing some quantity
limitations and things like that. We were ordering Surge Protector's
hand over fist to make sure we still had some
you know around for this Search protector's sale that's going
on through the end of the month. I think we
have ten left in stock. We're trying to get more
on the way. We're limited to ordering just a couple

(02:05):
a day now, and so you know, every day we
just ordered the couple that we can and you know,
keep keep the train coming. But we sell more than
two every day, so it kind of works out. So
if you don't have your search protector yet, don't sweat it.
You'll be getting it here soon. We're not putting quantity
limitations on the search protectors, you know, for our customers.
At this point, we're not behind really, so we don't
need to do that. But if we do get to

(02:27):
the point where we are falling behind, we will start
imposing some restrictions on the ability to purchase those. So
if you were going to buy four or five six
search protectors, well maybe you can only buy two or something.
But we're not doing that yet, so you can sit
tight there. You can check that out also, if you know,
if you are out and about this weekend or on
Monday even and you want to take advantage of that

(02:48):
search protector sell. You can do that on our website
at Shrock Innovations dot com. Also last week, we told
you about the malware that's coming with the Chinese printers
that are coming in from China. Apparently the saw where
on some of these printers has malware in the drivers
and that's not a good plan. We updated you on
several data leaks last week. We have affect another one today,

(03:09):
and we also warned you about those lifetime VPN subscriptions.
You see this a lot in advertising. Lifetime subscription, usually
to security software or in this case, to a VPN.
They are all scams. It doesn't matter what the company is,
how reputable they are. If it says there's a lifetime
subscription for a service for one price upfront, that is

(03:29):
a scam. There is no Just think about it. I mean,
how are you going to provide service to somebody forever
with them paying you one time upfront? And it's not
like a lot of money upfront. It's not like pay
me one million dollars today and I will protect your
computer for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
No.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
No, it's like pay me thirty nine to ninety nine
and I'll protect your computer for the rest of the life.
I mean, it's done. We went over all the reasons,
how that's a scam, how they do it, what the
tricks are, the conditions. Even some of the more reputable
companies that use that line in their advertising, they throw
impossible hurdles in your path so that you cannot claim
the lifetime subscription. So we told you about how all

(04:07):
that worked to make sure that you had all the
information you needed. There Coming up today on the program,
we have a Signal, you know, Signal, the Secret Messaging App.
I use it. We use it for Shock. It's an
encrypted messaging app and to end Encrypted that is a
nonprofit essentially. I think it was created by the CIA,
event originally to allow dissidents and foreign countries to privately

(04:28):
message without being monitored. But it's incredibly private and incredibly
effective and great for running a business. You know, Pete
Hegseth had some issues with it. You know, I don't
know if they really use it at the DoD anymore,
but you know, overall it's a very secure way of communicating.
And then Microsoft Recall comes along, taking screenshots of everything

(04:48):
you're doing, and all of a sudden there's some privacy concerns.
So we're going to talk to about that on the program.
What did Signal have to do to fix it? Because
Microsoft didn't fix it, Signal had to fix it. Also,
passwords stealing MO. You probably heard us talk about this
on the program a few weeks ago. If you see
a kapshka and it's asking you to copy and paste
something as part of the solve this puzzle to get

(05:09):
access to the website, If it asks you to copy
and paste something, it is malware. Do not do it. Well, Eh,
three hundred and ninety four thousand of you apparently weren't listening.
Isn't that weird how it's always a round number like that?
Exactly three hundred and ninety four thousand people didn't listen,
Not three hundred and four thousand, you know, nine hundred

(05:31):
and thirty seven, Just three hundred and four thousand. Once
I got to that last guy that he finally put
up a sign or something like don't do that. Thora says,
don't do that. So if you listen to the program,
you aren't doing that. You're not one of these three
hundred and ninety four thousand people. But we're gonna tell
you all the awful things that happened to those people.
It's not quite as bad as the exploding poop boat
in New York that story, Oh my goodness. I mean,

(05:53):
you feel terrible because a couple of people lost their lives,
and I mean, what a way to go. But I mean, wow,
you know, you move your waist on a tanker ship
to the treatment plan. I guess it's better than it's
better than he was. Better than putting it in the
river and floating it downstream, I guess. Or putting into
a truck. Yeah, well it's New York City. Yeah, you

(06:15):
can't really someone to hijack the truck. You got the
wrong truck, man, I thought it was a water truck, marveled. Yeah. Anyway,
you come on, Avengers fans, you know this one all right. Also, gosh,
this is gonna be a weird show coming up. But
we have one hundred and eighty four million user names
in passwords all leaked on the Internet. It's not a leak,

(06:38):
that's that's an exploding barge of trouble. One hundred and
eighty fourth million. Now it was almost a thousand. It's
way worse. One hundred and eighty four million us your
names and passwords for all kinds of services. What happened,
how they get leaked, We'll talk about that. But I
have to say, if you're gonna give, if you're gonna
give an award away this morning for and I'm gonna

(07:03):
try to be kind because I know some of the
people that were involved in this bill, and I don't
want to call them morons out loud, or stupid or
or idiots or you know, rhinos. I mean, I don't
want to use words like that to describe them because
that would be rude. And I know some of these guys,
and I know they they're good people. The state of

(07:25):
Nebraska three days ago, four days ago now pass the
law to protect the power grid from evil cryptocurrency minors.
That's right, they were coming for your power. They were
going to take your power. Your house would not light up,
your business would not be able to have transactions. Why
because those bitcoiners down the street they flipped up a mine.

