With CEO Kathleen Kennedy's Exit, the future of Star Wars is a bit in flux. Today, we bring you the latest information on what's happening and what the rumors are.

We also look at real-world hacks on smart devices and what you can do to protect yourself.

William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, Gretchen Winkler

Welcome to

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User Friendly 2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,

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technology architect.

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And this is User Friendly 2.0.

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I am your host Bill Sikkens.

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Joining me my co-host Gretchen and Bill.

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Welcome to this week's show. Hello there.

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So here we are

at the end of January already.

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It seems like time is going by fast.

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Or maybe we can slow the earth down

or something a little bit.

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Anyway, well, you know, they can do it in

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science fiction, and we seem to be moving

closer to that every day, so why not?

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You know,

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anyway, speaking of such things,

we're going to be talking some changes

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on Star Wars Disney that are coming

with the change of the leadership.

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We'll be talking about that in the latter

half of this segment.

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And the next segment.

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We're going to be talking about compromise

smart home devices and things you can do

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to protect yourself.

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And some of the scary stuff that has

happened with that over the years.

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It's interesting to take a look at that

and a lot of questions

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that you have sent in

on this kind of prompted that.

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And when we started doing some research,

I don't know, I was a little surprised.

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I knew about some of these things,

but not all of them.

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So I think you'll find it interesting.

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So stick around for the second half

and we will dive into that.

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But with no further ado,

let's go ahead and do the news

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and then we can talk Star Wars.

What do we have in the news today?

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All right Samsung Galaxy

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Z trifold goes on sale soon.

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So let me ask a question to both of you.

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What would a phone

need to have in it to wear?

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You would even consider

spending $3,000 for it,

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because that's how much this thing costs.

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Oh, you

better be able to do a lot of stuff.

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Yeah, it should act like a tricorder

and translate like,

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like the enterprise does,

you know, actually, this thing might.

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I mean,

it does have a lot of functionality in it.

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I have to give it that.

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But $3,000 for a for a phone, I don't.

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Yeah, that's crazy

what that's going to do.

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I mean, you know, there's no lasers.

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Yeah.

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One commentator on

this said the Samsung Galaxy

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Z trifold, nearly $3,000 price

might unfold your whole wallet.

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And I think that's about right.

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So what this is, is it's a

step up on the Samsung Fold.

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So the fold is a phone

that's actually two screens.

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And you close it together

and it's the same size as a smartphone.

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They also have a smaller one that I like

called a flip that folds in half.

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Okay. So it's a folding screen.

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This one folds into three screens.

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So it's almost like a tablet.

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And so it's

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a two hinge device

and it's starting on sale.

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I believe it actually came out yesterday

with, asking price of $2,900,

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about three times the price of the,

like ship Galaxy S20 five.

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So, you know, it's interesting to

look at this and kind of think about it.

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I, I don't know, I early on a cell

phone was cheap.

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And then we had the smartphones.

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And I do think they do a lot.

So it's worth having them.

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But even when we were getting

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into the threshold of $1,000, 1500

for some of the iPhones and things,

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it becomes

this is a device you're carrying.

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You can drop it.

All kinds of things can happen.

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At what point does it become a gold bar

that should sit on the shelf

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instead of something that you're able

to just stick in your pocket like a phone?

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I think, and I think that would be

the biggest issue here as far as a device

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looks great.

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And everything that I've seen about this

and the reviews on it are good. It's

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considered one of the most technically

impressive handsets released in the US.

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But again,

are people going to buy this thing?

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And if they do, I mean,

you know, the other question that I would

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have to ask on something like this is

how much is the insurance going to cost?

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Because normally when you get a new phone,

you have a monthly thing

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you can buy through Squaretrade

or your cell phone company, or whatever

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that you know, if you drop it

or something, you will get it fixed.

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And these can be $23 a month or whatever,

depending on what you have.

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But if you're looking at something

that's $3,000 to replace, I mean, that's

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almost like a car insurance policy

in some ways,

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and it's going to cost a lot more.

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So I don't know.

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Samsung's

equipment is usually pretty versatile,

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so I don't think it's

going to be that easy to break.

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But you know, again, who knows.

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And the other thing of course is theft

or something that expensive.

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I think you'd be targeted.

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I think you use it

in, you know, regular places.

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It's I don't know,

it's it's going to be interesting to see.

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Now, one of the things with modern

cell phones or smart phones,

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it's because of the way they lock down.

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There's less of a problem with that

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because you basically can't use it,

and the bad guys know that.

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But the thing of it is,

it's like a chop shop for a car.

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You might not resell the car,

but you might be able to resell the parts.

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Again, you know, I think it's going to be

interesting to see where this goes.

