Latest / Brian Thomas / Tech Friday w/ Dave Hatter - Sponsored by Intrust IT - 4/10/2026

Transcript

Tech Friday w/ Dave Hatter - Sponsored by Intrust IT - 4/10/2026 · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Six two hit you have ter City Talkstation. Happy Friday,
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  Speaker 1: Tech Friday with Dave Hatter. Love this segment, learn a lot.
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  Speaker 1: I've heeded Dave's warnings over the years. I think I've
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  Speaker 1: avoided many of the missteps and amid these swirling reports
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  Speaker 1: about fraud and they need these text message and email
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  Speaker 1: scams and artificial intelligence ripping more and more people off
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  Speaker 1: every year to the tune of billions of dollars. Dave
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  Speaker 1: Hatter interest it dot com that's his company business career,
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  Speaker 1: says they are the best in the business when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to your business's commuter needs and he will keep
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  Speaker 1: you out of trouble. Welcome back, Dave Hatter. It's great
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  Speaker 1: to have you on the show.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Brian, always good to be here. In my prayers
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  Speaker 2: and condolences for Joe and his.
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  Speaker 1: Family, definitely, I appreciate you mentioning that. And what is
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  Speaker 1: this with the Washington Post using reader data to set
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  Speaker 1: subscription prices? This way, depending on how rich you are,
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  Speaker 1: is how much you're going to pay.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is this is a perfect example, Brian,
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  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why I had sent this
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  Speaker 2: to jail. You know, we've talked about the idea of
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  Speaker 2: dynamic pricing off and on over the years. Idea that
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  Speaker 2: you know, because all these companies can collect data about
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  Speaker 2: you through the apps, US or so called smart devices
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  Speaker 2: and so forth, they can know that perhaps you live
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  Speaker 2: in a more fluent, a more affluent area than me.
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  Speaker 1: So you get a different price, Right's I joked about
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  Speaker 1: that day. That's the way it was when I lived
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  Speaker 1: in oak Park, Illinois. You were charged less to have
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  Speaker 1: a home repair, like an HVAC repair at Oak Park
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  Speaker 1: than the neighboring the next neighborhood over, the more affluent
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  Speaker 1: river Forest was like the river Forest price in the
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  Speaker 1: Oak Park price. That's exactly what you're talking about here, exactly.
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  Speaker 2: But now it's gone to a new level because, you know,
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  Speaker 2: instead of just the ability to say, well, okay, we
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  Speaker 2: think because of your IP address or whatever, you live
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  Speaker 2: in a more fluent area. Now there's so much data
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  Speaker 2: out there about you. When we see this, do all
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  Speaker 2: these data bridges all the time. It's one of the
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  Speaker 2: reasons why I am constantly trying to convince people that
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  Speaker 2: less apps, less Internet of Things devices are better because
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  Speaker 2: the less data there is about you, the less data
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  Speaker 2: there is the breach which can be used, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in all kinds of ways against you. This is just
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  Speaker 2: one more way now with the idea of not just
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  Speaker 2: dynamic pricing, but surveillance pricing. Right, you may have heard
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  Speaker 2: the term, I know, I've said it on here before,
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  Speaker 2: surveillance capitalism, the idea that if you're using something that's free,
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  Speaker 2: you are not the customer, you are the product. You're
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  Speaker 2: paying with your data. Well, now all that data is
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  Speaker 2: being used to say, okay, it's not just that we
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  Speaker 2: think you're in let's say High Park or Oakley, it's
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  Speaker 2: we know that you have a subscription to this, and
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  Speaker 2: you have this type of car, and you make around
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  Speaker 2: this amount of money, so we're going to charge you
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  Speaker 2: a lot more than the next person comes along. And
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  Speaker 2: you know, you even see this now with things like
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  Speaker 2: the electronic dynamic shelf tags. You know, it is entirely
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  Speaker 2: possible through beginning and so forth, that when you go
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  Speaker 2: into a store they can identify your cell phone and
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  Speaker 2: know that you can pay more than me. So when
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  Speaker 2: you go to pick up off the shelf, you get
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  Speaker 2: a different price than me. Because the tags are electronic
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  Speaker 2: now they don't have to be switched out by manually.
