January 9, 2026 • 17 mins
🎉 Tech Friday kicks off 2026 with BIG conversations! 🎉
This week’s radio segment covered major changes and important warnings as we head into the New Year. 🥳📡 First up: Walmart and Kroger now require ID scans for everyone buying alcohol — no matter your age. 🪪🍺 Convenience vs. privacy sparked a lot of debate.
Next, we looked ahead at what’s new in tech for 2026 🚀🤖 — from smarter AI tools to tighter security and more automation shaping everyday life.
Finally, the FBI’s latest warning on common frauds and scams 🕵️♂️⚠️ was a sobering reminder: scammers are evolving fast, and awareness is your best defense.
A smart start to a safer, more informed 2026! ✨🎆
#TechFriday #NewYear2026 #TechTrends #DigitalPrivacy #ConsumerRights #CyberSafety #ScamAlert #FutureTech #StayInformed 🎊🎇
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welle on Pettybock carc Detalkstation, intrust it dot com. If
(00:03):
you have a business, I know you have computers, you
need interest I to help you out with any complications, problems,
best practices, the man for the job and his team,
Dave hat Or from Interest to It joining the program
every Friday, and welcome back, Dave. It's a pleasure having
you on. I'd love this segment, so informative it is.
And a happy new year to you and the crew
at intrust.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Brian, always good to be here. I'm happy to be back.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Happy new year to you and Joe and all your listeners,
and hopefully we'll continue to do some good out there
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah. Man, if you're talking the truth that you talk,
it's all good as long as people pay attention to it,
and you know real quick. I know wal Martin Kroger
now scanning your ID before you get alcohol, and we
can get to that. I just want to shout out
I saw this article and I printed out specifically to
bring it up to you because I know you hate
Google Chrome and you never use it and recommend people
don't use it. Security researchers apparently uncovered some Chrome extensions
(00:53):
that have been stealing user names, passwords, card details, personal information, cookies,
at et cetera from people's browsing behavior. That's a giant
red flag. Now they say they remove these extensions from
the availability, but the damage apparently has been done for
a lot of people. Password stealing, that's a real, real,
(01:13):
real problem and concern.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
And the cookies are an even bigger problem potentially because
once you log into a website. One of the main
reasons why cookies were created, Brian so, cookie is a
small file that gets stored on your device, your phone,
your computer, whatever, as you interact with a website, not
only so it can track you, but also once you've
logged in and it's verified your identity, it tells it
creates a cookie so that you don't have to keep
(01:38):
logging in over note, so that cookie keeps getting sent
back to the website to say, this is Brian Thomas,
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It does, so, I especially delete mind.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Whether that's a I encourage folks to do that as well.
But I'll get to that. So, first off, this isn't
necessarily a Chrome problem. I think the main reason they
counted it in terms of Chrome has Chrome is still
the number one browser out there. You know, any browser,
any modern popular browser, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, whatever, allows
(02:08):
you to use extensions, which are essentially software you can
plug into the browser to extend its capability, something like
EFF's privacy Brancher which helps tamp down cookies, or Honey
which is a thing that helps you find coupons.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
A lot of people will use these extensions because it
creates additional capabilities above and beyond what the browser can
do on its own. So extensions and the in and
of their own right are not a bad thing, and
in fact, it can be a really good thing. You know,
if you have a password manager, usually that password manager
will have a browser extension, so when you go to
log into a website, it will recognize the website interface
(02:43):
with the password manager through the extension and allow you
to enter your credentials.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So extensions on their own aren't bad. And again, you
can get extensions for just about every browser. Not every
extension is available on every browser, but the real There's
two key points here. First off, it goes back to
something you and I have discussed now for over ten years.
