How Your Phone Spies on You & WiFi 7 Explained

How your phone and car are spying on you. The new website that reveals the best Internet in your area based on real life speed tests. Walmart sells an Apple laptop directly for the first time and it's quite the deal. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on rich Damiro And this is Rich on Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles.

Coast to coast.

This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Guests this week, we've got a couple

I always choose approximate.

Now, some of these apps have gotten pretty slick and they won't even function unless you say precise, So of course you have to go back and try precise and then they'll work, so be on the lookout for that now. Both platforms, of course, can collect personal information like your name, your email address, your phone number, also financial information, payment details, and with Google there's even a category for purchase history.

Not sure what that one's all about.

Now.

Health and fitness obviously a growing area. Many of us are using our phones to count steps, work out, even monitor sensitive health conditions that we may have. This, as you might expect, is a treasure trove of information. Apps can also scan through photos, videos, and even audio files if we give them the permission. You might have noticed with the latest version of iOS it asks you, hey, do you want to give access to all of your photos or just some of your photos?

Why?

Well, because it turns out that some apps we're sort of looking through pictures for information that might help them GPS data. Where you took these pictures, where you go very often the people in the pictures. Now, what you tap inside apps and how you use these apps.

Is also recorded.

So every tap that you make inside an app, a developer can see where did you navigate to, what did you tap on first, what did you tap on second? All this information is collected and potentially up for grabs also the device identifiers, So what kind of phone are you using, what size screen are you using, what your phone is yours, what type of platform are you on?

But that's an interesting one.

Now.

On Android, any old app used to be able to see a list of other apps that you had installed on your phone, but now they've limited this again. These two platforms have gotten much more strict with these permissions because they've realized they've been abused over the years. Apple does not allow apps to look at your list of other apps. That's pretty nice. Apple sandboxes things, which means apps really can't see.

What other apps are doing.

Both platforms, of course, have a category for contacts, which allow an app to see even personal details like how often you contact someone, how long you talk to them for, and your call history. So yes, your app could no particular people that you call and how long you call them for. They also have a course calendar access that could be useful for travel journaling and health apps.

But you could see how this could be abused.

Apple's policy has some interesting new categories due to products like the Vision Pro. This includes environment scanning. So I realized this when I was using the Vision Pro that wait a second, this thing could see all around me. It can see my entire image of my house or wherever I'm using this. So environment scanning collects image detection of the user's surroundings along with head and hand movement. Think about that for a bit. All this sounds pretty scary,

Now.

Apps want to know about us as much as possible because the more they know, the more they can target us with better marketing or of course monetize this data. A lot of these apps share this data with third parties. They sell this data. So why do you think an app wants to get really popular, Because hey, we've got information on one hundred million people.

That is very valuable information.

And by the way, these people that are buying this information, they're mixing it with other databases so they can get a really good picture of who you are. So ideally an app can collect our information to run properly, but it would not sell this information to someone else, or it wouldn't share that information to someone else. So again, check those App store listings. Both Apple and Google have some information about this on the App store listings. That's

Uh.

In a moment, I'll tell you about the new website that helps you find the fastest internet in your area based on real life speed test data. But first let's go to Shelley in Seal Beach. Shelley, you're on with Rich.

Hi.

Thank you for taking my call.

Rich.

Yeah, I am an Apple use all my all my devices are Apple compatible. I have been using an iMac since they came out. The one that I have now is twenty sixteen. I do keep them on the software updated. However, the hardware is complaining. Now I need to get another computer just because I need the hardware, and I decided I want to get a laptop. I do not know what laptop would be recommended. Also, I need a recommendation for a printer that would be compatible with the laptop

Yeah? I think so.

You want a laptop to replace the iMac, So you want to stick with Apple.

I take it right correct.

All my devices our Apple, so they all think everything sync. I want to keep it that way.

What are you doing on the computer. Do you need to use it for a home.

I use well, I use the Microsoft that is compatible with AMPLE. I also use pages and.

Any video editing.

Video editor. No, I don't use. I don't use video editing. The videos that I use I take on my iPhone and then you're transferred to the computer, okay, and then I keep I keep the external hot drive along with it, so if anything happens, everything is in the cloud.

Well, it sounds like a MacBook Air is probably what you need. And they just yeah, they just came out with new ones a fifteen inch and a thirteen inch, So.

I personally how much how many inches?

Thirteen in thirteen and fifteen, So I personally would go with the fifteen inch because I have a thirteen inch laptop and I really can't deal with it. It's the screen is just way too small. And now here's the thing. Are you moving this laptop from your house ever? Are you taking it on the go, like outside or like travel?

Reasons that I want the lamp, I like, the desktop is just comfortable to use, and I've been using it since for one hundred years. However, we need to go someplace or I need service on it, I cannot. I cannot move it. So I do want the laptop because it is portable.

Well here's the thing. Okay, so you're gonna pay a premium because of the laptop. You're gonna get less ports on it, you're gonna get less specs, You're gonna get just less for your money because it is portable. So I would say, if you don't need that portability, then go with another iMac. But I think you're in luck because this this MacBook Air just came out with the new chip.

It's the M three chip.

And you're telling me your last computer lasted eight years. So that tells me that if you get even the base model of this computer, which you know is about you know, let's say it's twelve hundred dollars, let me look how much it is exactly. But I'm book MacBook Air fifteen, So i'd say the MacBook Air fifteen starts at twelve ninety nine. Are you in education or anything like that? Do you get any sort of discounts?

Oh?

So perfect, she'll get a little discount. Don't forget to shop at the Apple Education store. But basic specs on this are, you know, for twelve ninety nine, you get eight gigs of memory and two fifty six gig hard drive. Now, Apple likes to play a little bit of games with their with the lowest end because it has a good price that's advertised at twelve ninety nine. Personally, I think everything gets better when you go one step up with

That's sixteen gigbytes, sixteen sixteen bit memory.