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  Speaker 1: How nefair.
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  Speaker 2: Is that. Yeah, isn't it great? It's a great new
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  Speaker 2: world great, so the Washington and we're reported here the
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  Speaker 2: Washington Post is using regor data to set subscription prices, right,
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  Speaker 2: and that's essentially what this article is saying. They go
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  Speaker 2: on to say the post use of the algorithmic pricing
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  Speaker 2: is not surprising, giving the newspaper's reason fixation on artificial
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  Speaker 2: intelligence considered its anti power search engine robot Let podcast.
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  Speaker 2: We asked the post for common algorithm pricing mechanisms. Spokes
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  Speaker 2: and directors to a blog post from the publication's engineering team.
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  Speaker 2: The article explains how an AI driven quote smart metering
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  Speaker 2: model unquote determines the number of free articles both anonymous
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  Speaker 2: users who are not registered on their website and registered
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  Speaker 2: users who have free online accounts that paid subscription can
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  Speaker 2: access before a paywall pops up, but it doesn't specifically
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  Speaker 2: touch on how the post uses subscriber information to determine pricing.
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  Speaker 1: That's crazy. It sounds like a socialist future dream. Davey will.
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  Speaker 1: They will be ordered to lower prices based upon someone's
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  Speaker 1: socioeconomic status. You will not be able to charge someone
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  Speaker 1: on the lower ear tier echelons of the economy as
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  Speaker 1: much as someone who can afford to pay more. Can
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  Speaker 1: you see it, Dave?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and here you go Brian so further in the article,
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  Speaker 2: instacart recently killed an algorithm for algorithmic pricing model that
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  Speaker 2: allowed grocery stores to charge certain shoppers as much as
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  Speaker 2: two dollars and sixty five cents more for the same item. Again,
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  Speaker 2: this goes along with the explanation of the general concepts
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  Speaker 2: of this, and then they say, you know, well, what
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  Speaker 2: can you do? Is it possible for post subscribers to
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  Speaker 2: lemn how much personal information to come with access? Yes
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  Speaker 2: and no quote. Most of the time we give up
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  Speaker 2: data when we accept the user agreement unquote. Using a
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  Speaker 2: bare bones dunphone as a post with smartphone to read
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  Speaker 2: articles can see can offer some anonymity, as can visiting
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  Speaker 2: the website using a VPN. It's not impossible. It requires
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  Speaker 2: a lot of effort, you know, And it's the same
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  Speaker 2: kind of thing you and I have been talking about
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  Speaker 2: for a long time. And this is just another concrete
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  Speaker 2: example of how you giving up all this data to
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  Speaker 2: use these quote free unquote apps for an IoT devices
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  Speaker 2: and so forth ultimately backfuyers on.
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  Speaker 1: You in the long way, You're still paying for it
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  Speaker 1: in one way or another. Dave will continue after the
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  Speaker 1: break PayPal as a data breach he wants to talk
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  Speaker 1: about just jo I six forty two. I think about
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  Speaker 1: Krosit talk station, Dave Hatter, Interest dot com. They're the
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  Speaker 1: ones of contact for business related computer needs and sponsors
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  Speaker 1: of the segment. Dave Hatter PayPal had a breach. I guess, huh.
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  Speaker 1: I don't use PayPal either.
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  Speaker 2: Nor do I. Brian. Again, as I said in the
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  Speaker 2: last segment, I try to use a few of these
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  Speaker 2: things as possible. Because of the idea that we just
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  Speaker 2: talked about in the last last segment, and we touched
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  Speaker 2: a little bit on this, the main thing I want
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  Speaker 2: to focus on here, you know, the idea of surveillance pricing.