If you just go out and download some software right
just because it's in the Apple Store or the Google Store,
(03:08):
or you found a good review online or something and
you download it, whether it's a browser extension, an app
for your phone, or whatever. Unless it's coming from a credible,
reputable source, and unless you have thoroughly vetted it, you
could very well find yourself in a case like this,
whether it's a bogus app collecting your data or that's
basically spyware, or an extension like this, if it is
not thoroughly vetted, if you can't trust it, if it's
(03:30):
not coming from a known, reputable source, you run the
risk of having this at best a lot of tracking
and surveillance. At worst, it's essentially spyware running in your computer,
stealing your insensitive data like passwords and so forth. So
the real the short answer is, while extensions aren't bad,
you should have the least number of them possible, just
(03:51):
like apps, and you need to do your homework and
vet them carefully. I mean, I have several browser extensions,
but they're all privacy related. They all come from sources
idea trust and have vetted. So yeah, if you have
extensions installed in Chrome or any browser, you should take
a look at this article, and you should be very
judicious and how you download these things, install them and
use them because it could put you at significant risk.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Right. And the article which was reported on Fox News
Kurt Newtsom, if you've got it, will you add that
to your LinkedIn page? So people, because they give you
specific instructions on how to check for this and how
to get rid of it and reconfigure your Chrome browser
if you're stupid enough to use it. I suppose Dave
to make sure that you're safe, So we add that one. Yes, wonderful.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I will throw that in the list because it's people
need to understand this in general, and then these specific
issues for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yep, absolutely, let's pause. I thank you for indulging me
on that one, because that was a giant red flag.
And I know Chrome is a thorn in your side,
so hold on, we'll come back. We'll talk about cool
gadgets and the FBI, common frauds and scams, and maybe
a word or two on why you're getting carted at
Kroger for buy and eye when alcohol when they clearly
can tell you're sixty years old. First word for plumb tight,
(05:00):
plumbing and plumbing done.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The folks at plumb tight outstanding they are. That's why
they enjoy a plus with a better business beer, because
they know you deserve better and deliver on better. Here
if fifty five kre CD talk station. Happy Friday, Tech Friday,
Dave Hatter. Thanks to intrust it, dot coms Day's company.
Accord to the business Career, they're the best in the
business when it comes to your business computer needs. Dave Hatter,
Let's talk about cool gadgets real quick. I know you
(05:23):
brought up the idea about Walmartin and Kerve being forced
to check your IDs, and I've been carded at Kroger
buying beer, which always cracks me up because I clearly
am over the age of twenty one. But it's a
new law that forces to.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Do that, right, There's a new law in Utah that's
forcing basically anyone that's selling alcohol to do this. Here locally,
some retailers have started doing it.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You know. My issue with it.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Really boils down to the fact that, ultimately, do you
trust these retailers, especially some small mom and pop shop
if they have to actually scan your ID to store
that data in a way that won't be leaked stolen
or you know, elsewise breached somehow. So yeah, I'm I'm
not a big fan of this. I can tell you
here locally, I would not buy booze or anything else
(06:12):
that they want me to scan my ID from that,
I would go elsewhere. Apparently, again, it's a state wide
law in Utah.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
What the rationale is for why they think they need
this law. Again, you can just show someone your ID
and they can eyeball it, and you know, look at
a calendar on the wall or whatever where you see
the signs you must be this age that the idea
that we're going to give that kind of sensitive data
like a driver's license number to just any old random place,
totally against it. And one last thing, Brian, you know
(06:41):
you mentioned de leach your cookies kind of closing out
that last segment.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I agree that's a good idea.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
In most browsers, you can go in and you can
manually if you go into like the privacy and security
settings to leach your cookies. You can also set your
browser up so that we'll just automatically delete them every
time it closes. Now, that will cause some inconvenience. You'll
have to log in the websites again and that sort
of thing, because those cookies get deleted.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
But it's a good idea to get rid of them.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And then, brother, it's really easy to do too. If
I can figure it out, anybody can. All Right, a
consumer electronics show apparently it's a huge, huge event. What
do you eyeball on at the computer electronics show? That's cool,
Dave Hatter?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So, yeah, the Computer Electronics Show happens this time each
year out in Vegas. It is a big event. You
usually get a huge turnout for this. It runs the
whole week and you know, all the major vendors making
anything tech related typically show up.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's consumer oriented, right again.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
This is this is all stuff that's focused on consumers
as opposed to more industrial enterprise type stuff. But increasingly,
as everything becomes digital and as everything has software embedded
in it, you now are in a situation where there's
a lot of overlap between the two. You know, Brian,
you know when you say cool stuff, you know there's
some new TV technology out there.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Micro RGB TVs.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
TVs obviously keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger in
terms of their screens, while the actual you know, width
and depth gets smaller and smaller, they get lighter, the
quality of the screens continue to go up. Yeah, it'll
be interesting to see because you know, I know some
folks now that have like one hundred inch TVs relatively
inexpensive and have amazing pictures, right, So the wall.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Space to put something like that, I mean, like in
our living room, for example, the biggest TV that you
can fit in there is like, what a fifty inch TV.