Sixteen gigs of memory yep, and then five hundred and twelve gigabytes of hard drive. I think that's what undred and five, yeah, twelve, five hundred and.

Twelve, five hundred and twelve.

And then sixteen gigs of memory.

Now that's what five hundred and twelve.

That's the M three chip, which is going to give you, Uh, that's their latest chip. This is the same laptop that I'm about to purchase. So I think that's a great Now, that's one way of doing it. The other way to do it is if you don't want to spend that much. If you don't spend feel like spending fifteen hundred dollars, there is a new Mac or a new computer for sale at Walmart for six ninety nine. Now, that is going to be a computer that's a couple of years old,

You know.

That's you know, two hundred dollars a year. So I think that's a great way to go for it. Now, for the printer, I would just go with a lazy Jet from HP. I would check Wirecutter for that, see what their latest recommendation is.

But I'm pretty sure that.

HP is pretty much the game in town when it comes to the color laser printers. So and they most of them have that, you know that little thing you want to the feeder on the top. So, Shelley and Seal Beach, thanks so much for the call today. Appreciate it. Good luck with the new laptop, and I think you're gonna like it a lot. Let me tell you about this before we go to break. Here there's a new speed test performance directory directory from Oukla. They're known for

The lower the number, the better.

You might even discover a provider in your area that you weren't aware of, So the website speed test dot net slash performance check it out. I'll link it up on the website rich on Tech dot tv. Coming up, we'll talk TikTok and a potential ban on the rich On Tech Show. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You can find me

Professor. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much.

It's my pleasure to be here.

So let's talk about TikTok. This has been the topic du jour here for a while. We heard this, I mean I remember covering this a couple of years ago, like I think it was during the pandemic, or right before the pandemic, there was a big to do about banning.

This didn't happen. What's different this time around?

Yeah, I think, you know, it's a good question. I think there's a lot of things that are different. I think from our last election. You know, we had a fair election in the United States, but it was it was brought up by the intelligence community that there was definite interference from China and Russia, and that interference really came in the way of using social media, which both of those countries are very good at being propagandists in

So we've got the app collecting data on you know, millions of American users, and it's collecting the same data that you know, many other apps like Instagram and Facebook and obviously these other apps on the same platforms are collecting. But what's different about TikTok. What are they doing differently as an app? Is it the fear of the connection to China.

Well, I think, yeah, I agree with you. I think that's part of it.

I mean, if you look at Chinese national intelligence law, specifically, I recommend Article seven ten and Article fourteen. It makes it very clear that all private sector companies must work with the intelligence services. There are no warrants for acquired it's a phone call or it's an automatic you will share your database with us. And again in you know, you like to think that, you know, the Internet is a democratizing force and you know really shouldn't be used

So when I upload a video to talk, it's scanning my voice to understand to make a fingerprint of my voice.

You're absolutely correct, that's exactly what's happening. They're also scanning your face and even your retina, So theoretically you could be anywhere in the world if the Chinese are eaves dropping through their surveillance system, they will pick up your voice print identification.

Is that documented? Is that? Like, where's that coming from?

Oh, that's the way they do business.

Yeah, I mean, that's all part of the surveillance society. And we know what's happening because they're doing They've already done it with their own people.

We know what's occurring.

Their social credit system is the basis of it.

Now, here's what's interesting because I you know, you know, it's it's one of these things where a lot of people have made a living on TikTok, a lot of you know, there's been a lot of stars born out of TikTok. I mean there's you know, Justin Bieber, I mean, didn't he come from TikTok? I mean so many of these YouTube Pubo said, well, you know what I mean. But there's a lot of people that, you know, come from this. So obviously there is a lot at stake here.

It was a pain.

So and you probably used a VPN and even the use of VPNs. Now they're they're starting to block those. You're correct, and the fact is that you know, our social media sites are not allowed in China, and as an American traveling in China, as you say, to attempt to connect to your social media even through a virtual private network is difficulty. Beginning to corrupt that system as well. So they're not playing fair. They're incredibly hypocritical in the

What does this mean for other Chinese based apps? If you look at the top ten list of apps, I mean, Timu is a huge app.

It's growing.

It had a Super Bowl ad and you know, I get a lot of questions from people saying, hey, Rich, is this safe for me to shop on? You know, you get a thing that maybe ten dollars on Amazon, it's thirty nine cents on Timu, So yeah, you're right.

Is that next?

Well, Timo is very interesting, isn't it, because you know, it's the fastest growing app of its kind through like Google Play or Apple Store. But if you look at it, it's kind of fundamentally on the based on the social credit system because in addition to the low prices that you talked about, Rich, it also gives freestuff to people who promote their app. So the more you use it and the more you disseminate that app to your friends,

So if this ban goes through.

If this passes the Senate and goes to the President, president signs it, they've got to do either divest this this company to an American company, or just goes away like uh TikTok is saying, that's probably what's going to happen. Does this have bigger implications for the US's relationship with China?

Well, I think that any policy decision that that the United States makes that uh, you know, places China at a perceived or real disadvantage, will have some type of consequences to it. Look, I mean, as I say, the Chinese system is not a capitalist system. They don't have free and open elections. They you know, they don't have a free judiciary or an independent judiciary system. So you know, again you're getting a communist dictatorship. Basically, are they going

All right, we're going to leave it there. Doctor Scott J.

White, Associate Professor and Director of the George Washington University Cybersecurity Program and Cyber Academy. You want to make a prediction is this going to happen?

You think it's going to be very interesting.

I always said, you know, which is the political party that's going to make that many young people upset? I think the Senate is going to hold it. I don't think it's going to make it through the Senate in a quick amount of time. So even if it does, it may be the next election before we see that happening.

Wow.

Well, it certainly has a lot of people talking about it and a lot of people wondering if something like this can happen. But again, like I said, I think it was three or four years ago that we were talking about this same exact thing, and it seemed like it was imminent, so we'll continue to watch it. Doctor Scott J. White, how can folks learn more about your cybersecurity program?