(07:47):
And no one can do anything about that. The power
company can't say no, you know, they can't say you
can't have enough power because you know, ge whiz, you know,
people need to run heaters today. So it's kind of
more important than your bitcoining. So we got to make
sure in reality, guys, as somebody who operates an actual, real,
honest to goodness bitcoin mind that will be impacted by this.

(08:08):
In Nebraska, obviously it hits home for me a little
bit because it makes me angry because it's interfering with
what I do. But number one, there's this thing called
a shed. So in a situation this happened four times
in the month of February when the temperatures were going
to get very cold and there was an expectation that

(08:28):
people would be running heaters, space heaters. There is going
to be a need for power for actual people purposes.
The power companies contact us. As part of the contract
that we have with them, we are required to shed,
which means we stop using power in those environments for
you know, six, eight, ten hours, however long until the

(08:50):
power company knows they have enough to go around, and
then we're allowed to spin back up again. So here
we are being good stewards, doing our doing what's right.
We signed a multi year power agreement with the power
company to get power at a specific price, and if
you're familiar with bitcoin mining, you know getting power at

(09:10):
a specific price is very important. And then the state
of Nebraska comes along and says, we're going to put
a two point five cent excise tax on you, you
cryptocurrency data center people, to make your power two point
five cents more expensive, which doesn't sound like a lot
until you realize you're burning, like, you know, twenty five
megawatts of power, and then all of a sudden, two
and a half cents is tens of thousands of dollars

(09:32):
a month. It is ridiculous how much more expensive it is.
So but if there was, if there's a threat to
the power grid, you know, maybe maybe not all bitcoin
operators are responsible like we are. Maybe there are some
nefarious ones out there. You know, maybe maybe the grid
did need to be protected from these people, from these
evil data centers. I mean, AI is coming right, and

(09:54):
AI is going to require tons of power, so we
better protect AI. You know, Nebraska better protect its power
grid from AI, because those data centers are going to
soak up more power than bitcoiners are. I wonder why
this bill specifically exempts AI data centers, saying they will
not be taxed or required to be monitored or report

(10:16):
their power usage or fill out special forms for the
IRA or the Nebraska Department of Revenue. I wonder why
they're exempted.

Speaker 4 (10:24):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Social media data centers are exempted as well. So Facebook
doesn't have to do this. Google doesn't have to do
this if you run a private data center. First National
Bank doesn't need to do this. And trust me, guys,
the visa network uses more power than the bitcoin network does,
but no one needs to protect the Nebraska power grid
from your visa card. It's interesting. It's almost like this

(10:49):
bill was advanced by somebody who wanted to specifically try
to prevent cryptocurrency miners from using power that could otherwise
be redistributed to data centers for AI. Hmm. I'm sure
that's not the case. I'm sure there's no political Shenanigan's
happening here. I'm sure that this bill that was destined

(11:13):
to be tabled, which is why I took my eye
off the ball and didn't testify against it. I didn't
think it was going to make it out of committee.
It looked like it wasn't going to make it out
of committee, so I stopped watching it. And that's my mistake.
Won't make that mistake again, because it snuck in, and
you know, it snuck up on me. And then when
I read the bill, I didn't see the excise tax
in there because it's online twenty seven but it's written
out in words rather than like actual numerical values, so

(11:36):
you know, kind of like when you write a check.
He had through at you know, one hundred dollars in
ninety seven one slash one hundred's you know, so it's
kind of like that. I didn't pick it up right away,
So I'm like, oh, this is just a monitoring bill.
They just want to know if you're using all this
power for crypto. That makes sense, they're studying it. I
got it. So, no, this is a new tax, and
this new tax is going to you know, data centers
don't make a lot of job. So anyone who tells

(11:58):
you that Facebook or Google or any coin mind is
going to bring a lot of jobs because they're here.
They're lying to you. Because you need like one, maybe
two employees to run a data center once it's up
and running. Initially, yeah, there's a lot of jobs once
it's up and running. Maintaining it is easy. It's automated
for the most part. So you're going to lose one
or two jobs there because it's not the end of

(12:19):
the world. But what's what you're going to lose that
you that no one even thought about in our wonderful
political environment is all the ancillary jobs that are going
to be lost. For example, Thor spun up two different
LLCs this month because we are developing software to automate
cryptocurrency mining, to make minds run more efficiently, to allow

(12:42):
operators to manage their minds more effectively. All the people
that I'm employeing that are working on that software, they're
all wondering if they have jobs now. Because guess where
we were going to test this. We were going to
test this in the Nebraska bitcoin mind Yeah. Isn't that great? Yeah?
So there is a sliver of good news here. Because

(13:04):
this was a government action taken on by politicians who
were doing the bidding of some special interests, that you
remains in the shadows because of that, the bill was
very poorly written. Nobody challenged it, nobody made anyone think
and as a result, this bill will not result in

(13:24):
the taxation of any cryptocurrency miners in the states of
Nebraska because they done screwed it up. I won't go
into the details of how they screwed it up, because
obviously they'll fix it. So we'll just let them figure
that out. Why when they try to monitor everybody and
realize it nobody's reporting, and then when they audit them,
they'll realize they're not required to report because the requirements

(13:45):
in the bill were so poorly written that any attorney
can work around them. So there you go. This whole
segment is a big bill about Nebraska taking out its
little twenty two pistol and shooting itself in the big
tow try to kill another industry, and then wondering why
people with innovation, people with money, PEO people don't want