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As far as I know,

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this is going to be the most expensive

mainstream phone, that I'm aware of.

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At least if there's something else,

please let me know.

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I do a comment at User Friendly Dot show,

because I'd love to see

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what more than a $3,000 phone

would actually look like.

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Maybe if it has a Star Trek transporter

then it'd be worth it. But,

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Just why do you need Microsoft's

new emergency

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windows patch in the black screen

bug to watch for?

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Well, because you want windows to work,

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number one, which Gretchen

that something like put her to work.

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Yeah.

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This has actually been an issue

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because they had an update

that just came out.

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That was kind of a bummer.

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And what I mean by that is it

introduced more bugs and fix.

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So they've actually sent out this will be

the second out what they call out-of-band

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patch to try to fix some of the glitches,

you know, caused by this thing.

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I haven't gone mine.

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It's they're they're coming out now.

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You will?

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Yeah.

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It's just, and they don't all

come out at once, but it's an emergency

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patch, that's going to fix

another number of problems.

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One of them is the printer thing, which

it seems like what's happening with that?

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And it seems like it's HP printers

mainly that are having this problem is

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you go to print something

and it'll prime the printer, you'll hear

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it start, and then that's all she wrote.

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And it gets very frustrating because it's

hard to get it going again.

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You can't clear the queue and you have to,

you know, practically stand on your head

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and do a ritual to the old pagan gods

to get the printer to print.

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I never got mine to print,

and I tried turning it off and on again.

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I tried, you know, clearing out the

whatever the spooler

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or the cache or whatever

you want to call that in virtual area.

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Nothing worked.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Now, some of the other things

that this fixes that they introduced

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as problems is outlook will once again

open your emails.

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Well that's good being that

that's an email program.

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Apparently there was a bug

that if you stored your email file

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which is called a T, for Microsoft

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on your OneDrive, it stopped working.

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You couldn't get to your email,

which would be a bit of a bummer.

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Other things, connections

to windows, cloud devices that stopped.

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Oh, and definitely some other things

that also carries the security fixes.

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Improvements from the original,

update that went out on January 13th,

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preferably without the bugs. Last time.

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Yeah,

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I'm going to look forward to that

because I really want my printer to work.

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Okay. Details.

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Yeah.

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James Webb Telescope previews

the death of the sun

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and glorious new Gods eye image.

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Explain what that means.

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Well, number one, I like the other name

for this, which is the eye of siren.

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For our Lord of the rings fans. Oh, okay.

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Basically, what's going on

here is in however many billion years

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of probably a time

I don't need to really worry about,

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our sun will die,

and with it'll take out the earth

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and all this stuff's going to happen.

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We're going red giant and eating planets

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and just being a bad day to be on planet

Earth.

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What's happening here?

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And what they're talking about is a nebula

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where this is happening now.

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It's called the Helix Nebula,

and it's an idea of a sun

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that's, going into this phase now

and what's happening with it?

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Basically,

as these things happen, the sun dies

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because it's used up its fuel,

you know, and it, so

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and then when that happens, it starts

blowing stuff off, which are actually

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the building blocks for our kind of life,

and that gets out into the universe.

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And then restructures.

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So it's kind of,

you know, cycle of life timeline.

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And with the James Webb Telescope,

they're actually being able to watch this.

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Wow. And see what is going on.

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So it is actually kind of amazing.

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NASA has this on their, website.

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So you can take a look

at what's going on here and see.

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It's really some very unique photos where

what they're getting is actually starting

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to look like, you know, what we saw

in sci fi, but it's real at this time.

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So anyway.

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But yeah, our sun, by the way,

I wouldn't be too worried about it.

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I think we still have

about 5 billion years ago.

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Cool. Yep.

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Another space news.

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Star Wars

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Clone Wars sequel.

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So I'm glad number one here.

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You know, originally around this,

that there was the sequel, which is,

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you know, while shadow Lord,

which is coming up here

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and I'm glad to hear that

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they're keeping the consistency, you know.

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Yeah.

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So again, we're going to be talking

Star Wars.

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A little more details.

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I'm not going to dwell on this right now.

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We'll get into it

here in a minute or two after the news.

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But the direction they're going now

does seem like there's

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going to be a lot more consistency.

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So anyway, you know, that's,

just stay with us and talk to there's a

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deep dive into that.

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Women filmed in

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secret for social media content

and then rest online.

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Please explain that. Yeah.

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So this is, you know, technology

and I've said this before is benign.

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It's what you do with it.

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And we're starting to see smart glasses

not just starting.

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They've been around

for a little while now.

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Google Glass being the first 1 in 2013.

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I think it was.

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But people most people would use it

in a very good way.

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But there's the small percentage of people

that don't.

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They were dubbed glass holes,

in the Google Glass.