Going to our website at the George Washington University College or professional Studies. All right, we'll be happy to answer any questions about the program.

Thanks so much for the insight, really interesting conversation. Eighty to eight rich one oh one eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, We'll take more of your calls and I'll tell you about the Roku data breach. What you need to know. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Tomuro talking technology with you at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Bobo's playing a little Beatles today.

Hi. Rich.

I love your program. Thank you for all the great advice that you've given other than to me. But I had a question about So I'm fifty four, I work at home. I do contracting work, compute a lot of computer work, and I have of a business computer from my employer, but I want to buy my own personal computer because I do some side work from there. And I am wondering about the difference between what they call

Well, you call the right place, because I will explain.

So it's funny, I just when you're talking, I realize that we used to have sort of a third form factor, Like right now everything is pretty much a tower, but there used to be that like sort of flat desktop, remember where you put the monitor, like.

That giant monitor on top of that. But now most of are are.

Either like a mini desktop, like a mini tower, or I guess they sometimes they can go either way. They can go flat on their side, or they can go up and down, or you have those giant tower PCs. And of course, if you know any gamers in your life, they're the ones that always have the giant tower PCs. And the reason for that is mostly power and expandability.

So if you have a.

Big giant PC that has you know, a lot of storage and space inside, you can add the peripherals that you want, you can add the cooling that you want, you can add more hard drives, you can add more graphics cards, whatever you need to put in there. You can pop this thing open and put those things in,

Not really.

I am doing mostly working on a on a web software or input information for a contractor that I work for, and also from home, it's just typing documents, opening PDF documents and reviewing items. So it's not it's not I don't think I need heavy processing power for that portion, although I will use it also to watch to stream movies from Netflix and things, you know, in my off time.

Well okay, so but All the things you're talking about are not You're not adding like a graphics card. You're not adding like external a lot of different peripherals to this thing. Like you're not going to be adding extra fans or anything like that.

No, No, I don't intend to see.

Okay, So I think you'll be fine with a with you know, a smaller computer. I think the main thing for everything that you're talking about, you want to get good specs. And we were talking about this a little bit earlier. You know, the specs that I think or the baseline at this point for computers is you know, sixteen gigabytes of memory, if not more, especially on a on a desktop, you can do that for cheaper than a laptop. You know, a nice size hard drive, you know,

Costco.

If you have a membership there, they generally have a pretty good system and it's usually one or two, but it's a it's a it's a very It's like you get a little bit more for your money there than you would get anywhere else.

But I would look around. I don't think if.

You're not building your own computer, you know, you don't need all these uh this, these extras because if you're not expanding it down the line, the stuff that you're talking about is pretty much just basic computer work where you're you're working on documents, you're watching movies, you're streaming. But you do want decent specs for that stuff. So also, you know, check out the process or that you're getting.

I think is the best way to do that, and I think you'll be fine. You know.

The thing is with a lot of these computers, like the dream goal of companies is to have what's called like you know, almost like a dummy PC, where like the PC is actually not doing anything, like there's almost no process power whatsoever except just to run the Internet, and then everything is taken from the cloud. And so that's been kind of the dream of companies because it's much easier to manage things in the cloud than it is on a local system that needs to be updated

And so what did they do.

They got into these Roku accounts and they immediately purchased stuff. They tried to subscribe to things, which I think is really weird. So you're this is your goal as a as a you know, online cyber criminal. You're trying to subscribe to HBO Max on someone else's credit card. Like really, okay, I mean, good for you, but it's kind of weird.

Let's go to uh. Let's see Wayne in your Belinda. Wayne, you're on with rich Hi.

Rich, thank you for your show.

First of all, hey, thanks for listening.

Yeah, I got the I fall ten and the eleven they both sixty four gigabye. So I do have a sumto and I don't know how to tangle or empty the stories.

Ah, okay, well it's a little tricky on the iPhone. You have to have you plugged the what kind of what kind of connector do you have on your iPhone.

I have the Lightning Yes, oh you do?

You have the newest one. Okay, so you've got the Lightning and then what kind of thumb drive do you have? Is it lightning?

Yeah?

Yeah?

They both like yes, okay.

So you plug it in and nothing happens. You open up the files app and what happens?

Uh? They have me downloaded the apps, which it's I bought my amzone way back.

And what app do they have download? Is it sand disk?

No, it's not stand up brand, I think? Okay, so they're swing into no external I'm the USB back at forth. Kind of confused me. So there's the reason I call you. And also possibly next maybe I need to operate to find a larger storage. Bigger storage and battery life. The battery life, there's really I also have the iPhone thirteen a life.

Well okay, so just to look at the battery life real quick. You can go into Settings battery and check your battery health and see if that's okay, if it's you know, if it's giving you trouble that it'll tell you if the battery health is normal or not, and if you're having issues with the battery life, which by the way the iPhone has pretty incredible battery life. I would check and see what is running down your battery.

That's going to take you forever. That's not going to be very easy.

So the programs that I recommend the sand disc I expand they have their own little app that will help take pictures from your phone and put them off to the drive. Pn Y also has that. So otherwise, if you're if their app is not working that they gave you, you're kind of out of look because you're you're at the mercy of that app. So I would make sure you gave the appropriate permissions to that app so that it can look through these files and it can look

Hey, how you doing.

I'm doing fantastic.

I have never downloaded TikTok. But my question is is this if it was created because I had an inkling that they had created it the well, the purpose of spying in the first place, But once it's on your phone, and of course there's going to if I had created it, I would create an algorithm where it would root itself into the operating system of the phone. And even if you remove the app, the phone is still infected. And if you get another phone and synk the new phone to it, it's also infected.

Well, that is a valid concern I know, and a lot of people travel to China, people do have a legitimate concern of the phone or device that they're using. If you're connecting it to a network over there, you

On Android it is a little bit different.