(14:07):
to retire here, and Nebraska keeps wondering why what's the
brain drain? The brain drain as you make it illegal
to do cool things, or you make it so expensive
to do cool things that you'd rather do them in
flipping South Dakota. You know how hard that is to
make South Dakota look attractive. No offense to those of
you in South Dakota. I know we have South Dakota listeners,

(14:28):
but I mean, realistically, it's colder there than it is here.
They got some cool mountains and some you know, the
black Hills are nice, but you know, there's a reason
that all their small towns are lined with offices that
don't have anything in them but a telephone. It's because
all the corporations are formed in South Dakota because the
tax rates in Nebraska are so egregious. So way to

(14:49):
go to Nebraska, you know. Just it's my fault for
not seeing the bill. I've testified against bills before that
were stupid and got them, you know, knocked or improved.
Didn't see this one coming, so that's on me. I
will keep a better eye out in the future. But yeah,
in the meantime, all of our cryptocurrency competitors, this is
a huge opportunity for the organization that I'm involved with

(15:11):
because we have a way around this and they don't.
So yeah, we're huge win. We're gonna get all kinds
of assets at a great price. This is gonna be
I'm gonna make a lot of money on this bill.
But this bill was not intended to make anybody money.
This bill was intended to box out cryptocurrency miners, but
they just didn't do a good enough job riding it.
So the grid will be rein protected. Don't worry, well,

(15:32):
you know the grid will be taken care of. You're
not going to lose the grid. The power companies love
having bitcoin miners around. And I won't go into the
details why, but they got some special interests got happy
somewhere for zero two five five, eight eleven ten. It's
how the sausage just made folks eight eight eight two
five zero two zero nine one Search Protector is still
on sale over at Shrock Innovations dot com. Click on
shop and specials and you can buy them right on

(15:53):
the website. Speaking of specials, every week, I'm trying to
post something, some new kind of special are We have
a lot of like we have a lot of leftover parts.
So like we go when we do a holiday special,
for example, we order five or six different cases, and
we evaluate them and we select one as the winner,
and that's the case we use in production. What happens
to the other four cases? We can't send them back.

(16:16):
Some of them are pretty cool, the employees buy them.
Some of them just sit on a shelf for two, three,
four years. We consider doing a tuxedo white holiday special
one year black monitor white case. Yeah, it was a
it was a formal holiday special. It didn't make it
past the lovely Kimberly. She thought it looked pretty stupid,
and she was right, it did. But you know, you know,

(16:36):
but I thought it looked kind of cool at first.
That's why we ordered the case. So what are we
gonna do with these cases, this white case and the
other thing. You know, We're gonna make them into specials
and we're gonna put them on the website shockinnovations dot
com click on shop and specials. This week, we have
a modified boundless computer. This is the exact same computer
that you would buy from us. That's a boundless inside
the box, it's a boundless, but it's but the case

(16:58):
is just a case that we had laying around that
we it's not part of our normal model line, so
we can't make a model line out of it. So
there it is. And as a result, it's a couple
hundred dollars off. So you can check it out save
some money if you're looking for a new computer. Shockinnovations
dot Com slash specials four zero, two, five, five, eight
eleven ten's number to join us. Going to take our
first break of the program. But when we come back,
Microsoft recall take screenshots of everything you do so that

(17:21):
it can take you back in time and show you
things when you ask it questions through AI. What happens
when you have one app designed to keep everything private
and another app monitoring everything you're doing to make it
not private. Who wins that fight between Signal and Microsoft.
We're going to tell you coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
Computer problems usually don't just suddenly happen. Most failures usually
start out as small issues with few or no symptoms.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Over time, they grow.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
Into error messages, blue screens, and other problems that can
be costly struttens By annual preventative maintenance check up catches
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(18:12):
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about how to handle them. When your computer gets its
first check up, it can see up to a twenty
five percent performance improvement and leaves our service center cleaned, sanitized,
and running better than the day you bought it. Just
about every complex device requires maintenance. Your computer is no different,
especially considering the valuable information that passes through it every day.

(18:36):
If you have not had your computer maintenance in the
past six months, you are overdue. Stop in or call
any of our service centers to arrange a free pickup
to ensure your computer continues to work for you.

Speaker 6 (18:48):
Update all of your third party apps on your computer
with secure opdator. It keeps all your apps running smoothly
and helps block viruses. Download it for free today at
secure updater dot com.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Have you noticed that almost every piece of technology seems
to do its best.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
To be disposable?

Speaker 5 (19:05):
Every day, people toss their phones, tablets, and other electronic
devices because they.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Can't be repaired.

Speaker 5 (19:11):
Manufacturers have engineered their products to fail on a schedule
so they can extract more money out of your family
budget automatically.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
Every year or so. But what if it didn't have
to be that way.

Speaker 5 (19:22):
What if you could get the performance of today's fastest
computers with the expansion and upgrade options you used to enjoy.
You just described Shrock's modular desktop computers. Having the right
tool for the job is important, and Shock's modular desktop
pieces packed the performance and flexibility to handle your computing needs,
from just checking the email to running a complex business.

(19:44):
Modular desktops are engineered to be easily repaired with widely
available industry standard parts. Every component is selected intentionally to
give you years of upgrade and repair options. It is
not uncommon for a short customer to be using the
same computer for a decade app they bought it. Modular
PCs are the most popular custom computers.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
In the Midwest or Reason.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
When you are ready for your next computer, stop in
to check out the Modular lifestyle or shop online at
Truckinnovations dot com.

