05-24-26 Your Phone Can Go Dead And Your Bank Can Too

If your phone suddenly loses service, it might not be a carrier outage. It could be a SIM swap, and that can hand a criminal the keys to your bank, email, and social accounts in minutes. We explain how attackers impersonate you with data from phishing and breaches, why SMS based two factor authentication is now a liability, and what that scary “my phone went dead” moment really means.

We also unpack a major dating app breach story tied to Match Group brands and why exposed profile data can turn into account takeovers or even blackmail once it spreads on the dark web. You’ll leave with a clear action list: change passwords, check whether your email appears in known breaches, and move away from text codes toward authenticator apps and passkeys, the modern phishing resistant login method that Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all backing.

Then we shift to AI powered smart home tech that feels like science fiction becoming normal, from robot vacuums that handle obstacles to smart locks with facial recognition, plus the privacy and security tradeoffs of always on devices. We share a practical home network tip to reduce risk by separating IoT devices onto their own Wi Fi network, add a fast Windows 11 Snap Layouts trick for multitasking, and close with a timely warning about AI voice cloning scams that pressure families into sending money.

Subscribe for weekly tech security guidance, share this with someone who still uses SMS codes, and leave a review if it helped. What security change are you making first?

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Tech Agenda

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey then, welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment, go and leave an open mic using the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434. It's three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And now for David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

All right. Thanks, Craig. And thanks everybody for listening to the Sunday morning edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. We're all excited about being able to do a nice fresh show. You know, we used to do the show just Saturdays from 2 to 3, and then it would repeat every Sunday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. So for the time being, anyway, we're doing two fresh shows every weekend uh due to popular demand.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

And we've got we've got so much that we can't even fit this news into one show anymore, can we?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

So is there so much tech stuff to talk about? And and I hope you know the inner nerd in you is stimulated a little bit as you're listening to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Not too much though, not too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

And and you know, and uh are enjoying you know something a little different on the radio, right? Right, and or even in the podcast version if you're listening to the podcast. It's not not the typical show you'd hear on the radio, and we're pretty proud of that fact. I I am anyway. So we're gonna talk about how your phone number is actually is has become a security liability big time. I never thought I'd see the day with that. Yes, it is big time, and it has a lot to do with SMS and texting, and I'm gonna get into that more in just a minute. We're also gonna talk about you know our favorite bad guys, the shiny hunters, right? They just breached a dating app. Dating apps, more than one. That's gonna be fun to talk about and what that's gonna be mean.

Why Phone Numbers Became Dangerous

SPEAKER_01 2:16

So, and you'll you'll get why I'm giggling about that, and maybe you are too when I get to that point. So, we're gonna talk about a little later than that AI-powered smart home tech, some of the cool things that are coming out that are AI powered, some surprising, surprising things too, that you're gonna I I hope at least find entertaining, if not useful, in that segment. And then we'll finish the show off today with another very handy Windows 11 tip. And that's gonna be it's one of my favorite things to do in Windows that a lot of people don't even know it's there. Yep. And so it's kind of cool, and we're gonna talk about that a little later on in the show. So, why is your phone number a security risk? Your phone number, so again, it's uh you know, it has to do with uh your SIM cards, right? It's a you know, phones are either have a physical SIM card or or an e-SIM card these days. And it's such a serious issue of, you know, when you get text from your bank, you know, you'll they'll text you a security code, right? And so you enter your security code in order to log in. That used to be a pretty safe way to have two-factor authorization in order to access your accounts.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

It was the preferred one because it was so easy to just set it up and go, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

So it's it was now the preferred one for hackers, unfortunately. To get your stuff, and that's why this one is so serious because they're you know they're gonna they're getting in people's bank accounts or empty in bank accounts because they didn't even know that their their SIM card was hijacked.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Right? And so that's what's going on.