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  Speaker 2: As these companies collect more and more information and okay,
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  Speaker 2: keeping folks again whatever Facebook or fill in the blank,
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  Speaker 2: TikTok or whomever has about you, all right, this stuff
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  Speaker 2: can be sold to other companies. So even if you,
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  Speaker 2: you know, don't use PayPal today, if you decide to
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  Speaker 2: use it tomorrow, could you get charge different prices or whatever?
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  Speaker 2: Work in fill into playing Amazon, Walmart, whatever. Because they're
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  Speaker 2: buying data from other companies that have it about you,
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  Speaker 2: even though they're not you're not using their thing up
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  Speaker 2: to this point, and the answer is yes. So in
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  Speaker 2: this particular case, apparently PayPal has notified customers of the
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  Speaker 2: breach after a software error exposed sensitive personal information, including
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  Speaker 2: social security numbers, for nearly six months last year. Now,
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  Speaker 2: apparently this is just one what I would describe as
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  Speaker 2: feature a function of PayPal incident effect that the PayPal
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  Speaker 2: Working Capital Load app provides small businesses with quick access
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  Speaker 2: to financing. Again, I don't use PayPal, nor have I
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  Speaker 2: used that particular app. They discovered the breach on December
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  Speaker 2: twelfth of last year. The termined customers names, email addresses,
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  Speaker 2: phone numbers, business addresses, thoseal secure numbers and dates at
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  Speaker 2: birth has been exposed since July of that year. Elij
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  Speaker 2: you'll have twenty twenty five. Well, that's pretty much everything
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  Speaker 2: that would be useful for a bad guy to impersonate you,
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  Speaker 2: either a to perpetrate attend except against you by taking
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  Speaker 2: out loans and it's in your name, or be to
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  Speaker 2: use all that information to convince you that they are
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  Speaker 2: a legitimate agency. They're reaching out to you because there's
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  Speaker 2: some problem. And again if you take things like surveillance
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  Speaker 2: pricing out of it for a second, Brian, if I
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  Speaker 2: had all the information I just described about you that
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  Speaker 2: they leaked, could I pretend to be your bank? Could
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  Speaker 2: I pretend to be to Hamlin account of share for whomever?
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  Speaker 2: And when it seems really legitimate, when I have all
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  Speaker 2: of this information telling you that you know you've got X,
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  Speaker 2: Y or z, and you need to do this thing
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  Speaker 2: so they can steal your money. And this is this
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  Speaker 2: is the main reason why for a long time I've
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  Speaker 2: tried to convince people the less apps you have the better.
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  Speaker 2: The less of these things you use are the better.
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  Speaker 2: Now I understand, I really I do understand the convenience
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  Speaker 2: factor of you' sin. I understand why people like things
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  Speaker 2: like Venmo and cash app and all that stuff. I
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  Speaker 2: get it. I understand why people like to be able
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  Speaker 2: to go pull a parking lot and scan a QR code.
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  Speaker 2: I know there's no way to look at it. I
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  Speaker 2: know that it's legit. I get the I get the
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  Speaker 2: appeal of these things. I really do. But every day
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  Speaker 2: there's another story like this coming out, whether it's data
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  Speaker 2: it's been breached and now you know, here's your free
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  Speaker 2: credit monitoring for two years. Good luck, you know, hope
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  Speaker 2: you don't lose your house over this or whatever. Now,
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  Speaker 2: if you have been involved in a situation like this
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  Speaker 2: and you get a data breach notification via email, do
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  Speaker 2: do not click the links, do not call the numbers,
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  Speaker 2: because it's probably a scam. If you think that the
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  Speaker 2: bad guys who read these articles, go wait a minute, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: here's a whole new set of targets for us to
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  Speaker 2: go after to try to convince them that we're PayPal
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  Speaker 2: or whomever. Hey, you've been breached, do this thing, you know,
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  Speaker 2: if you think you fall into this category, wait for
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  Speaker 2: your physical letter that comes in via postal mail from PayPal,
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  Speaker 2: and then follow the instructions. Yes, you should sign up
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  Speaker 2: to the free credit monitoring. You should do whatever they
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  Speaker 2: tell you to do, or you reach out to them,
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  Speaker 2: you know, using a known, verified mechanism. But yeah, as
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  Speaker 2: this happens more and more or and we see it
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  Speaker 2: all the time, and in this case it sounds like
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  Speaker 2: it was a software error, not necessarily a hackers attack them.