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I'm sure that's a play on some other word

that I'm not going to say

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on the air, but,

you know, you get the idea.

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What's happening

now is you don't look quite

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so cyborg when you're wearing the modern

smart glasses.

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But a mirror has one,

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and there's some other ones out there

that have a camera built in.

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I have a pair of these, I love it.

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We were at the airshow last year

and I was able to just look and film

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what I was looking, and it was great.

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And downloaded or and content.

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But the other side of this is as well

the glasses, at least in my case,

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do have a light that comes on.

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It seems like what's happening is

the bad guys are covering that light up

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with like a piece

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of electrical tape or something,

so that you can't see that it's running,

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and then they're secretly

recording people.

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In this particular case,

it was a guy trying to,

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I think, pick up on a on a woman

and going through some stuff

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and got her to say some things

that should have remained private.

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And then he posted it on social

media, got a whole lot of views

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and really embarrassed the lady,

which is not cool,

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especially when it is, something

that she didn't even want to.

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Yeah, she didn't know about it. Yeah.

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1.3 million views.

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Yeah.

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And it was under the premise

that he was trying to show people

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how to pick up girls.

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Yeah, she didn't know that he was just

using her to do this film.

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And it's also something,

you know, and again, I'm not a lawyer, but

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just some of the stuff that I've been told

on these things, like here in Oregon,

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I believe that's actually illegal to film

somebody in public

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and they don't know about it.

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And, you know, that vary state by state,

country by country, I'm sure.

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But the thing of it is, is this type of a

thing is not

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something that should be done.

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Because what happens is, is, number one,

people get scared of the new tech

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because one person's

kind of running for everything else.

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And you know, this is my opinion,

I honestly say.

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But the thing of it is, is I don't think

this person was trying to educate anyone.

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He wanted 1.3 million

views on his TikTok video and he got him.

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Yeah, you know, yeah, it'd the

embarrassment of somebody that absolutely

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had no role to play in it at all

and wouldn't have done so otherwise.

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And the other thing about this is, is

if somebody really was trying to do

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this for an educational thing,

although I don't know why you need to,

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they could have somebody

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and just, you know, play it up, you know,

maybe like an actress or something.

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If you're going to do online video,

put it together that way.

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So the person knows what they're doing.

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It is giving information that is going

to embarrass them in the long run,

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and they at least know that it's something

that's going to be on social media.

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It would have serve the same thing,

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but this is more of a shock value thing

in some ways.

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And it just seems like,

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I don't know, I guess

pro tip, as a programmer, don't do this.

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Just don't.

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So, yeah, so that's what happened there.

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And the last thing I want to talk about

today, before we get into our Star Wars

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segment is Tesla has removed

autopilot as a standard feature,

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and they're moving to a subscription

thing at $99 a month for the next year.

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Up on that.

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And people are complaining about that,

something that just went away.

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But they want to make everything

subscription, not just Tesla.

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We're seeing that all over the place

because it earns

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a lot more money

than actually selling your stuff one shot.

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So that's where these things are going.

All right.

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Well that's our news.

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So in an effort

now to talk about something,

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Gretchen,

I know you're going to just hate covering.

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Let's talk a little Star Wars,

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okay.

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So I was able to reach out

and actually get some information on

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what the post

Kennedy era is going to look like.

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So just to kind of give a summary

on this is, Kathleen

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Kennedy has been the CEO of Star Wars

for the past 14 years.

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Now. She's, I think, an excellent producer

on some of these things.

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But some of her decisions at Star

Wars, Disney

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has been a little bit controversial,

to say the least.

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And there's a school of thought that loves

her, a school of thought that doesn't.

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But whatever the case may be,

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and she's passing the reins along to Dave

Filoni,

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creative lead on The Mandalorian, Clone

Wars Saga, and a number of other things,

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and just a general, wonderful Star Wars

person that's very invested

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in this question.

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Why don't you talk about Dave Filoni,

his background a little bit?

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Just 10,000, actually.

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I actually don't know

his exact background, but I also know

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that he did work on The Last Airbender

series.

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The cartoon,

and that was really well done.

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Now that's when we need him at Comic-Con.

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Well, we didn't personally meet him,

but we saw him in a big room

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with a bunch of other happy people and,

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at a panel and we have the really cool,

clone trooper

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helmet poster that came,

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everybody who went got one of those.

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So it's souvenir to

take a little bit of a leave here

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and just say we met him,

you know, at least.

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Okay. Right.

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There you go. Right.

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But anyway, he he is absolutely the

right person, in my opinion, to do this.

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I agree.

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And then, Logan Brennan

is going to be the co president handling

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business operations.

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So this is going to be a completely new,

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new team on the

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block really for going forward with that.