How SIM Swaps Really Work

SPEAKER_01 4:01

You know, they're they're they're getting it's called a a SIM swap, right? A SIM swap scam. Say that six times real fast. SIM swap scam. So your phone number is tied to a physical or an e sim, right? And your phone. So a sim swap is when a criminal calls your phone number or your phone carrier, I should say, ATT, Verizon T Mobile, and they're pretending to be you. And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, they're successful in pretending to be you. They're successful because they have personal information they they got about you because maybe you clicked on some link in an email, and now they have that information that they need in order to convince the phone company it's you that they're talking to. And you know, they'll say something like, I lost my phone. I need my number transferred to this new SIM card that I just picked up, right? And if the carrier falls for it, and which most of the time they do, a lot of times they do. Your phone number now rings on the criminal's phone, not yours. And your phone goes dead. So that will be the first clue that your sim has been hijacked.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

But you say that they call your uh carrier, and with whenever I call my carrier, they ask all these different questions about like to verify my information. How do they get my information from all that?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

They get your information from other scams they did on you. Yeah. So in email scams and things like that. So they're they're able to, you know, or like something like the the shiny hunters do, right? So they they get into a particular account that you happen to be part of, and there's all that information about you that they can use when they call the cell phone company to get to say to to convince the cell phone company they're you.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

So it might not even been from an email that I clicked on, but because I had my data breached in some kind of hack. Exactly. All of a sudden they've got all the info they need to break right on in.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

This is why we always stress using you know different passwords for different accounts, because if one of your accounts gets hijacked or compromised, then if you use the same password, that's that's like handing the entire key ring over at that point.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

And and and another thing, you know, we've been preaching the use of passcodes instead. Pass keys. Pass keys, I should say. Yeah, pass keys, uh, because that is the today's most secure way of signing in to any website is using a pass key. And we talked all about that. We dedicated a whole show, at least a whole segment, a big segment about that a few weeks ago. And if you want to listen to that and catch up on what that is and what that means, and what you can do to get a pass key, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link, and you'll find that show. And actually, there's a little chat bot that comes up on the website now. You can actually just go to the chat bot and tell the chat bot that, hey, I want to listen to the show that they talked about pass keys. Right. Right? And the chat bot will direct you right to where that show is, so you can just click on it and go. So your phone goes dead, right? Right. So so in other words, now you can't make calls, you can't get texts. So you you have been hacked when that happens. So make no mistake about it. So every two-factor author authentication code that gets sent to you is now sent to the scammer. And they now have access to your email, your bank, your social media, everything that uses text media code. Yeah, right? Everything that uses that. So again, a reason why Microsoft just this week announced, just this week, they are killing the SMS text method of two-factor authorization. Microsoft will no longer text you a code to log in to the Microsoft account. So no more, you know, we texted you a six-digit code, enter it here. They're pushing everyone to pass keys like we've been talking about instead. Why? And it's because, like we just said, your phone number, your phone number is no longer safe. And sim swaps scams are a big reason why.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So again, so how do they get enough info to impersonate you? We were just talking about. So they they data breaches is are the biggest cause.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

That's the biggest one that not a lot of us even know happen right to even know it happened until it's too late.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Exactly. And so it's very, very serious. So, you know, they get your name, your address, last for your social security number, right? It's all that stuff is available on the dark web when these data breaches happen. And there are bad guys actually buying and selling all that data, right? On the dark web about you. So your social media accounts, right? Your birthday, your hometown, your pet's name, even, right? Because a lot of times people use that as a security feature. Well, that's all public stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

The a large one I've seen too are phishing emails. And these are emails that you know I've seen come from Apple, from Amazon. Not legitimately Apple or Amazon, but people pretending to be them, where it says, hey, you need to log into your account and update this detail. And most of the time you'll click the link and it'll take you to a site that looks exactly like their website. It's almost like a carbon copy of it. And you put in your email and your password and you hit sign in and it says, Oh, those login details weren't correct, even though you know they are. It's because it's a fake website. But now, since you entered in that information on that fake website, whoever's running it took that information and they're they're already looking for what accounts they can compromise of yours.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Almost by the time you hit enter.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

They're already trying those accounts. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

And so, you know, there's real world damage going on right now. So, and actually, Florida is one of the top states in the whole country for this type of fraud, probably because of the elder population that we have here that they're so they're you know, they're always figuring out a new way to target. They are targeted, right? And and victims have lost, you know, tens of thousands of dollars individually in crypto, bank accounts, right? They just suck it right out. Celebrities and and and athletes, they're are are big targets, but regular people are hit every single day. And the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received thousands of SimSwap complaints in 2025 alone, and it's increasing in 2026. So, you know, uh another fallout from this is Microsoft, Microsoft responding. Saying, okay, we're killing the SMS codes now. We're not going to text codes anymore to people to unlock their Microsoft account. It's no longer fit for purpose, is what Microsoft is saying, and they're right.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