That's it. I don't have any other space. I'm sure
as hell wouldn't want a hundred inch thing hanging over
my fireplace or whatever. So I'm waiting for the technology
that has a high resolution four K, five K whatever.
That's sort of an old school you know, pulled down
(08:43):
kind of like we used to use with the slide
projector kind of deal.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's funny you mentioned that, Brian.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I can remember back in the day there was this
really high end stereo store up in Columbus and they
had like a screen that came down like a projector
screen or a movie screen that came down out of
the ceiling, you know, with a projector. It was like
insanely expensive at the time dollars. And yeah, the picture
quality was nowhere near as good as what you're getting
out of these monern TVs. So it'll be interesting to
(09:09):
see where that goes. Foldable phones is another big thing.
I don't really understand the attraction of this. I mean,
I understand why if you could have a larger device
that could fold up, you know, potentially it would be
more convenient to work on. You know, the issue I
always run into with people who are so bound to
their phones is, you know, even if the thing could
(09:32):
unfold to twice the size, or maybe even three times
the size, it still doesn't have like a full size
key Yeah, you can use on screen keyboard. Maybe I'm
gonna since I typically have a computer with me all
the time. Anyway, you know, I don't want to work
on a phone. I don't want to. I want to
have a full sized keyboard. I want to have a
full sized screen or screen. So, you know, the foldable
(09:52):
phone thing, I get it to an extent, but you
know that's that's sort of taken off of course. AI.
You can't have a conversation now without AI in it.
Robots and the Internet of Things. My issue with all
these robots, Brian, You know, first off, I'm not convinced
that most of them are capable of doing anywhere near
what the hype claims they can do, especially out in
(10:14):
the wild. And then secondarily, think about this for a second.
You and I have been discussing the Internet of Things
and the privacy and security problems they create for a
long time. You know, anything that's got software in it,
anything that's quote smart, quote unquote is vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
And we see this over and over.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Again, whether it's AI toys, whether it's ring doorbells, nests, thermostats,
pick pick your thing. You know, in most cases, the
vendor isn't providing software updates after a certain period of time,
just automatically putting you at risk. People don't know how
to configure this stuff. And now you're potentially going to
have some kind of robot that's got microphones and cameras
in it doing things moving around inside your place. I mean,
(10:54):
you know, we've talked before about like the rumba, where
somehow people photos of people on the toilet were uploaded
to the Internet thanks to their rumba. So I understand
the cool factor of some of this stuff, but I
can tell you, for me, there is not a chance
I would have any of this stuff in my home,
simply because it's incredibly immature and it is a giant
(11:17):
privacy and security dumpster fire. For the most part, most
of this stuff is coming from China. We've seen our
own government warned now about backdoors and software backdoors in
the power grid through solar panels and so forth. Almre
Lucky from ANDROL, the founder of ANDROL, talked recently about
how you've seen, you know, chips the size of a
grain of sand that potentially have back doors that would
(11:39):
allow someone to if nothing else, surveil you, but potentially
taking the device over. So you know, self driving cars
is on this list.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Again.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I see all the stats about self driving cars and
how they're better than humans and so forth. I'm just
going to tell you, as a guy who's written a
lot of software and created a lot of bugs, none
of which were ever intention I'm not riding in any
fully autonomous car anytime in the near future, not only
because I just simply don't trust the tech because it
could be taken over remote Yeah, that's been well documented.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, I'm this well, we have protesters and webinized automobiles themselves,
and if some evil actor out there Chinese Communist Party
wants to take over a vehicle and it's got some
backdoor they could do that. Let's put an exclamation point
on that. Let's move. Let's pause for a when we'll
bring Dave back and talk about some common frauds and scams.