Speaker 6 (20:13):
Today's fragile computers need maintenance more than ever. Your computer
needs a maintenance check up every six months to last
beyond it's eighteen month expected lifespan.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
All right, folks, welcome back into Compute this. My name's Torshrock.
I'm the owner of the Shrock Innovations computer Company. Now.
One of the challenges we have on this program is
this program is recorded Sunday mornings at seven a m.
It's rebroadcast on multiple radio stations at different times. I
had someone email me this week and I meant to
do this and I failed. You. I always start the

(20:49):
show off way, good morning and welcome into compute this.
But you see who and des moin here's it in
the afternoon, so they're like, why do you say good morning?
It's stupid this because in Lincoln they'll hear the show
next week. Memorial Days. In the past, we are slash
were closed on Memorial Day. So if you want to

(21:10):
do anything at Shrock, you got to do it today
between noon and five on Sunday, or you can do
it online at Shrocannovations dot com. Which is why I
keep talking about how you can shop online because we're
going to be closed from Memorial Day or SLASH we
were closed on Memorial Day, depending on when you're listening.
You know, we announced that this morning, slash this afternoon,
depending when you're listening. So I try to keep the

(21:30):
time references neutral. But if you guys want to call
in and be a part of the show, it's seven
to eight a m. At four zero two five five
eight eleven ten or toll free outside the metro area
eight eight eight two five zero two zero nine to one.
You can also make comments on our Facebook page Facebook
dot com slash Shock Innovations. That's what Ron has done.
Ron asks for your best recommendation on how to stop

(21:52):
getting spam email? I use Outlook? Should I unsubscribe? Should
I use the block option? What should I do here?

Speaker 7 (21:58):
Well?

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Good news news if it's a reputable website. So if
it's a retailer. For example, if you're getting emails from
the Buckle because you bought a gift card for your
niece at the Buckle for Christmas, and now the Buckle
thinks you want to buy their clothes, but you don't
want to buy the clothes. If you're getting that, you
can use the unsubscribed feature to stop getting those emails
from a reputable, reliable sender. However, if, for example, I'm

(22:20):
getting emails all the time from Ted's Woodworking. Have I
ever bought anything from Ted's wood Work? No, I don't
do woodworking. You don't want to see that it's not pretty.
Then I get emails from Ted's Woodworking bad news. Oh no,
you're infected. Why would Ted's would Working be telling me
my computer is infector it's obviously this is a scam.
This is a spam. If I use the unsubscribed feature

(22:42):
on that Woodworking email, I am confirming that my address
is legitimate and that I actually read the message all
the way to the bottom and then clicked unsubscribed and
took action. So not only did I get the message,
I read the message, and then I took an action
based on the message. I am what you would call
a mark. I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker. Sucker add

(23:05):
me to the list. There's one boar in every minute,
and twice as many on Sunday, apparently because thor is
clicking the link. You don't want to click those unsubscribe links.
So when it comes to Outlook, unfortunately ron the smart
Alec answer is change your email address. That's literally the
only way to stop it. Once you're on the spam list,
you're on the spam list. However, there is a solution.

(23:27):
Outlook allows you to create rules for sorting your email.
This is really handy if, like you know, for example,
you're a scout master and you have a folder for
scouting stuff, and you want any email about scouting that
comes in to go to me? Did I also a
folder so you can take phrases so every day like
let me let me just check my mail real quick here,
do I have any spam messages today? Commission based salesperson

(23:51):
Hello Thor. I've checked out your website and some of
your past work. Would you like our sales team to
finalize contracts for you on a one hundred percent commission basis,
no salaries, no hiring fees. Stay blessed, Rachel see Head
of Partnerships DASH CS. I don't know who CS is,
but they're apparently in the United Kingdom. If you're not interested,
respond with no thanks and I won't follow up with you. Okay.

(24:15):
Violation of the can Spam Act. You have to have
an unsubscribed link. Replying with a remove me is not
the same thing. So Rachel CE on the you know
you can use whatever name you want. How am I
gonna block this commission based salesperson? I'm gonna take that phrase.
I'm gonna right click on this email. Ron, I'm gonna

(24:37):
say rules, and i'm gonna say create a rule, and
then i'm gonna say if the subject contains commission based salesperson,
we're gonna sort that to the very important circular file
called deleted items. And do you want to run this
on the messages in your inbox? Now? Yes I do,
and you hit okay and Rachel C Is gone And
anytime that person emails me again with that subject line,

(24:58):
it's gonna go straight to the rec cycle Ben the
deleted items. Now, obviously this isn't going to stop your spam.
You're going to get it. But the more spam you
get and the more rules you create, the less spam
you're going to see because it all goes to your
deleted items. How well does this work? Well? I emptied
my deleted items yesterday afternoon, and today I have thirty
one unread deleted items right now, including Rachel. See. So yeah,

(25:22):
it works pretty well. It keeps it out of the inbox.
Four zero two, five, five, eight eleven ten, Dale, Welcome
to the program. How can I help you on compute
this today?

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Hi?

Speaker 8 (25:30):
Well, you pulled my trigger this morning and I was
just kind of calming down over this.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Oh nice.