It makes me wonder now, because I know that they're killing the SMS codes. I wonder down the line what Microsoft might do for email-based text code or email-based multi-factor codes as well. Because I know with uh setting up multi-factor, you can set up your phone number. No longer you can. You can set up a second email address that's not the main address of that account to be able to recover it. The pass keys, of course, but I wonder if they're gonna they're gonna start looking at the email one next because I've had a lot of customers come in who have just easily had their email account compromised, and now all of a sudden all of those codes are inside of their inbox and all of those accounts are being logged into as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

We see that in the store. And so what can

SIM Locks Plus Passkeys And Apps

SPEAKER_01 11:36

you do? Yeah. So what can you do about you know your SIM card, your your phone number being stolen, basically? So you can actually do a s what they call a SIM lock. Yes. So listen up to this because it's very important. I'm gonna talk about the major carriers and and and what you can do with each one of them. So you call your carrier and ask for a SIM lock, S-I-M lock, or a port freeze, right, to your account. This requires a pin or in-person visit to make any changes to your number, right? So so go ahead and call your carrier, tell them you want to lock down your sim. Yeah. Yes and or do a port freeze. So you your number can't be ported out to another person, a bad guy.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Another person or another carrier, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

So and at ATT, it's called extra security. That's what they call it. Pretty simple, pretty simple name for them. Yeah. Verizon, it's called number lock. Right. So you when you call Verizon, tell them you want to do a number lock. T-Mobile, it's called SIM protection. So they're all calling at different things, but it's all the same thing, right? And it's all free. All take, you know, it takes five minutes, right? Five-minute call to your carrier, and you can lock down your SIM card so it cannot be ported over to another SIM so the bad guys can use it. And whenever possible, stop using SMS text codes. Excuse me, when you get the prompt. You know, sometimes it's you know, send an email or use an authenticator, which an authenticator would be better. Yeah. Google authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator. There's another one called Authi that a lot of people use. You can set up one of those, those are much safer because those have rolling codes that time out.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

They change, I believe, every 60 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Every 30 to 60 seconds, depending on the authenticator. And so it's a different number that just shows up.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

And you can't duplicate those app uh date the data for those apps either. I know when I changed phones a long time ago and I had everything set up with Google Authenticator, it was a pain because I transferred everything and just reset my old phone. And I didn't think about my authenticator app. And I went to go log into something. I'm just like, oh no.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

That's a good point. You gotta do that. So that that can't be spoofed. No, and and well, and maybe that's another reason go ahead and set up pass keys or where available. So these three companies already support them Google, Apple, Microsoft, they all support pass keys now. Use them. I use them on my Google account all the time. Why? Because I use them to access any website that needs my password. I don't I don't have to put in my password directly anymore. I use the pass key through Google Chrome. That's a very important thing to be able to do. And if you have any questions on how to do any of that, we have a free tech support hotline. It's 407-478-8200.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Speaking of data breaches, a new dating app data breach, some 10 million records exposed. We'll talk about it next coming up on Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.

Match Group Dating Apps Breached

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. And now back to Dave and Adam.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

All right. Thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. In the previous segment, we talked about your phone number being hijacked. People being able to steal your phone number, basically, is what they're doing through us what they call a SIM swap. And they're convincing the carriers that they are you, and they're getting that through other data breaches that we talked about. And so when you are being sent a code to log into your bank account, you're not getting it. They are. The bad guys are. So you might want to check that out. If you missed any of that, you go to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link at the top of the page, you'll be able to hear this show in its entirety and catch up on all that stuff you might have missed because it's some very important information and what you can do about it also to prevent it from happening to you. Because this is costing this is emptying people's bank accounts, right? So this segment we want to talk about you know, it's it's always serious when you know the shiny hunters are in there and they're getting another entity, and this time they got the dating app company called the Match Group. And the Match Group owns Match.com, they own Hinge, they own OKCupid, they own Tinder. They're all the biggest names in the biggest name app game, right? Yeah, exactly. And as I always, you know, and I kind of chuckle. I mean, it's not funny that they that they did this, but it's not it's a very serious thing. But why am I chuckling at this? Because I think of all the married men out there. Yeah. They may have and and and now guess what? Hey, shame on you.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