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  Speaker 2: A software error exposed of this data so bad guys
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  Speaker 2: can find it and use it. Yeah, to me, it's
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  Speaker 2: just a lustrative of less apps. And you know, I'll
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  Speaker 2: post all this on my substacks that people can get
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  Speaker 2: these articles, and I'll post my more privacy friendly options.
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  Speaker 2: So hopefully, Brian, after years and years and years of
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  Speaker 2: us talking about this, more people go, you know, maybe
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  Speaker 2: maybe Dave doesn't seem quite as insane, and maybe I
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  Speaker 2: should use less of this stuff and go for the
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  Speaker 2: more privacy friendly things.
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  Speaker 1: Right, the world was not that difficult or complicated for
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  Speaker 1: me anyway before the apps showed up, and I'm comfortable
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  Speaker 1: just continuing with my old school ways. Maybe you call
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  Speaker 1: me a ludite. I don't have to worry about the
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  Speaker 1: stuff that Dave talks about every single week. At least
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  Speaker 1: I don't have to worry to a lesser degree. Hold on,
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  Speaker 1: we got more with Dave Ford and yet another recall,
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  Speaker 1: this time more than a quarter of a million dollar
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  Speaker 1: or quarter of a million trucks. It's a six fifty
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  Speaker 1: one if you have kercit talk station in trust it
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  Speaker 1: of course, Dave Hatter, who is his company for all
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  Speaker 1: your business computer needs, and if you want to know
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  Speaker 1: how to get the substack that he's referring to to
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  Speaker 1: get the articles he relies on for the segment. Go
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  Speaker 1: to LinkedIn dot com and just search Dave Hotter. You
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  Speaker 1: will easily find him. Dave. Well forward with another recall,
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  Speaker 1: this time more than a quarter of a million dollars.
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  Speaker 1: What's this one all about?
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  Speaker 2: Oh?
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  Speaker 1: A software issue.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the thing that I think is fascinating about it, Brian,
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  Speaker 2: And it makes the point I keep making over and
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  Speaker 2: over and over again about the Internet of things. What
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  Speaker 2: are the Internet of things or aka so called I
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  Speaker 2: always like to say smart quote unquote devices, Your TV,
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  Speaker 2: your refrigerator, your doorbell, now your car. Everything has software
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  Speaker 2: in it. And a lot of this stuff comes from
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  Speaker 2: adversarial nations. You may recall, and I'll put this in
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  Speaker 2: the stack for next week for recent warnings from the
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  Speaker 2: FBI about routers and so forth coming from China. So
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  Speaker 2: much of this stuff you know that has software in
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  Speaker 2: the software is not designed with your privacy and security
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  Speaker 2: in mind. It's focus on speed, market market share, easy use,
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  Speaker 2: collecting your data. And as we add more and more
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  Speaker 2: software to things in the physical world. Right, I'm not
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  Speaker 2: talking about microsoftware on your computer, or some software on
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  Speaker 2: your Mac or your Android phone or whatever. I'm talking
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  Speaker 2: about real world physical devices that we rely on every
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  Speaker 2: day to do things like a car that is now
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  Speaker 2: completely controlled by software. The software has bugs, it can
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  Speaker 2: be hacked. That's been demonstrated before. And you know, here's
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  Speaker 2: just another example of it. Ford Motor or Company is
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  Speaker 2: the home where the TU undred and fifty tens or
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  Speaker 2: a thousand vehicles in the US to do a software
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  Speaker 2: issue that can disable review cameras and other driver assistance features. Now,
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  Speaker 2: you know that's not terrible. Necessarily, I would argue, you know,
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  Speaker 2: rearview camera is one of the most beneficial features of
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  Speaker 2: modern cars. But you know, it's not as bad as
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  Speaker 2: if it could like shut off the engine or dismantle
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  Speaker 2: the brakes or something like that. Right, and think about it, Bryan,
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  Speaker 2: And we've talked about this before, and there's been a
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  Speaker 2: lot of research into this. Imagine it for an adversarial
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: nation and pick any car company, Tesla for General Motors,
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  Speaker 2: or all car companies. It's a foreign adversary could just
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: disable all of the cars from a certain manufacturer, or
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  Speaker 2: maybe not disable them, maybe turn them into weapons because
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden they decide to accelerate until they
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: run into something.