The FBI is alerting us too. That's why we have
Dave Hatter and you have you find Dave Hatter for
(12:33):
your business computer needs. Over to the fraud, the FBI
dot gov website announced some common frauds and scams twenty
twenty six. These fraud and scam ideas aren't going to
go away, or that's why we have you day. Let's
talk about some of these what's on the hit list.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, Unfortunately, they're not going to go away, Brian. In fact,
it seems like these things are only increasing. So first off,
books can go to FBI dot gov slash scams. Secondarily,
and I've mentioned it many many times over the years,
the FBI has the Internet Crime Complaint Center IC three
dot gov literally Indigo Charlie number three dot gov where
(13:10):
you can go and report fraud and scams and also
a lot of the same information gets shared there. So
these are good resources, especially if you have maybe older
parents who aren't as hip to these kind of things,
or maybe younger kids who aren't as hip, and you
want to kind of make them aware of what's going
on out there. They've got several short videos you can
watch to kind of explain this stuff. They've got some
(13:31):
longer form videos you can watch where they really get
into the details of some of these things. And then
there's just a long list, Like on the page I'm
on now, when I scroll down, there's numerous rows of scams,
and then they go in and explain these things. Adoption fraud,
business and investment fraud, business, email compromise, something we've talked
about many, many, many, many many times. Charity and disaster fraud,
(13:53):
consumer fraud schemes, crypto investment fraud, cryptocurrency, job scams, elder fraud,
election crime and security, healthcare fraud, holiday scams, money mules,
operation level up, ransomware, romance scams, sextortion, skimming, spoofing and phishing,
tech support scams, and timeshare frauds. So each one of
(14:13):
these is something you can drill down into and learn
more about that particular type of scam. You know, one
of the most common scams we've seen since we've been
talking on the air about this stuff, minus tech support
scams where you know, you get an email, you might
get a phone call, it might be that you somehow
visited a bogus website and a message pops up telling
(14:34):
you you've got a virus or something. So they go
into this here right, and they say, for example, they may
impersonate any type of personnel appearing to be to offer
support or assistance for the following and they list a
long line of things how the scam works. You know,
they tell you there's some sort of issue with your device,
your account. They try to reach out to you a
number ways, including unsolicited phone calls, internet pop up windows, websites,
(14:56):
are online ads, financial institutions. Once they get your attention,
they'll tell you they can fix the issue right, and
then they want access to your device. Sometimes they just
want you to send the money, and in most cases
they want to get access to your device because once
they have access to your device, then they can potentially
take you down all kinds of other rabbit holes, including
(15:17):
installing back doors, you know, keystroke loggers, that sort of
thing on your device so they can capture all your
keystrokes and hit your bank account at some later point.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So it's a real problem.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You should never, never, never, under any circumstances, give a
person who has reached out to you in some unsolicited way.
You know, as a business, this is what we do
for customers. But they're calling us and asking for help,
exactly right. We have a relationship with us, they know us.
We have ways to verify they're who they say they are,
(15:47):
and vice versa. If someone tells you just out of
the blue you have a problem with your device, guaranteed
scam and they talk about all this stuff here. So again,
this is a great resource FBI dot gov slash scams,
I see three dot gov to go learn about the
kind of scams that are out there. They're always updating
this stuff. It's pretty easy to understand, and again it's
(16:08):
a great way to help you avoid the coming a
victim of these sort of scams. And then you know,
your family members, your friends and so forth, point him
to this site. I'll link to it so that you know,
folks can understand what's happening out there, get some free
useful education and hopefully be aware and avoid these things.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Check them out LinkedIn dot com you just type in
Dave Hat or you'll find him. He's got all this
important information posted on his LinkedIn page. Dave can't thank
you enough for joining us on the Morning Show again
for another year and providing all this valuable information keeping
us out of trouble as long as we heed your advice.