You shouldn't have done that to begin with. Well you can even look back at when they have what the Ashley Madison leak uh at this point.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Same kind of thing to all these folks out there that might be, you know, have their their secret Tinder accounts or something, right? Because I would imagine, I mean, I'll I'll throw it out there. I've never had a Tinder account or a match or any of those dating accounts. I just uh sit, I just you know, the I first of all I don't have a need for one. Been happily married for gosh, going on 40 years now, long time. The most wonderful person in the world. And so, but you know, I would imagine there are people that are that that have it that now, you know, they're probably a little bit nervous of what's going on because you know, dating profiles contain some pretty deep personal information, right? Your relationship status, whether you lied about it or not. Yeah. Preferences, photos.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

I imagine those chats get pretty uh in-depth sometimes too as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

So yeah. So uh so now they have your name, they have your information, and they're coming after a lot of people. So this isn't just a you know, shiny hunters are typically uh organizational level, right? They they go after the organization, so they're going after like the match group, you know, but they're they're not immune from going after the individuals that they have also.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Well, especially once that data gets on the dark web, whoever whoever wants to access it at that point can do whatever they wish with it.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

So that's the thing, is with uh this kind of information, you know, even if they trickle down to make it personal for people, that's blackmail. Right. They can blackmail a lot of people with with information they might have gotten.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

So, I mean, what can you do right now? What should you do if you use any of these sites at all? You know, go in and uh change change passwords. Yep, that's the first one. Always. Change your password on any of these sites. And you know, they're I I would imagine legitimate uses of these sites, which is why they're so darn popular, right? I mean, there's there's just they're out there and and people use them, so make sure you you change your your password and enable to the two-factor authentication on your dating apps, right? And your emails also. We've mentioned this website before, have ibenpawn.com. Go there. It's H A V E I B E E N P W N E D.com. And you'll get this spelling completely if you go to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link. It'll be right there so you can see it uh when you go check out this podcast. Um it's a free site, and it tells you if your email was in a known data breach or not.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Smart home tech making its way into the AI realm. We'll talk about that next. Coming up on Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.

AI Smart Homes Get Proactive

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Hey there, and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. And you can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website at Refresh Computers.net or stopping at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. till 7 p.m. And now for David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

All right, thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. If you missed any of the previous segments, we talked a lot about how your phone may have been stolen. Your phone number may have been actually just hijacked, right? And used against you. And it's very important to catch that and uh to see what you can do to make sure that your phone number is not stolen. So the bad guys can't get things like codes that are text to your phone when you're trying to log into your bank account because they're logging into your bank account when they steal your phone number, and this happens all too often. And what we talked about what you can do to avoid it and keep it from happening to you.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

So we also uh we also talked about Shawnee Hunter's uh breaching the match group with all these different dating apps. And if you use any of those, I I really suggest you go to refreshcomputers.net, click that podcast link in the top right corner, listen to back to this show because you I you're definitely gonna want to listen to you know what they have and what's going on because that they've been a little prevalent lately, what they've been stealing.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

They have been, and we give we gave you a website you can go to to check to see if your data was involved in some kind of breach, and you'll be able to pick that up in the podcast as well. So in this segment, we want to talk about how your home is getting smarter with AI, right? Right. You know, we it seems like every week we We we talk a lot about AI and to the point where I wonder sometimes, geez, if we just talk too much about AI sometimes, but it's just so much going on with AI and it involves everything we do.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

It's progressing so rapidly as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

It is. And so it's almost impossible not to talk about something going on with AI in one of these segments. And so in 2026, you know, the smart home category is already exploding with AI powered devices.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

There's a whole new meaning to the words smart home because it used to just be you could go on a phone app and and tap a button and turn on a light. That was what we had as a smart home. That was smart back then. But now, you know, we're we're starting to get a proactive AI layer to our homes that a lot of us don't even realize is starting to become the normal for a lot of these devices.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Right. So, you know, so we we go from hey, I'm not gonna say the person's name, but the a name that's uh prevalent in your house, but it might turn it on. You you might say, hey, to your favorite uh assistant, turn off the lights, right? And it would just turn off the lights. Well, you can still do that. But now in the in the new smart home scenario with AI, the lights will turn off automatically because they AI knows you always go to bed at 10 p.m. for example. And so you can uh make program it to to do that, to to take over that part of your your life so you don't get all the way up into your bedroom and realize, oh I forgot in my Amazon device. I left the living room light on or something. So AI is learning your routines and adapting without you having to to program anything. And I know that just eats at a lot of people. Yeah, that's listen to this show, because we hear about it in the store when people come in sometimes and and it's like I'll never let AI take over my life. Well, you know what though? Yeah, there's a lot of things you can control and not allow it to do, but to a certain extent, it's doing it to you, whether you know it or not, and your in your life and things that you do, you know, every day. So so there's some pretty cool devices, right? I think that's worth talking about. So this is the fun part of this segment. So the Roborock Soros C70, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:27