It can't access a lot more, although that's getting more sandboxed as well, And so I do think these are valid concerns. But I guess the bottom line is, you know, if you downloaded TikTok at some point to your phone, is your phone infected? Is it ruined forever? I don't think so. I don't think that the app is that nefarious as it is today, you know, as it stands. But I will say that if there are people that are deleting TikTok off their phone or getting rid of it,

Remember these are two different things.

When you delete an app on your phone that does not delete your account, you still have to go in and delete your account. So you would have to open up the TikTok keep calling it tiptop TikTok app. Go into the menu and settings in privacy under account there is a deactivate or delete account, so you can deactivate or delete the account. Robert, I do think it is you know, there are valid concerns here, and I think so much of this stuff that's happening around TikTok, there

No, no, no, you can't do that. It has to be a decibel monitor.

The updated policy takes effect on April thirtieth of this year, so I think that's you know, I know, I understand the need to monitor your place and keep it secure, and video door bells and things like that are still fine, and external cameras are still fine, but it's like it's really it became this thing where like everyone that's staying at an Airbnb is wondering if there's a hidden camera in there, and that's concerning, and you definitely don't want to be I don't know, it's just you want to

Hey, Rich, I'm a Christian.

Was listening at the very beginning of your show with the TikTok controversy.

Sure, what makes you think that Instagram.

And Facebook and the other.

Social media apps they all sell our data to third parties? What makes anybody think that China doesn't buy them from third parties?

And they probably do, and like everyone does, and so I think that that is a valid concern, and that's kind of why I went through the beginning of the show to explain that, like, all these apps are collecting very similar data, but the difference I think with China number one, they've got it directly. And again it's a country that you know, we're frontemies with and so that's part of it. But also it's the compliance issue too.

I'm sure there's a lot of money being exchanged.

But American companies are doing the same thing to us, where you know, when you walk into a grocery store, they know who you are, they know what you're buying, they know what you watched on TV, they know what you served on your phone, and they're mixing all those things together to come up with a pretty good idea of if you're going to walk into that store and buy kitty litter or if you're going to buy diapers.

And yeah, a real quick second question, why wasn't there big up for when when my granddaughter and grandson we're walking around with.

Pokemon about fifteen years ago, which was totally a Chinese government.

Uh, Pokemon the game, the one that everyone's walking that is they actually licensed that. That's actually a US company. That's Niantic, which is spun out of Google. So that is as far as I know, that's completely Niantic is is.

Yeah, that was spun out of Google.

So now the interesting thing about Niantic is actually what their mission was and why they came up with these these things. And if you look at what Niantic's done over the years, everything has to do with AR and mapping. Their whole mo was collecting data about the US. They were by people walking around. They were getting real life and they still are real life information and live information about the world around them, which could all be monetized.

Welcome to the show. Cashmere.

The headline this week automakers are sharing consumers driving behavior with insurance companies. So explain how our cars are spying on us?

Yeah, So, cars today are essentially computers on wheels. You know, they are usually Internet connected if you've turned on connected services, and they have all kinds of sensors and cameras in them, and so they can collect a lot of information about you.

Might make your ray go off.

So okay, So there's a lot to unpack here because there is so First off, the connected cars. So I was at a data conference years ago and they had a bunch of reps from different car companies, and one of the car makers said to me when I asked, I said, you know, because why is this company at a data conference, right? And they said, oh, the amount of data that we collect from your car is people

Yeah.

I mean so a lot of the car companies have in the last couple of years put a service center app that's called driver Scoring or driver Feedback, and in the case of General Motors it's called Smart Driver, and it's a way for you to to to basically like hear whether you're a good driver or not, and it'll tell you, you know, be gentler on the brakes or you know, uh, don't don't be so rough on your accelerator.

Like it's like a report card for how you drive exactly.

And with General Motors they made it really fun, like you could get digital badges like break.

Genius and speed Limit Hero.

But what was in the fine print with some automakers like Honda in Kia, but not so much with General Motors, is that once you turn this feature on, your data was actually going to either Lexus Nexus Risk Solution or another another data broker called Barrisk, and they in many cases were the one that were giving you the score. They were like running the program, but to you it just looked like your automaker was doing it.

So it's like a credit report for your driving, for your.

Yeah, it's exactly.

And and in the case of General Motors, some people said they didn't even turn on Smart Driver, they didn't enroll it if they don't understand how they were enrolled in it, like it may have happened at the dealership, you know, when you're going through all that paperwork and the you're signing lots of things that maybe it got turned on then.

But once it was turned on, these data brokers were getting your data. And then insurance companies go to these data brokers, like when you're.

Trying to get quotes for auto insurance or renewing your policy. These are who the intern companies go to to figure out, you know, how they should should price your policy.

Oh wow, And so they get this information and they notice that you're a heartbreaker or a speeder, and then all of a sudden, your insurance price goes up.

Yeah.

I mean that's the way I discovered this story is that I decided this year I really want to look into what it means that cars are connected now and that are so much data is kind of leaving our cars.

And so I was hanging out in car forums online. It's a there's a lot of people talking about their car.

Online, and I was seeing these reports from people who drove like Chevrolet Bolts and Camaros and Corvettes that their insurance was going up by like twenty percent, fifty percent, sometimes doubled. And when they'd asked the insurance agent why, the agent would say, it's your Lexus Nexus report. You should go pull it and so you can request this under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

And when they would get the report from Lexus Nexus, it would have hundreds of pages of every trip they had taken in their car over the last six months. And they were just astounded. They had no idea that that was there. And when they looked at who shared it, it was General Motors.

That is so wild.

The interesting thing here to me is that we've seen ads on TV for these insurance company programs where you would install something in your car or use your phone as kind of a intermediary where it monitors you're driving to give you a better rate on your insurance. Right like if you only drive a certain amount or if

Yeah, that's those kind of insurance programs.