Smart thing to do, folks, and you don't need a
tinfoil hat to believe what Dave's do.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know, Brian, it's funny along many years ago people
be like, oh, that's crazy, that could never happen, or
that you know now that's not possible, and you know,
people think that you're crazy man, Yeah, you're one of
those tenfoil hatters. I'm like, well, you know, that's an
appropriate name in my case, but people are slowly seeing
that perhaps.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Maybe I'm not as crazy in it. That's right, you know,
y stuff is real.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Going back to my comments on conspiracy theorists, which we
now call pattern observers, everybody thinks they're batcrab crazy at
the outset, and you just wait a little bit in time,
and oh, I guess they were right all along. Hmm,
maybe I'll listen to them next time. Well, don't wait
for that listen to Dave Now podcast available if you
have Carsey dot com again LinkedIn dot com, find Dave
Hatter and get all the breeding materials. Dave, have a
(17:31):
fantastic weekend, my friend. Thanks again to your company interest
it dot com for sponsor in the segment, and I'll
look forward to another edition of this segment next Friday.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Always my pleasure. I'll look forward to chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Then it's a new year. Probably have a
Welle on Pettybock carc Detalkstation, intrust it dot com. If
(00:03):
you have a business, I know you have computers, you
need interest I to help you out with any complications, problems,
best practices, the man for the job and his team,
Dave hat Or from Interest to It joining the program
every Friday, and welcome back, Dave. It's a pleasure having
you on. I'd love this segment, so informative it is.
And a happy new year to you and the crew
at intrust.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Brian, always good to be here. I'm happy to be back.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Happy new year to you and Joe and all your listeners,
and hopefully we'll continue to do some good out there
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah. Man, if you're talking the truth that you talk,
it's all good as long as people pay attention to it,
and you know real quick. I know wal Martin Kroger
now scanning your ID before you get alcohol, and we
can get to that. I just want to shout out
I saw this article and I printed out specifically to
bring it up to you because I know you hate
Google Chrome and you never use it and recommend people
don't use it. Security researchers apparently uncovered some Chrome extensions
(00:53):
that have been stealing user names, passwords, card details, personal information, cookies,
at et cetera from people's browsing behavior. That's a giant
red flag. Now they say they remove these extensions from
the availability, but the damage apparently has been done for
a lot of people. Password stealing, that's a real, real,
(01:13):
real problem and concern.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
And the cookies are an even bigger problem potentially because
once you log into a website. One of the main
reasons why cookies were created, Brian so, cookie is a
small file that gets stored on your device, your phone,
your computer, whatever, as you interact with a website, not
only so it can track you, but also once you've
logged in and it's verified your identity, it tells it
creates a cookie so that you don't have to keep
(01:38):
logging in over note, so that cookie keeps getting sent
back to the website to say, this is Brian Thomas,
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It does, so, I especially delete mind.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Whether that's a I encourage folks to do that as well.
But I'll get to that. So, first off, this isn't
necessarily a Chrome problem. I think the main reason they
counted it in terms of Chrome has Chrome is still
the number one browser out there. You know, any browser,
any modern popular browser, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, whatever, allows
(02:08):
you to use extensions, which are essentially software you can
plug into the browser to extend its capability, something like
EFF's privacy Brancher which helps tamp down cookies, or Honey
which is a thing that helps you find coupons.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
A lot of people will use these extensions because it
creates additional capabilities above and beyond what the browser can
do on its own. So extensions and the in and
of their own right are not a bad thing, and
in fact, it can be a really good thing. You know,
if you have a password manager, usually that password manager
will have a browser extension, so when you go to
log into a website, it will recognize the website interface
(02:43):
with the password manager through the extension and allow you
to enter your credentials.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So extensions on their own aren't bad. And again, you
can get extensions for just about every browser. Not every
extension is available on every browser, but the real There's
two key points here. First off, it goes back to
something you and I have discussed now for over ten years.
If you just go out and download some software right
just because it's in the Apple Store or the Google Store,
(03:08):
or you found a good review online or something and
you download it, whether it's a browser extension, an app
for your phone, or whatever. Unless it's coming from a credible,
reputable source, and unless you have thoroughly vetted it, you
could very well find yourself in a case like this,
whether it's a bogus app collecting your data or that's
basically spyware, or an extension like this, if it is
not thoroughly vetted, if you can't trust it, if it's
(03:30):
not coming from a known, reputable source, you run the
risk of having this at best a lot of tracking
and surveillance. At worst, it's essentially spyware running in your computer,
stealing your insensitive data like passwords and so forth. So
the real the short answer is, while extensions aren't bad,
you should have the least number of them possible, just
(03:51):
like apps, and you need to do your homework and
vet them carefully. I mean, I have several browser extensions,
but they're all privacy related. They all come from sources
idea trust and have vetted. So yeah, if you have
extensions installed in Chrome or any browser, you should take
a look at this article, and you should be very
judicious and how you download these things, install them and
use them because it could put you at significant risk.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Right. And the article which was reported on Fox News
Kurt Newtsom, if you've got it, will you add that
to your LinkedIn page? So people, because they give you
specific instructions on how to check for this and how
to get rid of it and reconfigure your Chrome browser
if you're stupid enough to use it. I suppose Dave
to make sure that you're safe, So we add that one. Yes, wonderful.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I will throw that in the list because it's people
need to understand this in general, and then these specific
issues for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yep, absolutely, let's pause. I thank you for indulging me
on that one, because that was a giant red flag.