We talked, I think, about that back when uh CES was going on a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Because it was it was at CES in January. Yes. And it's a robot vacuum with a robotic arm, right? And basically what it does is you know, it'll see your socks sitting there, so it'll pick up your socks so it can keep going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

No longer will we have the uh problem where the uh your robo vacuum runs over something and it starts making that horrible noise as it's dragging a lamp across the uh the floor or something, you know. It can it can maybe move the wire out of its way. It's it's they're getting smarter.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

It it is so and there's another thing called a switchbot lock, ultravision pro. I think they can probably shorten that name a little bit. Probably a switchbot lock Ultra Vision Pro. It's a smart lock and it has facial recognition and fingerprint capability. So basically what it does is unlocks your door as you walk up to it. Don't need a pin pad number, don't need a key. It just sees you. I mean, a lot of us have the Blink cameras and things like that already, doorbell cameras, and so this is like an enhancement to that. And I would imagine sometime in the near future, companies like Blink will have that built into their cameras. Yeah. Right? They'll know that it's you and just unlock the door.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

I mean it makes me kind of think back to you know spy movies where they put on an ultra-realistic face mask or maybe the Scotch tape uh uh fingerprint trick where they can, you know, bypass it. I I I bet that these systems are smart enough to know, you know, something. I'm thinking of the more gory examples of that is that also could happen.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

It cut off somebody's finger or something like anyway. So you know, and these these smart locks with with the facial recognition is not only recognizing your face, it's recognizing and remembering all the other faces that have come up to your door. So and it can it it it logs that right with dates and timestamps. So if you want to w if you're wondering, hey, I wonder when my sister-in-law stopped by the house last week, was it at what time, you know, you you you can go into these systems and it'll basically recognize your sister-in-law because you told it who who they are. Yeah. And it will let you know when that person came came to your door.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

No longer do you have to, you know, text somebody if you're waiting for a ride to saying, Hey, have you left the house yet? You can look and see if they left the house. So, you know, it's it's little convenience things like that, but again, it's also security, you know. Any bad actors, I'm sure that the the system doesn't recognize will definitely log and lock to let you know, hey, this this odd person came up trying to unlock the door.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

That's right. That that reminds me of uh years ago when my daughter was still in high school and involved in things after school and and waiting for her mom, my wife, to to pick her up from school. And she'd say, Hey, she'd call her and say, Hey, are you on your way? And my wife would say, Yes, I'm in the car now. And then my daughter learned to say, honk your horn.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

That's it. The facade is gone. You pulled the curtains open on the wizard right there.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Hank your horn, mom. She was like, maybe a little bit late and just fibbing a little.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

You know, all of the smart home stuff, it it really brings me back to a movie I watched on Disney long time ago that came out in 1999 called Smart House. Yep. Where they had this assistant called Pat, the personal assistant technology that that controlled the whole house.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

No way.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

It makes me just think back to that about you know how it it you know predicted voice assistance, voice-controlled homes, automated everything. But it also really highlighted the weirdness that starts to happen when when your AI starts trying to help you a little too much.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Well, especially especially imagine if like Mythos was a part of the AI system in the house that kind of starts making decisions for you when it really probably shouldn't be. So yeah, no, I think that's a that's a layer of this as it develops is how how much do we rely on AI to make these things? Is AI going to be making your dinner? Is AI gonna decide no, you don't have the correct uh nutritional balance? This is what we're having for dinner instead, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

And even on that point, you know what was the name of that show? It was uh it was called Smart House.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Smart House.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

But you know, thinking of like meals and everything now, you know, if if when we get to the point where AI can start cooking our meals, how are you gonna know you can trust the AI cooked the chicken to 165 degrees? You're not gonna get salmonella poisoning because your AI assistant undercooked it, you know? Maybe they undercooked it on purpose. Again, those might undercook it on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

