The Computer Exorcist Podcast

Tonight on CEP! I realized I haven't published a Torment a Scammer episode in a while, so here you go! Foghorn Leghorn gets a call saying he won $2.5M and a (used?) Mercedes-AMG! The scammer said he was "American Cash Awards" then said he was Bank of America. Our next perpetrator is Nancy, whom I call "Mancy". She sent me an email from "@pple Support", which is of cours...

This morning on CEP! We plow through more "ketchup" articles. We give thanks for some treacherous ones that never came true: The NTSB wanted to implement breathalyzers in all new cars. It would add massive cost and complexity, blow false alarms, and of course those who want to get around it will find a way. NY State wanted to implement "intelllligent speeed assistance" in cars, in...

Tonight on CEP! Marc finds an article that explains the extreme disparity between backward, slow, reactionary government, and ultra-rapid Silicon Valley. Disaster will ensue. BMW's unpopular heated seat subscription service surfaces in South Korea. The delusional "recurring revenue" cult spreads to other automakers. What's going to save us? Laws that prohibit rentals? That would ju...

Today on CEP! We're coming at you from Cousin Joey's garage on the coast of Maine! We discuss: The 2022 prediction that electrification will make cars unattainable for the Average Joey. A real-world solution to BMW's unreal scheme to rent people features in their own cars. "Nothing controlled by software is safe." How Skynet is already here, it's just not run by the AI yet....

This morning on CEP! What is The Second-System Effect? Another scam arrives in the mail: DOMAIN LISTINGS is a scam organization that tells you your website is about to expire, then asks for $288 for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. More ways Amazon crushes its own sellers, and how incredibly ineffective Congress is to stop them. What's the only thing that can save us from them? The Light Bulb Conspiracy an...

This morning on CEP! I interview rising star YouTube gamer "Grand Captain Speedy Dash" (best gamer name ever) Yes, rather than watch TV shows, young people now watch each other play video games We discuss the upstart Amico console, inspired by Intellivision and Wii We then explain the DRM scandal and read excerpts from my forthcoming book! Any music, movies, or video games that are infecte...

This morning on CEP! We discuss the retirement of Microsoft's chronically insecure Internet Explorer, and what it was mainly used for. Volkswagen wants to set up EV battery recycling plants throughout Europe, and a comment from a techie that left us pleasantly surprised VW's 2026 ID.Buzz electric microbus takes a break - learn why I think they'll become collector's items! Microsoft...

Today on CEP! I interview longtime friend Pastor Domenic and we explore some profound topics: Are new scams truly new? Is all technology truly bad? Rather than throw our gizmos away, can we get them to those who need them? Where does our talent come from? Geofencing: You're controlled based on your location The European Union requiring cars to SLOW THEMSELVES DOWN according to the speed limit....

Tonight on CEP, it's Torment a Scammer! The first call is a Paypal-Bitcoin scammer, trying to convince me that someone hacked into my computer and that's how they got into my paypal account (not at all how it works, but most people believe it). Foghorn misinterprets his instructions and take him on a wild ride. One lady did the usual "russia, nigeria, and dayton ohio" line, and i g...

This morning on CEP! How Apple and Facebook themselves fell for a scam! Whenever ANYONE puts an ad on Facebook, immediately scammers try to scare you into thinking you've violated a copyright, and lure you into a trap How cell phone manufacturers are FINALLY designing phones to be a little more repairable - and what it took to get them there. If you want to save $ and care about the environmen...

This morning on CEP! Nepalese youth, sick of starving while their rulers flaunted their wealth, used social media to overthrow and rebuild their government. Chromebooks (those cheapie laptops your school district blew millions on) come with an expiration date. Surprise! If you keep using this past the date, you miiiight get viruses, or websites won't work anymore! At that point, they want you...

This morning on CEP! I start going through articles, and then a surprise special guest stops by. We catch up on some articles: Not only are VPNs unnecessary for normal consumers, but they introduce tons of side effects Hundreds of HP printer models feature a critical-severity vulnerability... on top of the sanctioned malice from HP itself. Senior communities add local tech support as one of their...