And I know Chrome is a thorn in your side,
so hold on, we'll come back. We'll talk about cool
gadgets and the FBI, common frauds and scams, and maybe
a word or two on why you're getting carted at
Kroger for buy and eye when alcohol when they clearly
can tell you're sixty years old. First word for plumb tight,
(05:00):
plumbing and plumbing done.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The folks at plumb tight outstanding they are. That's why
they enjoy a plus with a better business beer, because
they know you deserve better and deliver on better. Here
if fifty five kre CD talk station. Happy Friday, Tech Friday,
Dave Hatter. Thanks to intrust it, dot coms Day's company.
Accord to the business Career, they're the best in the
business when it comes to your business computer needs. Dave Hatter,
Let's talk about cool gadgets real quick. I know you
(05:23):
brought up the idea about Walmartin and Kerve being forced
to check your IDs, and I've been carded at Kroger
buying beer, which always cracks me up because I clearly
am over the age of twenty one. But it's a
new law that forces to.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Do that, right, There's a new law in Utah that's
forcing basically anyone that's selling alcohol to do this. Here locally,
some retailers have started doing it.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You know. My issue with it.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Really boils down to the fact that, ultimately, do you
trust these retailers, especially some small mom and pop shop
if they have to actually scan your ID to store
that data in a way that won't be leaked stolen
or you know, elsewise breached somehow. So yeah, I'm I'm
not a big fan of this. I can tell you
here locally, I would not buy booze or anything else
(06:12):
that they want me to scan my ID from that,
I would go elsewhere. Apparently, again, it's a state wide
law in Utah.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
What the rationale is for why they think they need
this law. Again, you can just show someone your ID
and they can eyeball it, and you know, look at
a calendar on the wall or whatever where you see
the signs you must be this age that the idea
that we're going to give that kind of sensitive data
like a driver's license number to just any old random place,
totally against it. And one last thing, Brian, you know
(06:41):
you mentioned de leach your cookies kind of closing out
that last segment.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I agree that's a good idea.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
In most browsers, you can go in and you can
manually if you go into like the privacy and security
settings to leach your cookies. You can also set your
browser up so that we'll just automatically delete them every
time it closes. Now, that will cause some inconvenience. You'll
have to log in the websites again and that sort
of thing, because those cookies get deleted.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
But it's a good idea to get rid of them.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And then, brother, it's really easy to do too. If
I can figure it out, anybody can. All Right, a
consumer electronics show apparently it's a huge, huge event. What
do you eyeball on at the computer electronics show? That's cool,
Dave Hatter?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So, yeah, the Computer Electronics Show happens this time each
year out in Vegas. It is a big event. You
usually get a huge turnout for this. It runs the
whole week and you know, all the major vendors making
anything tech related typically show up.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's consumer oriented, right again.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
This is this is all stuff that's focused on consumers
as opposed to more industrial enterprise type stuff. But increasingly,
as everything becomes digital and as everything has software embedded
in it, you now are in a situation where there's
a lot of overlap between the two. You know, Brian,
you know when you say cool stuff, you know there's
some new TV technology out there.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Micro RGB TVs.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
TVs obviously keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger in
terms of their screens, while the actual you know, width
and depth gets smaller and smaller, they get lighter, the
quality of the screens continue to go up. Yeah, it'll
be interesting to see because you know, I know some
folks now that have like one hundred inch TVs relatively
inexpensive and have amazing pictures, right, So the wall.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Space to put something like that, I mean, like in
our living room, for example, the biggest TV that you
can fit in there is like, what a fifty inch TV.
That's it. I don't have any other space. I'm sure
as hell wouldn't want a hundred inch thing hanging over
my fireplace or whatever. So I'm waiting for the technology
that has a high resolution four K, five K whatever.