It's called usage based insurance, and those have been around for at least a decade now.

And you do it very knowingly.

You know, you'd get a dongle and you plug it into your car, or you download a smartphone app and usually, yeah, you get a discount on your premium. And the thing is that I talked to this one professor for the story and he was very in favor of usage based insurance. He said, when people sign up for these programs, the impact on safety is enormous. People who know they are monitored are better drivers.

Yeah, that makes sense, But.

The problem with what General Motors and these other automakers are doing is that the people didn't realize that they were being monitored and how they drove was going to impact their insurance. So you don't get that that kind of benefit to public safety.

You just have these people getting charged more.

I mean in one way, you're getting the real life picture of how these people drive, and it makes sense that they would have to pay more if they're an aggressive driver. But on the flip side, if people do truly mine their manners when they are knowing they're being monitored, then that's better for everyone because of the safety aspect.

Yeah, and then there's this other question of how reliable is this data that's kind of being siphoned from our car? The drivers I talk to and everybody overestimates how good a driver they are. So the people I talked to said, hey, I'm a safe driver. You know, I am not overly aggressive. I have not been in an accident, like you know, I do speed sometimes, I mean who honestly, who doesn't.

You know?

I do break sometimes. I have fun if I'm alone on the road.

But they said, you know, generally that they weren't aggressive drivers, and they were. They were upset that they're their insurance rates were going up when it wasn't based on, you know, that they'd gotten an accent or done something that really should justify the insurance going up.

What were the car company's response to your questions? What did GM say about this?

So?

GM said that people consent to this program, that they felt that they were doing this with the full awareness of drivers.

And you know, I said, you're not.

You know, I'm talking to these drivers who didn't know this was happening, some drivers who didn't even enroll in Smart Driver. And what they said is that people opt in three times. The first time is when they enroll in on Star, which is the Connected services suite for GM cars, said, the second time is when they turned on Smart Driver, which they did either in the app or at the at the dealership. And the third time is when what I was talking about earlier, when they're

And I said, where is this disclosed to people?

And the spokeswoman pointed to the privacy policy for on Start. Yeah, everyononder and then I she says, it's under third parties data.

We share a third party.

So I go read that and it's like, yeah, sometimes GM has has, you know, deals with third parties like Serious XM. You know they're in your car and they're going to get data for your car. And it didn't say anything about Lexus Nexus or Varus or how this is going to go to insurance company. So there was a class action lawsuit filed this week. I suspect the Federal Trade Commission is investigating. I do think there's going to be consequences for how they are running this program.

Okay, real quick, I've got about thirty seconds. What do you think someone does to check if they're in one of these things?

Or what should they do.

Yeah, So check your app if you have a connected car app, see if this thing is turned on, and go to Lexus Nexus, go to Varis. You can actually request your consumer file and you should definitely do that.

And CEEFA is you're driving data leaking out there?

All right, Cashmere Hill, technology reporter for the New York Times. I'll link up the article on the website rich on tech dot tv. In the show notes, thanks so much for joining me today. Appreciate it.

Oh my pleasure.

All right, eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.

Give me a call if you have a question about technology.

Coming up next, I'll tell you about the new social media scam where people are losing a lot of money. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. This is the tech show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about.

Rich another one in Michigan.

Yeah, we must have a good station there.

Nine times there we go.

Thanks, thanks for listening there.

It's a very it's a good station. And I came across you a little while ago. I gotta tell you, I really enjoyed the show. It's very informative. You explained things very simply, and it makes me take on more tasks than I think I was available to do.

Well, keep talking, Mike, I appreciate it. Just keep going. We have another hour, so I'll let you take the floor.

Kidding, I'll tell you this. I went on your website and the notes that you take from every uh all of your shows are real helpful. Because I was actually going back. I was able to go back to a couple of things that you talked about, and I've been able to use those to my business.

So perfect.

Really, it's it's a great it's a very uh useful.

Show.

Is that is the goal.

The entire goal is to be helpful, and I'm so glad that you are figuring that out and other people as well.

So what can I help you with today?

Well, I am a newbie technology wise, and my sister has an old Galaxy G seven G. She uses it as a phone and also through our business for she takes a lot of photographs and videos. We own a jewelry store, a jewelry store, okay, and we're always putting pictures off and she's always taking several photos, doctoring them so we can put them up on Facebook and so forth. The phone's got to be five six years old. There's

Oh wow, and only has sixteen gigs total. Yeah. Oh, so you're always running up against the clock there.

Yeah. So what I did is I pulled everything off the phone that I could that were but videos or or photos. I put them on the SD card on it or pulled them off the phone. I went through and cleared the cash on every one of the apps in there, some of them that I knew of. I was able to either uninstall or clear the data on them, or just do a four stop. And right now.

What I'm planning on doing is removing the context apps and then sending the phone back to factory spects, because I was told that maybe when she jammed all those photos and stuff in memory, it might just be constantly filled and it won't be able to clear that through the cash.

What would you suggest, Well.

In the in the long in the longer term, I'd suggest you probably got to get a phone with more memory. In the short term, does this take a memory card?

Do you know?

It has an SD card? But nothing can go on it. It's all, you know, nothing transfers over, it's all stuck in the internal.

Okay, well there there should be.

Gosh, it's been a while since I used a phone with a with a with an SD card. But you should be able to set the default on the camera to where it saves to save to the.

That is on that photos and videos go to the s Okay.

Okay, so photos and videos go to the SD card, right the other stuff stays on the internals. In that case, I mean the with the system memory taking or the system settings taking up fifteen gigs on a sixteen gigabyte phone.

That's wild. And I'm looking here.

So if you go into settings and then you go into whereas it here, I just had it settings device Care and then it says storage, that'll give you, you know, if you're using an Android phone is specifically Samsung Settings and then device care and then storage. That will give you an idea of what is taking up your storage. So these Samsungs do a really good job of this. I think on iPhone it's a little bit trickier because they try to, you know, make this stuff a little

The other thing you do.