Speaker 8 (25:36):
Probably. I spent probably a minimum of four hours on
the phone this week with the Senator von Gilloran's office
and state in Nebraska. He's the chairman of the Revenue Committee. Okay,
the Nebraska Revenue which is almost impossible to get a
hold of anybody there. That's also ridiculous. Mouser Electronics in

(25:56):
Texas bi electronics firm. This is what kind of started
the whole thing. And a company called ECSI or ECS
International in Kansas City, do you know, wonderful Nebraska is
has joined a group of states with the streamline tax purposes.

Speaker 9 (26:14):
So, in other words, they're.

Speaker 8 (26:15):
Just not doing anything. But Nebraska is putting sales tax
on tariffs, which is a tariff is a tax paid
by to the federal government. So Nebraska is putting a
sales tax on a tax.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, yeah, I suppose that's true. I guess when you
think about it. Thank you for the call, Dale, I
appreciate it, But yeah, I suppose that's true. So if
there's a tariff, For example, what Dale is saying is
if there's a tariff, if your computer costs five hundred dollars,
and then I say there's one hundred percent tariff on that. Well,
now your computer if assuming that the entire tariff is
passed on to the consumer, which does not always happen,

(26:50):
then your computer would be one thousand dollars. Well, the
state of Nebraska doesn't. The price is the price. The
sales tax is based on the price, So you're gonna
pay seven percent of one thousand dollars instead of seven
perc on a five hundred dollars So Dale's right, this
is going to result in increased levels of revenue coming
into not just the state of Nebraska, but pretty much
every state. So that's that's good news there so for

(27:13):
the state anyway. But yeah, no, I hear what you're saying, Dale,
And yeah, I have a love hate relationship with the
tariff situation. I understand what needs to happen. I understand
why it needs to happen. I understand that the world
that we're living in is a perversion of reality. Financially,
nothing about our financial reality around us right now is real,

(27:35):
and that's why gold is going through the roof and
bitcoin is hitting all time highs. We're more on that
during the aftershock today. So in an environment where you're
used to things being fake and then suddenly things get real, Like, yeah,
people don't work for five dollars a day, I'm sorry,
they don't not here. So if you want to build

(27:57):
your stuff over in Asia, so you can get people
working for five dollars a day day, and they're thrilled
to get paid five dollars a day. So it's like
you're doing them a favor, right, You're a good guy,
you're the white night and you get cheap sneakers. This
is beautiful. I love it. But that's a perversion of reality.
That's not you know, for sneakers, that's fine. I think
what Trump said it best when he said that, you know,

(28:18):
we don't need a booming textiles industry, but we need
we need an aluminum smelter. And I wonder if anyone's
protecting the grid from aluminum smelters, because apparently the new
smelter that's going into Oklahoma's going to use as much
power as the city of Boston because apparently smelting aluminum
use is a lot of juice, a lot of kilowatts.
So but you need that, you need those industries, and

(28:39):
you can't outsource that. Certainly you could, and you'll get
it done a lot cheaper overseas. But then if you
have a problem with that country, for example, China, or
there's an interruption in shipping because you know, China or whatever, well,
then all of a sudden, you don't have the ability
to make airplanes because you don't have any aluminum smelting capability.

(28:59):
So there are some things that we do need to
do here, and chips is one of them chip manufacturing
an assembly is one of them. Sneakers not so concerned
about that. But then the problem becomes. You know, if
you if you don't tariff everything, then the stuff that
you you know, you're not gonna have the impact that
you that you need to have to get the leverage
that you need to get. So love hate relationship. I've

(29:19):
paid a lot of tariffs in the last month, and
I don't like writing the checks. You are correct that
tariffs are attacked that the federal government collects on importers.
And you know, one of the things is sometimes the
exporters do eat the tax, like Trump says. So that's
the thing. Sometimes Trump is right here where he says,
you know, China's going to pay for it. Because if
you go to go to Ali Baba right now, and
you'll see that there's tons of different sellers for all

(29:41):
kinds of things promising ten percent twenty percent tariff support,
meaning they'll they'll lower their prices ten to twenty percent
to capture your business and reduce the impact of tariffs
on your operation. So it's you know, it's out there.
So many things can be true at the same time.
Four zero two, five, five, eight eleven ten. So speaking
of true at the same time time, it's true that
Microsoft Recall is going to help you in the future

(30:04):
through AI go back in time and see what you
were doing on your computer and recover information basically if
you wanted to say, what was that article that I
was reading? So it's kind of hilarious. The actual bill,
the Nebraska Tariff Bill, if I look at the actual
PDF of LB five two six, the actual PDF of

(30:29):
that bill, on line twenty seven says, there is hereby
levied and imposed an excise tax of two and one
half cents per kilowatt hour on the energy used by
cryptocurrency mining operations to conduct cryptocurrency mining and excess of
one thousand kilowatts in a calendar year, which is not
a lot of miners, guys, that's like three hundred units.
So okay, that's in the PDF of the bill. If

(30:50):
you ask AI about this, AI will reply to you
and say yes. LB five two six in Nebraska was
initially introduced and included provisions for an XI tax, but
that was removed to gain the support of cryptocurrency minors.
That it's in the bill. AI responses may include mistakes.
It says so yeah, so Microsoft recall is going to

(31:15):
help you go back in time and see what you
were doing on your computer. But Signal is intended to
keep your data private. So when you message somebody on Signal,
it's end to end encrypted. You can send a credit
card number, a password, a picture of a credit card.
You can send all kinds of personal, you know, important,
compromising information through Signal and trust that it's going to
get end to end without any better and looking at

(31:37):
it on your computer screen, which I do. And Signal
messages are coming on your screen and Microsoft recalls taking screenshots. Well,
now Microsoft knows what's in your Signal chat and Microsoft
can be subpoened for that information. See, Signal can't be
they don't know what's in your chat. It's end to
end encrypted. But as soon as you introduce a third
party like another computer or a car like you get
your text messages on your dashboard, yep, Ford's got them.