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  Speaker 1: Right, you know, you brought that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I mean this My issue is not
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  Speaker 2: that software is ad again, it's what I did for
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  Speaker 2: twenty five years. My issue is we are rushing to
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  Speaker 2: make everything digital, to make everything interconnected, to make everything
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  Speaker 2: rely on everything else that's interconnected, because these companies have
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  Speaker 2: a voracious appetite for your data for reasons we just
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  Speaker 2: discussed earlier, and rather than focused on, you know, being
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: focused on your privacy and your security as a consumer
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  Speaker 2: using these devices, the incentive is always the opposite. It's
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  Speaker 2: towards the company. You know. They want to be able
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: to say, well, you know what, here's your free heated
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: seats in their new car. But because their software control
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  Speaker 2: now we're going to turn them off after three months.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Oh you want to use you want to use your deferoster, Well,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: that's an extra dollar a month or whatever. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: obviously some of the safety features, they would get enormous kickback.
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  Speaker 2: And I guess, yeah, I don't. I don't think the
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  Speaker 2: government would allow them to say, Okay, you can use
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: your Winch, your Wi vers for three months. You're going
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: to have to pay a subscription fee for that. But
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  Speaker 2: the bottom line is that's where we're headed. Where anything
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  Speaker 2: can be turned off remotely, anything can be hacked remotely.
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  Speaker 2: And again this is just so if you happen to
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: have a Ford vehicle, you want to look into this.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: This recall says in this article. Owners can search for
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: the vehicle's recall status using their bent on the NHTSA
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: website beginning March twenty fifth, where encourages owners to contact
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: their customer service. So again, I'm not here to point
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  Speaker 2: out Ford specifically or even this particular recall. To me,
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  Speaker 2: it speaks to the larger issue of we keep making
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  Speaker 2: things smart quote unquote, and then smarter with worse software
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  Speaker 2: that controls more features, and whether you're unhappy about it
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: because they can remotely decide that you can't use a
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: feature unless you pay more money for it, they decide
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  Speaker 2: you can't fix it yourself because it violates the intellectual
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: property of the software that they've provided, you know, or
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a foreign country decides some day to slip the switch
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and turn it off or turn it into some kind
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: of weapon. People need to start to really think hard
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  Speaker 2: about and our society really needs to consider the risk
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  Speaker 2: that we're adding by all of these so called smart
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  Speaker 2: devices that have been proven now time and time again
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  Speaker 2: to be easily hackable. People don't know how to configure
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: in correctly. They don't know if the software and it's
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: being updated correctly, or if it's even being updated at all.
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  Speaker 2: And most of these things are trying to spy on
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  Speaker 2: you because they want your data so they can hit
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: you with a surveillance pricing down the.
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  Speaker 1: Road, no doubt about it. Insurance companies can tap into
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: what they've known about you, maybe adjust your insurance premium
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: based upon your driving habits that I hate that as well.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Dave Hatter find a day for your computer business needs
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and problems Interest it dot com. Go to LinkedIn LinkedIn
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: dot com to find Dave Hatter in the articles he
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: refers to through each and every week. Dave, thank you
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: for the work you're doing on our collective. Behalf for
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: those who choose to disregard Dave. You do soit your
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: own peril. Dave, have a fantastic weekend, my friend. We'll
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: do this again next Friday.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir. I look forward to it.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I do too,