That's when they take over. That's in the takeover the world stage.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Yeah. But there's there's so many layers to this. And you know, we we have things like you've got Google Home, you've got Amazon with their assistant that I'm not gonna say the name because it's way too sensitive to activate. You've got the Apple Home Kit all starting to add reasoning layers now to their assistance. And you know, when we have AI, you think, you know, you tell it this command, it does this. Well, now when we start getting into the ideas of reasoning, it's oh, they want this light shut off at this time because they go to bed.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

And the AI is gonna start thinking like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

And and that's and a lot of people f will find that intrusive. I I do personally. I wouldn't want my I wouldn't want to make those decisions every time. I wouldn't mind an AI tool that because they have these like uh Lutron, right? They expanded their AI powered lighting systems, right? And so uh dimming the lights a little bit, maybe for you. And then you know, there's also these uh blinds, right? These window blinds right now that will automatically adjust because the the sunshine is is shining through the window and you're sitting there trying to watch TV, right? And it and they know it's it knows that there's a glare, so it shuts cuts out the glare. So I mean, these are the kinds of things that that AI powered things will be doing. Yeah, and I yeah, I mentioned Blink earlier. Right. Blink has introduced paid for AI version that it tried to rope me into. I I had the free trial. I think everybody trial was very nice. It was pretty cool. Yeah, I almost I almost bit on that one.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Yeah, I almost thought about it. It was funny some of the descriptions. It would talk about like my dog and my kid out in the backyard. That's right. A small child and a yellow labrador are running through the backyard. I'm like, what? How did the dog get out?

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Yeah. Someone is approaching the door with a package in their hand, right? That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, it would recognize the type of vehicle as well.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

And thinking of the big picture now, I'm gonna, you know, put the whole circle here. Think about it like that, where you have it saying the you know, small kid in the golden labrador or in the backyard. The AI reasoning could at some point sense, you know, your door sensors. You don't have a door shut or something, and it knows nobody's home, saying, Oh, maybe the dog got out. Right. Or, you know, alerting you saying, hey, your Amazon package containing this item and this item has been delivered.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

You know, we're gonna start getting to the phone. Yeah, with Prime will tell you when a package has been delivered before it's been dropped off at your door sometimes. That's right. Yeah, you get that instant notification. All those integrations coming together into one thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah. No, I'm I'm trying, I'm thinking still more of the future of when we're starting to you know get bipedal robots in our homes at one point. I know that they're making it's coming. It's coming, and I'm excited for them.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

We're gonna have robot assistants.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Oh, yeah, the Jetsons and Judy in your house are not that far away.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

It's not that far away. It's not that far away. And and I'm you know, I would be tempted myself to get one just to have fun, just to play with it, to see what it can do.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

And and that's something that you and I, you know, we always talk about is the new great tech that we want to just mess with and see what we can do. And in me personally, I always like seeing what I can do to push tech to really push its boundaries, see what I can do to it, to make it freak out or you know, break something with the software. But again, when we're starting to talk about physical robots in our own homes, there's also an element that you know maybe it trips and it breaks your counter.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

You don't know. You don't know what's going to happen. So hey, but look, there's also this big privacy concern,

Privacy And Securing Smart Devices

SPEAKER_01 32:52

right?

SPEAKER_02 32:52

We got to bring this up. That's a that's a big part of all of this with an AI watching over you, privacy, privacy part of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Big, big time because guess what? In order for most of these AI powered things to do what they're doing, to be able to do what they do, is they have to be listening, always watching, yeah, right? And that's the trade-off. So if you want you know this kind of smart life in your in your home, that's something you have to consider. And every smart device is a potential entry point for hackers, yeah, as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Every every uh every smart device has to be connected to Wi-Fi. And a major thing that you can do, and I know that a lot of new routers are starting to integrate this, is to set up a a separate Wi-Fi network just for your smart home stuff. That's critical. It is.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

You can do that because you can lock it down. Yeah. So you can have more than one Wi-Fi right on your Wi-Fi router.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

A lot of them are now starting to call it an IoT network, the interweb of things. Yeah. And that's, you know, I I enabled that when I replaced my router at home just the other day. And I switched all my smart home stuff to that because we've talked about endpoints. Smart home stuff is endpoints.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Yeah. So, you know, a lot of us have the Wi-Fi routers that have the guest mode, right? So you can have a guest, you know, account and you can have your regular account because you don't want to give your guest your Wi-Fi password. Exactly. So they have their own. But there's uh the third layer is what we're talking about, is having a completely separate Wi-Fi name for all your smart devices in your home.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Right? Keeping that separate from your guests and also keeping that separate from your main Wi-Fi. And if you need help with any of that, guess what? Free tech support hotline at Refresh Computers 407-478-8200.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