That's sort of an old school you know, pulled down
(08:43):
kind of like we used to use with the slide
projector kind of deal.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's funny you mentioned that, Brian.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I can remember back in the day there was this
really high end stereo store up in Columbus and they
had like a screen that came down like a projector
screen or a movie screen that came down out of
the ceiling, you know, with a projector. It was like
insanely expensive at the time dollars. And yeah, the picture
quality was nowhere near as good as what you're getting
out of these monern TVs. So it'll be interesting to
(09:09):
see where that goes. Foldable phones is another big thing.
I don't really understand the attraction of this. I mean,
I understand why if you could have a larger device
that could fold up, you know, potentially it would be
more convenient to work on. You know, the issue I
always run into with people who are so bound to
their phones is, you know, even if the thing could
(09:32):
unfold to twice the size, or maybe even three times
the size, it still doesn't have like a full size
key Yeah, you can use on screen keyboard. Maybe I'm
gonna since I typically have a computer with me all
the time. Anyway, you know, I don't want to work
on a phone. I don't want to. I want to
have a full sized keyboard. I want to have a
full sized screen or screen. So, you know, the foldable
(09:52):
phone thing, I get it to an extent, but you
know that's that's sort of taken off of course. AI.
You can't have a conversation now without AI in it.
Robots and the Internet of Things. My issue with all
these robots, Brian, You know, first off, I'm not convinced
that most of them are capable of doing anywhere near
what the hype claims they can do, especially out in
(10:14):
the wild. And then secondarily, think about this for a second.
You and I have been discussing the Internet of Things
and the privacy and security problems they create for a
long time. You know, anything that's got software in it,
anything that's quote smart, quote unquote is vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
And we see this over and over.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Again, whether it's AI toys, whether it's ring doorbells, nests, thermostats,
pick pick your thing. You know, in most cases, the
vendor isn't providing software updates after a certain period of time,
just automatically putting you at risk. People don't know how
to configure this stuff. And now you're potentially going to
have some kind of robot that's got microphones and cameras
in it doing things moving around inside your place. I mean,
(10:54):
you know, we've talked before about like the rumba, where
somehow people photos of people on the toilet were uploaded
to the Internet thanks to their rumba. So I understand
the cool factor of some of this stuff, but I
can tell you, for me, there is not a chance
I would have any of this stuff in my home,
simply because it's incredibly immature and it is a giant
(11:17):
privacy and security dumpster fire. For the most part, most
of this stuff is coming from China. We've seen our
own government warned now about backdoors and software backdoors in
the power grid through solar panels and so forth. Almre
Lucky from ANDROL, the founder of ANDROL, talked recently about
how you've seen, you know, chips the size of a
grain of sand that potentially have back doors that would
(11:39):
allow someone to if nothing else, surveil you, but potentially
taking the device over. So you know, self driving cars
is on this list.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Again.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I see all the stats about self driving cars and
how they're better than humans and so forth. I'm just
going to tell you, as a guy who's written a
lot of software and created a lot of bugs, none
of which were ever intention I'm not riding in any
fully autonomous car anytime in the near future, not only
because I just simply don't trust the tech because it
could be taken over remote Yeah, that's been well documented.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, I'm this well, we have protesters and webinized automobiles themselves,
and if some evil actor out there Chinese Communist Party
wants to take over a vehicle and it's got some
backdoor they could do that. Let's put an exclamation point
on that. Let's move. Let's pause for a when we'll
bring Dave back and talk about some common frauds and scams.