Google makes a great app called the Files by Google App, and so I would download that on this device and use that before you format it just kind of see you can clean up your phone. They've got a lot of different things on there to help you clean up your phone. And that is made directly by Google. It's called Files by Google. And the way you can tell it's the official one, look at the publisher.

It should say.

Google LLC when you look it up in the Google Play Store. Because there's a lot of cleaner apps, there's a lot of helper apps, but you want to get the one that is directly by Google. Mike, thanks so much for the kind words there in Royal Oak, Michigan. Appreciate it and hopefully you can get that sorted out eight to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Find me

Coming up next, well.

Come to another hour of rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at eight and eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. I'm talking about the newsletter a lot. You can subscribe just search on Google rich on Tech Newsletter because number one, I love it.

Know, all these social media company are great.

You know, I've got Facebook, I've got Instagram, I've got Twitter, but it's very discombobulated, and I feel like when I sit down and just create that newsletter every week, it's all of like the main things I think you should know, kind of like this show. Isn't that what I say? This is the tech stuff I think you should know about.

Line four. Tom is in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Did I say that right that? I had to look it up.

I I have seen this name a million times and I didn't know how to pronounce it.

That's French. Clear Water there we go?

Is there clear water? There? There is very nice? Well, what can I help you with?

So?

I've got an old motor role with DROI turbo.

Oh, one of my favorite you know. I okay, sorry I interrupted you on.

That as hands down on the best I ever used.

I switched to Android from an iPhone because of the artist helt me think about this. I'm trying to remember. That was the first phone that had turn by turn GPS navigation through Google Maps, and so I went out.

I waited in line to buy that phone. Anyway, keep going, phenomenal phone.

And it took a beating, but anyways I got. I got a Doge wallet on there, like the old Doge wallet, like before Dolage was anything. It's got about a half or five hundred thousand Dolge in it. But I've got a pattern lock on it. And I don't want to get into the reason why I would put a pattern lock on it.

Well back in the day that we did, that's what we did. We put pattern locks.

So you're talking five hundred thousand doze coins is at fourteen cents about seventy thousand bucks.

Does that sound about right someplace in there?

Ye?

Oh my gosh. And big cod Crypto in general has been just on fire recently.

So last month it's just it's just breathed.

I mean, you're talking one month for dose up sixty six percent, one year, ninety seven percent up. Now we're talking fourteen cents for a coin. But still this is if you've got so many.

Of them for all of it.

Oh my gosh, okay, so wait, this phone is locked and you can't access this.

I can't access I forgot the pattern.

I forgot the pattern. And it's the old dodwallet that you'd never registered. So there's no name on it, there's no email addressed to it.

Oh my gosh. Okay, so uh, let's see. So this is a droid turbo, so there is there, there may be, and there may be.

One way that you can do this.

So number one, if have you tried a bunch of different patterns and does it lock you out after a certain point?

Yeah, and it.

Gets and I haven't. So the last time I did it, I got to the pattern number nine where so it was going to factory reset next and I haven't tried unlock it now in like six months. Okay, there is a safe start mode on it, but I can't get it to go into it. But even if I could, I don't even know if that safe start has you know, if I'm able to act as the map or the app.

No, the safe start well, yeah, a safe yeah, but you'd still need to unlock the phone.

It doesn't just go into it. You'd still have to unlock it.

And that's yeah, but I can't get it to go into that anyway.

Right, and then the other things are obviously to you know, all the other solutions would be to just format it to get it, you know, you know, back to factory, but that would ruin this, uh situation. So the only thing is that I'm just looking up some information here. So back in the day, Google used to let you reset your pattern with certain versions of Android, so version four point four and older. Now, this is the motoroladroid, you said, and according to.

That on there.

Yeah, and I know Deak what you're talking about. But the problem is my Google account doesn't recognize that bone.

Your Google account.

So when you try so, so you've gotten the message where it says forgot uh and log and recover with Google account and it won't let you recover.

Yep, oh gosh, it's.

Not It's not listed on my account anymore. Is that being an active?

Okay, Well, here's what you have to do.

You've got to go on chat ebt and you've got to say, I've got a pattern I need to unlock on this phone. Give me the top most popular patterns, the first uh, the first one hundred most popular patterns, and you have to try five of those a day.

This is your job.

This is your full time job, because once you get to nine, it's gonna say, you know, we got to reset this phone.

But you have you have to really did you set up this phone?

I did? I did, and you know what I I never so I actually never put a never put a lock on any of my phones ever.

But you did for this one because you had the doze on it. You wanted to secure it.

No, that's actually and that's not might even put the lock on there. I actually had opened up my house to some unfortunate people. Will leave it at that, and uh, like they were, they started stealing some of my stuff, so I threw a lock on it. Oh well, you know while I was waiting to get them out of the house. And then in between that, I bought a new phone, and I just never never thought about it until you know, doats took off. I knew that doage

Well, here's the thing.

So I'm kind of joking about the chat GPT stuff, but I do think you need to try a couple of patterns that you think might be it. Because I'm looking at this little icon on the website, and I'm looking at the pattern screen, which was very prominent and Android for a very long time, and I can remember like some of the patterns that I used to use, Like when I visualize it, I'm like, oh yeah, I

So make sure you have a camera recording yourself.

But you know, I know there's gotta there's gotta be a way because I mean, I know, like like the government or the police department or the FBI, they have to have a way to bypass.

Well there, okay, so there is a there is a device. Oh my gosh, I'm trying to remember what it's called. The gray uh said gray scale. Oh my gosh, hold on, it's a device that they use to unlock phones. Hold on, so yes, there is something. Uh, oh my gosh, they used it. Uh gosh, I gotta remember what the name is. It's not coming to me, but it's something gray. It's like either gray lock or gray great device to unlocked phones.