(32:00):
Now Ford can be subpoena so your Signal messages are
no longer private. Well, Signal had a big problem with that.
Have you ever noticed you can't screencap Netflix? You can't
take a screenshot of a Netflix show on your phone.
If you can you can take a screenshot, but when
you look at the picture, it's just black. Well, Signal
got a little indignant and said, really, Microsoft, really, you

(32:22):
made all these security provisions for all these other things,
and yet we have to resort to one stupid trick
to keep our customer's data safe from recall. So, yes,
you're now with Signal. If you tend to take a
screenshot with your computer of your Signal messages, guess what,
it's just black. And it's on by default. By the way,

(32:42):
it's a security provision because it's security software. So yeah,
it's on by default. You can turn it off if
you want to. I don't know why you'd want to,
but you can turn it off. So yeah, it's it's
pretty crazy. Microsoft recall will take screenshots of end to
end encrypted conversations, making them no longer end to end
encrypted conversations for the wind four zero two, five to five,

(33:03):
eight eleven ten. Got to take our second break here, guys,
were a little bit late. Jim Franks, stay on the line,
your calls coming up next.

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Speaker 2 (35:11):
All right, guys, this just in. I'm trying to reconcile
why AI is telling me there is no excise tax.
But if I open up the legislative bill, there is
an excise tax. And the funny thing is the legislative
bill on the Legislator's web Legislature's website LB five two
six has the excise tax in it. But if you

(35:35):
click on the final reading of LB five two six
that preceded the vote, the excise tax is removed. So
the excise tax was removed from the bill. So how
does this bill protect the grid? There's I I don't know.

(35:56):
I don't know. I have no idea. What what did
this bill even do? Well, that's good news, I suppose
good news. I guess we had a way around it.
But now now what are we going to do? All
of our competitors that have good news too now and
that's no good You can't have that. Four zero two
five eight eleven ten is number to join us on
the program. Eight eight eight two five zero two zero

(36:17):
nine one. Why would the bill be? Why would they
have two different versions of the bill on the website?
I don't get it anyway, Jim, welcome to the program.
Maybe you could explain it to me. But what can
I do for you on compute this today?

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Well, you answered the email part. I've got a couple
of text messages and one says five people have got
in access to your phone since you got rid of McAfee,
and the other one says two people are mining money
underneath the table without you knowing it.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
On your phone. Yeah, they're not getting a lot of money.

Speaker 7 (36:58):
Well that's what I thought.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
I can't see anything.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Is your phone hot? Like it would be very very hot, now, Jim.
Those are the spam messages. They're they're trying to get
you to take an action or even just replying when
you get a spam message from somebody, just the act
of replying to that message once again makes you a mark.
Let me tell you about Kim's grandma Gigi. Gigi one

(37:23):
time answered the phone one time for a scammer in
India who she at one time got convinced to go
to Walmart and buy a money pack card. Luckily, the
lady at Walmart said, you know, a little old lady,
why are you buying money pack cards? And she said, well,
because my medicare is going to go away if I
don't send him a money pack card. And she was like, okay,
you're getting scammed. And you know, of course no I'm not.

(37:45):
I can't lose my medicare, you know, And it was
a whole big thing, but you know, you're getting scammed.
Don't do this, don't do this. But because she got
to that point, she she went all the way through
the scam where she was trying to make the final payment.
Now she's on a list of super marks, and she
had to literally get rid of her cell phone because
it would just ring all day long with calls overseas

(38:05):
from people trying to scammer all day long. So it's
the same thing here with these text messages, Jim. If
you reply to those messages, now you're a mark. Yeah.
So the best thing you can do is if you
have an option. A lot of phones now, if you
like long press on those messages, there's an option that
says market as spam, and then it'll mark that message
as spam for everybody else on the network too, so

(38:27):
that people who are maybe a little less sophisticated don't
don't get taken in. And it's kind of like a
public service that you can do for the world, you know.
And it's a long thumb press. It's not like you're
spending thirty cents a day to save a child in Africa,
you know. It's it's a long thumb press. You know.
It's the least I can do, really, really, no, it is,
I can't do less. So you put in your long
thumb press, you say Marcus spam, and then it'll go

(38:49):
away from your screen, and then in the future it'll
also block those messages from that sender. Of course, they'll
just get a new phone number. But you know, if
you ignore it long enough, it's not going to stop
it from coming in, but it's going to a dramatic
reduce it.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
All right.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Thank you, Hey, thank you, Jim. I appreciate your call
today on the program. We've got Jim in the drawing
as well for a twenty five dollars Shock Innovations gift
certificate four zero two five, five, eight eleven ten. Frank,
Welcome to the program. How can I help you on
compute this today?

Speaker 9 (39:15):
Lornan Door, I am a Apple iPhone user used Duck
Duck Go. I was over in Des Moines for a
family party. Needed to stop off the interstate to a
high V and pick up some flowers. Yeah, tried to
use the you know, find HIV near me and it
was a nightmare. Yeah, it thought I was in Madison,

(39:36):
Wisconsin trying to rout me. So my question is if
if I switch over to Google for to search for
the high VY near me, if I switched back to
Duck Duck Go, does Google leave any tentacles?