The FBI is alerting us too. That's why we have
Dave Hatter and you have you find Dave Hatter for
(12:33):
your business computer needs. Over to the fraud, the FBI
dot gov website announced some common frauds and scams twenty
twenty six. These fraud and scam ideas aren't going to
go away, or that's why we have you day. Let's
talk about some of these what's on the hit list.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, Unfortunately, they're not going to go away, Brian. In fact,
it seems like these things are only increasing. So first off,
books can go to FBI dot gov slash scams. Secondarily,
and I've mentioned it many many times over the years,
the FBI has the Internet Crime Complaint Center IC three
dot gov literally Indigo Charlie number three dot gov where
(13:10):
you can go and report fraud and scams and also
a lot of the same information gets shared there. So
these are good resources, especially if you have maybe older
parents who aren't as hip to these kind of things,
or maybe younger kids who aren't as hip, and you
want to kind of make them aware of what's going
on out there. They've got several short videos you can
watch to kind of explain this stuff. They've got some
(13:31):
longer form videos you can watch where they really get
into the details of some of these things. And then
there's just a long list, Like on the page I'm
on now, when I scroll down, there's numerous rows of scams,
and then they go in and explain these things. Adoption fraud,
business and investment fraud, business, email compromise, something we've talked
about many, many, many, many many times. Charity and disaster fraud,
(13:53):
consumer fraud schemes, crypto investment fraud, cryptocurrency, job scams, elder fraud,
election crime and security, healthcare fraud, holiday scams, money mules,
operation level up, ransomware, romance scams, sextortion, skimming, spoofing and phishing,
tech support scams, and timeshare frauds. So each one of
(14:13):
these is something you can drill down into and learn
more about that particular type of scam. You know, one
of the most common scams we've seen since we've been
talking on the air about this stuff, minus tech support
scams where you know, you get an email, you might
get a phone call, it might be that you somehow
visited a bogus website and a message pops up telling
(14:34):
you you've got a virus or something. So they go
into this here right, and they say, for example, they may
impersonate any type of personnel appearing to be to offer
support or assistance for the following and they list a
long line of things how the scam works. You know,
they tell you there's some sort of issue with your device,
your account. They try to reach out to you a
number ways, including unsolicited phone calls, internet pop up windows, websites,
(14:56):
are online ads, financial institutions. Once they get your attention,
they'll tell you they can fix the issue right, and
then they want access to your device. Sometimes they just
want you to send the money, and in most cases
they want to get access to your device because once
they have access to your device, then they can potentially
take you down all kinds of other rabbit holes, including
(15:17):
installing back doors, you know, keystroke loggers, that sort of
thing on your device so they can capture all your
keystrokes and hit your bank account at some later point.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So it's a real problem.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You should never, never, never, under any circumstances, give a
person who has reached out to you in some unsolicited way.
You know, as a business, this is what we do
for customers. But they're calling us and asking for help,
exactly right. We have a relationship with us, they know us.
We have ways to verify they're who they say they are,
(15:47):
and vice versa. If someone tells you just out of
the blue you have a problem with your device, guaranteed
scam and they talk about all this stuff here. So again,
this is a great resource FBI dot gov slash scams,
I see three dot gov to go learn about the
kind of scams that are out there. They're always updating
this stuff. It's pretty easy to understand, and again it's
(16:08):
a great way to help you avoid the coming a
victim of these sort of scams. And then you know,
your family members, your friends and so forth, point him
to this site. I'll link to it so that you know,
folks can understand what's happening out there, get some free
useful education and hopefully be aware and avoid these things.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Check them out LinkedIn dot com you just type in
Dave Hat or you'll find him. He's got all this
important information posted on his LinkedIn page. Dave can't thank
you enough for joining us on the Morning Show again
for another year and providing all this valuable information keeping
us out of trouble as long as we heed your advice.
Smart thing to do, folks, and you don't need a
tinfoil hat to believe what Dave's do.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know, Brian, it's funny along many years ago people
be like, oh, that's crazy, that could never happen, or
that you know now that's not possible, and you know,
people think that you're crazy man, Yeah, you're one of
those tenfoil hatters. I'm like, well, you know, that's an
appropriate name in my case, but people are slowly seeing
that perhaps.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Maybe I'm not as crazy in it. That's right, you know,
y stuff is real.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Going back to my comments on conspiracy theorists, which we
now call pattern observers, everybody thinks they're batcrab crazy at
the outset, and you just wait a little bit in time,
and oh, I guess they were right all along. Hmm,
maybe I'll listen to them next time. Well, don't wait
for that listen to Dave Now podcast available if you
have Carsey dot com again LinkedIn dot com, find Dave
Hatter and get all the breeding materials. Dave, have a
(17:31):
fantastic weekend, my friend. Thanks again to your company interest
it dot com for sponsor in the segment, and I'll
look forward to another edition of this segment next Friday.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Always my pleasure. I'll look forward to chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Then it's a new year. Probably have a
Brian Thomas News
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