I don't.

I don't know if that's how it works, but uh, look up great key, try the coach. But I feel for you, and in having this on the show, maybe someone by you know, will email me and be like, rich, this is how you do it, and I will pass it on to you. So Tom, good luck with this with this And I feel for you, but I mean you had good taste in phones.

One of the best cameras I've ever used.

Thanks for the call today.

I appreciate it, and please keep us updated because that's that's one of the wildest things I've heard. But the takeaway when you set up an account, and I know that Tom mentioned that there is no sort of way to save this, but there are things called covery keys, and especially if you're setting up crypto. Here's what we all do, and I've been guilty of this. You set something up really fast and you just flow, you fly through all those screens that are like, hey, do you

But when you see.

Something that says do you want to you know, especially when you set up like two factor authentication or a password. You know, password resets are pretty easy to do, but some of these accounts have a little bit stronger protection, especially when you set up that two factor authentication, and the only way to get access to that account if you forget your two factor, or you lose that device, or you somehow lose access to that code is something.

Called a recovery code.

So if you ever get if you ever presented a recovery code, sometimes it'll even give you like a PDF print out. It's like, print this out, keep it in a safe place. That is the only way you'll be able to get back into your accounts. Eighty eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you about this social media investment scam. I'll tell you how Google Chrome is stepping up security. And we're going to talk

I don't know. They were both nice.

But you know when people say that they like this show, the funny thing is this show there's nothing to it. It's me doing the tech show that I want to listen to. I just want to listen to the tech news of the week, the interesting stuff to know what I missed. I want to hear, you know, the common issues people are having so I can avoid them, or when I run into that, I can understand it. And I just you know, it's just smart and interesting and that's it. And then have guests that like I learned

Gary. You're on with Rich.

Hi, Rich, how are you doing?

I am doing fantastic. What can I help you?

As I have a Windows ten machine and there's about eighteen three hundred emails on there, and there's about six people that have sent me some like legal documents and that I need to move out of there and put them into a folder or a file or something and then erase the rest of them. And I was wondering how I would go about doing that without trying to

Are you using Outlook? How what's the email program? Is it like a proprietary program?

The email is through Cox Cable?

Okay, so is it a web mail program then yeah, okay, So what I would do is I would get this.

So I don't know if Cox has.

The ability to sort by attachments, Like you basically need to do a search by anything that has an attachment. So for instance, on Gmail, if you go into the search bar, you click has attachment, then it will start to show you all the emails that has have an attachment. Now are these emails from a specific person?

They're from like six different people, and they're basically all lawyers and some title company people that I need to okay, keep those.

I mean, it's this is not very tough to do. It's just it could be a little time consuming, but it's it's pretty simple. So I would first off, go to the website, go to the webmail site and find, you know, get the six people's email addresses, put them in a little notepad document, and then what you want to do is you want to paste their email into the search bar. And so once you paste it in there, that should give you a list of all the emails that they've sent you. Now it could be hundreds, could

So that's one way.

That's the easiest way, that's going to be kind of like the most straightforward using the tools you already have. Now you can also use external tools. So for instance, you can get like a program that downloads all of these email attachments. And so there are some programs that will download all of these email attachments for you, and you may have to pay for them, but you know,

Okay.

Now, the one I'm looking at here is a free for personal use. It's completely free. So this is I'll put this in the list show notes. But it's called gear Mage Mail Attachment Downloader Free Edition, and you basically put in your email address and it will go in and it'll find all the attachments and it will download them. And it looks like there are filters as well, so you can put in the filters for the email addresses

Does that help?

And then and then also yes it did help. Also their cuts is changing over their email service. I guess to Yahoo. Okay, yeah, hopefully that I was going to get this done before they did it, because I know something's going to happen and lose everything.

Yeah, I would, I would switch it. I would if you can.

I always recommend that you use like a third party service, so if you can, since you're going to be switching this, you might want to just download all these email and then switch to something like a Gmail or an Outlook or something like that, because or you can do you know, you can go on a website and pay you know,

So when you click a URL on Google Chrome.

Instead of checking the site every half an hour, they're now checking it in real time. So they say this is going to block twenty five percent more phishing attempts.

Basically, if you're using Google Chrome, that's a good thing.

All right, Coming up, we're gonna talk why FI seven. What you need to know you're listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology website richon tech dot tv. You can find me on social media. You guessed it,

Thanks for having me.

Rich So your second time on the show, so welcome back. And how are things going there in Houston? So you were full time for many many years, you did a column you wrote, you had this like I'm sure very strict deadline for your column and now your freelance which is probably a little bit nicer.

So how are things going.

Things are going great. I'm still doing that same column. I left for about twenty minutes to work for Forbes and decided not I didn't want to do that, so I retired and I'm doing this weekly still. My editors would still tell you that I have a pretty strong deadline, and this particular piece on Wi Fi seven actually ran in Jared Newman's Advisorator newsletter. Oh okay, okay, I had done I had done a version of it for the Chronicle, but this one is much more detailed. It's a paid newsletter,

Yeah, Jared does a great job. He's been on the show. I think he's actually been on the show the most out of anyone. So let's talk about Wi Fi. So what is WiFi seven?

First off, so, Wi Fi seven is the next generation of the Wi Fi protocol. It's what most people who have Internet in their homes allows it to come to their devices wirelessly. It has been for the past several years. It's getting it has gotten much more robust, much faster. In the In the newsletter piece I wrote, I start out talking about Wi Fi five, and then six and then six e. And the important thing about Wi Fi six to six E is that Wi Fi six boosted

So you do think there will be a noticeable difference, because you know, I feel like we hear how Wi Fi just keeps getting better, and then people still have dead zones and you know dropouts.

Well, and it's you know, for those people who have dead zones and dropouts probably have not investigated some of the latest technologies. So, for example, mesh network routers such as Amazon's Eero or TPE links Deco set up pretty much eliminate dead spots when you set them up properly. In the case of in the case of Wi Fi seven, yes,

So that's good to hear.