Speaker 2 (39:54):
No? No, it won't. So essentially I have two browsers
on my phone. My primary browser is the Duck browser.
That's the on that I use for just about everything.
It blocks tons of trackers, cookies, all that stuff. It
just it's a cleaner ship. But you're right, I don't
do any kind of geo targeted searching in that. You know,
if I go to like home depot dot com, it
says I'm an Indianapolis or something. It's like, it's crazy.

(40:16):
So I also have Firefox installed on my phone. The
Firefox browser is uh is as far as security goes,
It's probably one step less secure than Duck because it
has pervasive cookies that are allowed, but it's way better
than Chrome. The other thing is, if you have an iPhone,
Safari is actually a really it's a good browser. In

(40:37):
the iPhone environment. I would never install Safari on like
a computer, like a PC, But in the Apple environment,
Safari is actually a really good browser. It's got built
in security, built in VPN, built in all kinds of
stuff that is provided by Apple, so it's kind of
it's a really nice browser to have as a secondary backup.
It's not as private as Duck, but it's a good
secondary backup. So just have a secondary browser to use

(40:58):
for anything that you want to do that is geo
targeting or if you're going to do a Google. The
thing that kills me about Duck is their shopping links
are terrible. So like if you're trying to find a
product near you, Like I was trying to buy a lawnmower,
and I wanted to see who had a lawnmower in stock,
a specific one, and it was awful. But on Google
I went in there and it was like bink, pink, bink,
and then here are the two stores I can go

(41:18):
to in Omaha that have those that mower in stock.
I mean, it was beautiful, but I don't want to
do that. I don't do that on Duck. I just
do that in you know, any if I'm going to
use Google, I'm gonna use that in my less secure environment,
because using Google is straight up a security compromise. Using
any Google product as a security compromise. Whether it's Gmail,
whether it's Google Sheets, whether it's Google Docs, whether it's Gmail,

(41:40):
whether it's the Chrome browser, it's all a security compromise.
All the data is aggregated, and now people are actually
giving Google's AI access to their files, are giving it
access to their emails so I can learn all about
them and serve them better, which is what Google has
been doing for years. But in the process of learning
all about you to serve you better, they also sell
ax us to you to their advertiser base to serve

(42:03):
you better of course. So it's if you want to
be served better, you know, use Google.

Speaker 9 (42:09):
Products, So use the Safari or Firefox.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
That's what I would. That's what I do. Yeah, that's
what I do on my all my devices.

Speaker 9 (42:18):
Okay, thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
All right, thank you, Frank, appreciate the call. All right,
So if you listen to the program, Guys, you heard
us a few weeks ago talk about passwords, stealing malware,
posing as kapskas. You know those little puzzles you have
to solve on websites to prove you're a human. We
might not think you're a human. Click on all the
fire hydrants and then there's a fire hydrant where like
the little nodule on the top, the little the little
nut is like in a box above the box with

(42:41):
the fire hydrant. So you're like, do I click on
both boxes or do I just click on one? Box.
But you see, the thing is just you hesitating and
pausing there and trying to figure out which one to
click on. Mark you as a human, so it doesn't
matter what you click, So yay you. But if you
click a box it has no fire hydrant in it,
then you're not a human and you know it's not
going to approve you anyway. Well, there was a capska
out there that said, all right, to complete this capska,

(43:03):
we need you to copy this phrase and then start,
and then paste this phrase into the run box down
there and hit enter. And what it was doing was
actually tricking you into downloading malware on your own computer.
Though what you were copying and pasting was the link
to the malware, and it would download it on your computer,
and then you know you're a human, congratulations and moving

(43:25):
on with live. You didn't even know you're infected. Well, this,
this malware got three hundred and ninety four thousand computers
infected before Microsoft finally decided to update Windows Defender to
block it. How many weeks ago did we bring you
this story? I mean it had to be. It was
before I did my VACA. It was last month, right,

(43:45):
It was like at least four weeks ago. It's about
four weeks ago. Yeah, and in that period of time,
three hundred and ninety fourth Again it's a nice round number.
Let's just let's just call it a half a million.
Why not? You know, but more than three hundred and
ninety fur thou computers are infected. Two thousand, three hundred
different domains have been blocked. Microsoft started working with the
Department of Justice to get those websites taken offline, and

(44:09):
now they finally updated Windows Defender to block this. And
this is why I tell you Windows Defender was never
intended to be your primary PC security. It was intended
to set the bar for the minimum thing that a
program needs to do to be called an antivirus program.
Anything less than that can't even be called antivirus, and

(44:29):
Windows Defender resides on that line. So when you put
sofos on your computer, yes it costs money, Yes you
have to pay for it. It's not free. But when
you put sofos on there, you're not getting infected by
this from day one. Even if you do something dumb
and try to copy and paste and go to a
website and install a piece of malware, SOFOS will block
the download block the install and if for some reason

(44:52):
it gets through, it'll automatically remove it from your computer.
It is that good. Now you can rely on Windows
Defender if you're willing to be four weeks out on
an update. But here's the other thing. Guys. Remember Windows
ten is going bye bye in October, So now imagine
this happens after October. Microsoft isn't going to update your

(45:15):
Windows Defender Windows ten users, and you can't buy antivirus
anymore for an outdated computer, not legit antivirus, so you're
just hanging in the wind. This is what we talk
about when we say it's not safe to use a
computer on Windows ten after October four zero, two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. We're gonna take our final break as
when we come back one hundred and eighty four million

(45:37):
user names and passwords stolen and Jim has an iPhone question,
we're gonna try to squeeze it all in next on
compute this.