It's time to take a break from articles to have some fun! Most of y'all know the drill by now: We torment phone scammers and expose to you HOW they deceive, so you can WARN YOUR FRIENDS. A Paypal scammer tells me someone used my account to purchase cryptocurrency. He told me to connect to his "secure server", at which point he would jump into my computer and destroy it. They keep h...

Tonight on CEP! I dig up an old piece of fan mail from a guy who labels my book as "Unacceptable Misinformation" (yet hasn't read it)! He urges people to do updates, but is completely unaware of their downsides. I explain (yet again) how an update fixes one thing and breaks a few other things, slows your machine down massively, and can never, ever protect you against The New Threats, s...

Today we go over some evil tech schemes from 2022 and give thanks that most of them fell apart, as all evil things eventually do. Yuval Noah Harari warns the next generation that evil organizations could use biometrics to monitor our minds - for years I've called this the Soviet's greatest dream. In very related news, Microsoft tried to turn kids into QR codes that require daily validation...

Tonight on CEP! It's a New Year's Special Edition TaS Episode! Rather than the usual Foghorn Leghorn, I told all the scammers today I was Eddie Munster. Hilarity ensues, for us. I made the first (Medicare) scammer sigh right off the bat. The next one, a paypal impostor, says i can call him James. So i call him anything but. He tried telling me that "hack-kers from Michigan" took my...

Tonight on CEP! It's a year-end roundup of article headlines! WSJ decided to allow Claude AI to run its office vending machine. Chaos ensued. They must not have read the article where Claude's own creators had the same results. Accounting firms buying virtual office buildings in the Metaverse... a place where people grope each other. Robot vacuums receive update attacks that cause them to...

Tonight on CEP! My special guest is Rochester's own Warren Buff-It! No, he's not the Oracle of Omaha, but he details cars for the stars. We discuss: Some of us aren't cut out for corporate, and that's okay! Starting a small business, being free to be who you were meant to be, planting seeds, and leaving a legacy. Chasing dollars versus being your passion Preserving your reputation...

Tonight on CEP! Another Torment-a-Scammer Medley! One scammer noticed my number and hung up immediately. Another hung up when she heard Foghorn. I have a feeling they're on to me and have me flagged in the Secret Scammer Database. Apple impostor calls me up and says I have a problem with Apple Pay... It was a CLASSIC support scam where they told me to download "security softwares", whi...

Dr. Mike joins us for the ten thousand download celebration! The industry is realizing what Marc's been saying for years: Storing your passwords in your browser is an excellent way to hand them to bad guys. Microsoft was apparently nostalgic for Y2K: This week's Outlook flaw was a Y2K22 bug that couldn't handle emails dated 2022! MS Word spellchecker now attempts to make your writing m...

The fascinating insightful Kenley C. Vogt returns to finish up our discussion on computer history and why he wrote a book to teach kids the fundamentals of AI usage. How cable companies added up old analog channels to bring you a fast Internet connection Multiplexing: How fiber optic companies pass multiple signals through the same piece of glass Why PC salesmen are so arrogant (Like economics, th...

Tonight on CEP! The fascinating insightful Kenley C. Vogt joins us to talk tech ethics, computer history, and his career as a network engineer: How TV repair guys would deliberately fry tubes just to confirm their claim that you needed a new one. How TV salespeople would deliberately lower the focus on a TV, just to sell you a pricier model. How two 1952 IBM computers played checkers against each...

Today we continue our new format of blazin' through articles. For each news flash, I give my insightful commentary: "New World" is a fake online world people use to escape their depressing lives. It's being overrun by AI bots, so people in third-world countries are finding it harder to make a living on it. Tesla is the first foreign automaker in China that didn't have to partne...

Tonight on CEP, we torment more scammers! First one was a "card accident" scammer. i told him my arms fell off, and when he asked for details, i told him I couldn't remember. Next one was a guy claiming to be Geek Squad, then later on claims to be PayPal, then later on Norton. Then we have a Medicare scammer trying to sign me up for food cards. I ask him what kind of food I can buy wit...

Today starts Marc's new format of reading headlines of tech articles and summarizing them more quickly so we can breeze through the backlog: We discuss flaws in battery packs that cause EVs to set on fire, and the goal of making designs (and people) that are more tolerant to faults Apple shocks the world by throwing us a bone, allowing us to repair screens on our own iPhones... buy why is it p...