So even if you just like if you have a smaller house like let's say like a thousand square feet or something like that, you may not need to get the mesh network to get two of those access points, which is kind of nice.

That'll save some money.

Yes, okay, so Wi Fi seven, So when you are doing your kind of investigation of this, what did you notice? Did you notice that this was better? Like, did you notice you get faster speeds and things, And do people need to rush out to upgrade to this or is it something to kind of be aware of.

At this point, I would say, you don't have to rush out to get Wi Fi seven right now unless you're in a particular unless you have a particular scenario, most people could get along just fine with Wi Fi six at the moment. Wi Fi six E is great if you have a lot of devices in your house and they support Wi Fi six y. This is always critical and and you have the need for a lot of speed, you know, for gamers and for people who do you know, multiple video streams at the same time.

More than one frequency, so it's almost like bonds those together almost.

Yes, and so but what also happens is if you get up and you move and you move into another room, it easily decides well, I think five would be better here than six, and so it'll switch you over at six and is much more intelligent about doing that. So it's a It makes the router a lot smarter. Another thing that helps with it is that it has the channels that your phone talks on in each of these In each of these frequencies, a channel is like a little section of the frequency that you get to use

Okay.

So it sounds like it's it's promising. But here's the thing. I feel like people are just hearing about Wi Fi six E and now we have Wi Fi seven. So do we, like, I mean, do we just skip Wi Fi sixy or you know what? What supports Wi Fi seven? Is there any device that even supports this, like a laptop or you know phone?

Yes?

Yes, The most recent Samsung Galaxy phones support it wo as well as the S twenty three support it. They'll support it with an update. The one plus twelve that just came out it supports Wi Fi seven. There are a handful of laptops, mostly gamer laptops that support it.

Okay, all right, Dwight, We're gonna leave it there. Dwight Silverman, tech columnists at the Houston Chronicle. What's the best way for folks to follow you these days?

Best place is probably on threads and that's thread dot threads dot net slash at d Silverman. If you just search for d Silverman on any social network, I'm there, except for X.

All right, excellent, Thanks so much for joining me today. Appreciate it, so thank you for having me. If you see Wi Fi seven, you know, it depends what you need, but it's something to know about for the future. All right, coming up, we're going to do the feedback segment and I'm going to tell you about this social media investment scam, plus some other things I still need to get to before the show ends, so we'll come right back. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Richon Tech.

Dot tv is the website you can find me online at rich on Tech. So there's this new social media investment scam. I don't think you're going to fall for it, but I want to tell you about it just so you're aware. So this pops up as it looks like ads on Facebook and other social media networks shows billionaire investors, investors like Bill Ackman, Kathy Woods, Steve Cohen, and the ads lure you into a WhatsApp group where you're encouraged

So be aware of this stuff.

And again, it's something that gets you money really fast. It's probably too good to be true. The Apple Sports app got its first update.

Remember this app.

This is Apple's very simple sports app. You pop in the teams that you like, and it tells you when they're playing, gives you scores, and a lot of people when it first came out last month were like, rich, where's basketball, Where's baseball?

Where's NFL?

And Apple said, look, we're going to add these sports as the season starts. So Baseball is now on there, March Madness is on there. And so if you haven't downloaded this Apple Sports app, it's just called Apple Sports. It's very simple, it's free if you have an iPhone. It's a nice way of kind of keeping track of your favorite teams, and it tells you when they're playing in the upcoming games and the past games, and there is betting information on it. You can't bet through the app,

This is the best part.

Forty six percent of teens say their parent is sometimes distracted by their phone during conversations. Yes, this has happened to all of us. You're at dinner, their watch gets a notification or their phone gets a notification, and that sly kind of look to the side while you're talking to someone.

Yeah, it's annoying.

It's annoying for teens that are trying to talk to their parents when they actually do take the time to talk to them.

Thirty eight percent of.

Teens say they spend too much time on their phone, and seventy percent of teens believe smartphones provide more benefits than harms their age group. Forty two percent say it makes it harder to learn good skills. Now, this is interesting. My wife was telling me yesterday she works with teenagers and the smartphone is the connector. And I know that sound strange, but when these teens that didn't know each

What are you on?

You on Instagram, you on TikTok, you on Snapchat, And that's how they keep up with each other. When I meet someone out and about, like someone at a conference or whatever, I will basically say, hey, what do you on Instagram? And I'll follow them on Instagram because guess what, I'm going to keep up with them, and I'm going to remember that I met them because I keep seeing their pictures pop up. This is the way things happen nowadays.

So I get it.

If you don't have a phone, you're kind of at a disadvantage. And finally, Krig is introducing compostable k cups.

So you know, k cups get a lot of.

Grief because they're convenient, but you throw out a lot of plastic and they're tough to recycle. So they have developed a new compostable coffee pod called the k Round. It's made from things that break down me throw them in the ground. The problem is they're only compatible with the new Kurrig Alta coffee maker.

I'm assuming Alta because of ground.

But the good news is this new coffee maker is backwards compatible with traditional ca cups.

So these are coming out later this year. They're going to test them.

I think this is a great thing because I always feel a little bit guilty when I'm using that CA cup, even though I love the CA cups. I mean, think about the first time you discovered the CA cup. The convenience of just popping this thing into a coffee maker and making fresh coffee. And you know, I go back and forth. On the weekends, I will brew a full, full pot with coffee ground grounds, and then during the week I will use the cake cups because they're convenient

How about Google Fi.

You can work for free in one hundred countries free for seven days.

Rich Such a great show, Jeff. All right, Jeff, I like that. All right. That music means that's going to do it for the end. Of the show.

If you can find links to everything I mentioned on the website, go to richon tech dot tv. For the show notes. Find me at rich on tech. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is rich Demiro. I'll talk to you real soon