We'll have a fresh Windows 11 tip for you coming up here after the break. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, president and founder of Refresh Computer Superstore and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. You can also check out their website over at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to David and Adam.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

All right. Thanks, Greg. And thanks everybody for listening to yet another edition, a Sunday edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. So happy to be able to do this show for you. And hopefully you're enjoying a little bit of techy stuff that we're talking about here, at least some of it anyway, if not all of it. So, and you can go to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link, like I said earlier, and listen to this show in its entirety if you missed anything. Or just want to recap what we already talked about. We talked about some really important topics during today's show and yesterday's show as well. So the weekly, we're gonna call this the weekly or daily,

Windows 11 Snap Layouts Shortcut

SPEAKER_01 36:03

whatever. Windows 11 tip. So there's this one thing that I think a lot of people it's probably one of the most underused features in Windows 11. I'm gonna it's called snap layouts. Do you use it, Adam?

SPEAKER_02 36:15

I use it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah. So and a lot of people don't even know they have it because you know, you know the the maximize button, right? You click on that little square box, and sometimes it's a square, a big square over a little smaller square, so you can have to minimize. Yeah. And a lot of people would when they maximize their screen or their window, they just roll over there, click on it, maximize.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

It goes over the whole screen.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

So you got one one program.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

One program right there on the whole screen. But what a lot of people don't realize, and I've showed some people this, I showed my daughter this, and she was like surprised. And it's like if you don't, if you're not in a hurry, like me, uh typically if I want to maximize, I just roll over there, click on it, maximize. Yeah, but if you're not in that much of a hurry, just roll over it instead of clicking on it, let your mouse hover that little square just for a second, and you'll see something pop up on your screen that you can if you have three or four different things open at the same time, you you they're actually all be displayed on your screen at the same time. So you can do it, you can do a split screen half and half, you can do quads. Yeah, I think you can have maybe up to eight different things, I'm not sure, displayed on your screen at the same time. And then you can go back and forth to each one. And if you ever want to maximize any of them, you just click on that same little icon and those little subwindows, a window within a window, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:35

And how I normally use it, I don't even hover the mouse over that. I'll normally grab the bar at the top and just pull it all the way up to the top of the screen, and that'll open it right there. And I can go to the left, the side, the the corner, and it makes life a lot easier trying to put, you know, maybe two documents side by side that you're comparing. It's it's better than having to alt tab between them a thousand different times.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Well, even if you have two screens. Yeah. I mean, you know, it keeps everything right there on one screen, and you can compare the two documents. Like you said, it's it's it's a nice feature. So that's called snap layout. And you can uh go to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link, listen to the show, and then there'll be a description right there also about how to

AI Voice Cloning Scam Red Flags

SPEAKER_01 38:15

do this. And so we want to get into a quick scam alert here, also about we've talked about this before, AI voice cloning scams, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Voice prints is what we uh always called it.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

And they're getting worse. Yes. So the new scam this year. So they're using AI, the scammers, right? To clone the voice of a family member. So a voice print, everybody has a voice print that is so unique, it's as unique as a fingerprint. Or some people say, or some scientists say it's more unique than a fingerprint. So your voice is your voice, and and it's it's the only one like it in the world. And you know, we hear people talking and you hear people that sound similar, but how many people do you know that talk exactly like somebody else? Right. Yeah, right? I don't know anybody. And so but these scammers are using AI to clone the voice of you or a family member, right? And you get a call, it sounds exactly like your son or your daughter or your grandchild, and they say, Hey, mom, dad, I'm in trouble.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I need money right now.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Don't tell anyone.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Yeah. That's always that's always the the giveaway red flag to me is whenever something comes up and just says, Don't tell anyone.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

You know, why why does why does it matter if I tell anyone?

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Wire it to this random account that you've never heard that I've had before. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

So just you know, the the importance of bringing this up is just to bring that out there to let people know this is happening. So if you ever get that urgent call from a family member, always think, hey, this is most likely a scam. And hey, folks, that's about all we're gonna have time for. This is David Levitt signing off for this week. We'll be talking to you again next week.