Speaker 5 (45:43):
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So the next time your laptop screen gets cracked, the
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Speaker 2 (48:04):
Alrighty guys, final segment of the program. Thanks for sticking
with us today on Compute This. My name is Thor
Schrock and the owner of the Shock Innovation's computer company.
We will be closed for Memorial Day, so apologies if
you're hearing this after Memorial Day. We were closed last
Monday or will be closed tomorrow, depending on your perspective.
It is like this is like dealing with time travel,
like if you're moving at the speed of light. Did

(48:25):
it happen yesterday or does it happen tomorrow? I don't know,
So anyway, I don't know. Yeah, whatever, Jim saved me
for myself. Welcome to the program. How can I help
you on Compute this today?

Speaker 7 (48:37):
I was wondering on your iPhone if junk is the
same as spam.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
You know, I don't know. Honestly, I can't tell you
with certainty. And I'm one of the things I'm trying
to do very much better this year is when I
don't have an answer for something. One of my New
Year's resolutions was to tell people I don't know, but
I will find out. So I don't know. But if
I had to guess, junk is like spam junior, So

(49:07):
junk could be junk could be well, I mean So,
for example, if you get an email from the Buckle
because you bought your niece a gift card there and
they want you to buy, you know, low rise jeans
for girls, well, obviously for thor that's not something I'm
gonna buy. I would probably think that email is junk, right,
But is it spam? Is it? Is it nasty email

(49:28):
that I that I didn't ask for? No, because I
did business with this company and now I'm on their list,
I can click unsubscribing, they'll stop sending me junk that
I don't want. This is kind of like your mailbox
at home, Like you get the credit card offers and
you're like, this is like spam, right, But then you
get like the postcard that's like twenty five percent off
long care service, and you're like, I don't need long
care service, So that's probably junk, you know. So I

(49:51):
don't know, there's got it. There's gotta be a difference somewhere, right,
There has to be some difference, otherwise they wouldn't put
it in there twice. So I'll look into that, Jim,
and we'll get back to you on a future program
on that one. I honestly don't know the answer, But
it seems to me that there should be a delineation
between junk and spam. But either way, you don't want
any of it, so just move it all to the
deleted items folder and your life is easier.

Speaker 7 (50:13):
That's what I do. I just delete and then on
my Asis Bible books it says spam, and I just
delete everything on spam s gone.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
All right, Hey, thank you for the call, Jim. I
appreciate you joining us on the program today and being
a part of the show. We got you in the
drawing as well for that twenty five dollars Shock Innovations
gift certificate. So data breaches are nothing new. And on
one hand, when the bad guys are so stupid that
they take all of their ill gotten gains and pull

(50:46):
it together somewhere online without a password and get it
stolen from them, you kind of chuckle, right, You're like,
that's karma, baby, you know, like you stole that from
everybody else and now they stole it from you. This
is the I mean, it's like an Ocean's eleven plot, right.
I love those stories. Yeah, way better than the exploding
poop ship in New York. Way better. No one dies,

(51:07):
you know, but one hundred and eighty four million user
names and passwords got lifted off the Internet, which I
don't know if that's good or bad, because this bad guy,
I don't know if it's his career. He spent his
entire life. This is his life's work, his his mona
Lisa was stealing one hundred and eighty four million legitimate
credentials from sites like Google, Apple, Netflix, and he used

(51:32):
every data source, everything he could compile, everybody he could
buy from, merged them together, sorted them out, eliminated the duplicates,
put him in alpha numerical order. Baby, I mean, it
was legit work, good stuff. And then he saved it
in an Amazon bucket with no password, and some security
researchers like, I'm looking for things on the Internet that

(51:55):
are stupid. Oh here's some here's a breach. Oh this
will be what's control end? How many lines?

Speaker 7 (52:02):
Is this?

Speaker 2 (52:03):
One hundred and eighty four million? What the snike? Okay?
What is this again? Okay? Maybe they're not real passwords, right,
Maybe we got to check that. So he grabs a
couple of the emails from the list and emails them
and says, yo, is this your password? I mean I'm
a security researcher. Is this your password? That sounds like
a great spam, doesn't it Like I'm a security researcher

(52:23):
with Apple, and your credentials may have been leaked on
the internet. If this is your password, please reply and
say yes, it's my password, and then change it immediately. Yeah,
but people apparently reply to that, and so they replied
and confirmed that those were legit passwords, so he knows
they were legit passwords. Now, one hundred and eighty four
million legit passwords stolen and leaked on well left online

(52:45):
with no password protecting them, so we don't know how
many nasty people went and got those passwords. So moral
of the story I would tell you in previous programs.
So guys, just do a password role. You get the
day off Monday, nothing better to do with your life.
Just roll your passwords while you're doing barbecue. It's easy. Now. Instead,

(53:06):
I'm going to give you the modern version of that,
which is, please enable two factor authentication on your accounts,
because then it doesn't matter what your password is. You
don't even have to change your password if you have
two factor involved. Yes, it's a pain in the butt
when you log in because you have to type in
the little code. But it keeps everything perfectly safe in

(53:28):
every account, so please enable two factor notification. It's very important.
Today's Winter twenty five dollars Shrock Innovations gift certificate goes
to Frank. Congratulations, Frank, you got yourself twenty five bucks.
We'll see you all next weekend for another exciting edition
of Compute this