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So what is this going to mean for us?

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Well, Mandalorian and Grogu movie

that's coming out

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this year, it's going to be released in

May 22nd, is still happening

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and definitely I think we'll need to take

one for the team.

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And all of us need to go see it and,

you know, be able to talk about it.

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Right? Right.

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Sure.

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Twist my arm. Oh.

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So anyway, some of the other stuff

they're looking at changing though

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fundamentally is instead of doing movies,

going back and doing series on Disney

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Plus and this is a direction

that they were moving away from.

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Now, Mandalorian as a series

of course, was very successful.

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And what they're going to look at

is see how The Mandalorian

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Grogu movie does if it doesn't perform

strongly at the box office.

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Or they're saying even if it does,

they may change some of the other things.

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Mandalorian

crossover film called era of the Empire

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maybe work into a limited series

on Disney Plus as a for example.

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Okay, some of those things

are talking about, upcoming movies.

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Daisy Ridley Rey film. Okay.

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I might have butchered that

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title, but this is going to remain

in development.

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But again,

a lot of this is going to be looking at

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what is going to happen

with The Mandalorian movie coming up here.

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So, yeah, I don't know now.

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But now the thing is, is,

he was really prominent in,

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influencing a lot of the cartoon stuff.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And,

I think that Disney had followed through.

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I thought rebels was done.

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Well, Bad batch, the,

the additional Clone Wars stuff.

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There's something else

that I'm forgetting.

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Oh. They did some experimental,

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series that were that talked

about some of the different characters.

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A lot of these cartoons are really done

well, and people

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who just can't launch say that they hate

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Disney and Disney, Star Wars.

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I can't imagine that they're actually

watching these incredible cartoons,

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and they have so much depth to them.

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And I, I, you know,

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if you're one of these people who thinks

that all the cartoons are garbage,

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please take the time

and take a peek at these.

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Try watching a couple of episodes.

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You know, and it might change your mind.

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Why would be a bit surprised.

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Some of the assumptions are coming

from the last three movies.

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Yeah, well, the movie those three movies

have nothing to do with those cartoons.

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I understand that

that's a front facing thing.

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And I think what's important

to point out here

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is there's different creative people

involved in different aspects of that,

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not just now,

but even when it was still running things.

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So you have very different,

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things like Rogue One is, for example,

was a good movie, in my opinion, like the,

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the, the last three, episodes of Star

Wars.

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Well, you know, in progressive order,

getting worst of the final one.

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Yeah. I don't recommend that.

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But that doesn't mean everything was bad,

and it doesn't mean it's going to be bad

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going forward.

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In fact, hopefully,

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you know, a Filoni running this now

we're going to see

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a very different approach on somebody

that really is invested in Star Wars

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and what the original creator,

George Lucas, wanted it to be.

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Well, you know, it's also Dave Filoni was

the person who came up with Ahsoka.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So character.

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So he's very emotionally invested in this

and Star Wars.

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It's not like just,

oh, this is a paycheck right now.

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So, so but anyway, some of the stuff

that's coming up for series,

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from the response

I got back, Star Wars, Maul, shadow

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Lord, coming out April 6th

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and I'm just in plus and after watching

the trailer on that, I'm already hooked.

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Yeah, I love the rework on his outfit.

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It just makes him look,

I don't know, it's cool.

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Now I want to be the

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I he's

he's already started to look that way.

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If you've watched the cartoons

and Sam Witwer

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is amazing as the voice, he

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it gives him such depth and power

and that angst and intelligence.

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So now he's a great,

great voice actor now.

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And absolutely.

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So this is going to be fun to see.

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And then they're

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also talking about new seasons of a soul,

Skeleton Crew, the Acolyte, okay.

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And possibly Rogue Squadron, and others.

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So three again,

one that needs to go away.

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Yeah, I gonna say three of those

I look forward to.

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Yeah. I don't know, the actual.

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I just didn't connect with me.

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It wasn't Star Wars.

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It just flat out wasn't Star Wars at all.

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It it needs to go in the round

barrel off to the side.

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And I don't know why they did that

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now, but I think the skeleton crew

has a lot of potential.

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It had that star Wars spirit to it.

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And it's great for the kids

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and it's actually fun for adults

to watch as well.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So and Lucasfilm

is doubling down on Disney

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Plus for the platform for all of this,

which absolutely makes sense

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that that's where it would go.

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And you know Disney

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Plus is there's so many subscriptions now

and you kind of have to pick and choose.

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But one of the good things about this,

you know, the over the top stuff

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like this, over the top internet,

not the,

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local on that, meaning that

417

it's stuff you watch on the internet

as opposed to like cable TV

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is a good way to do it,

because what you can do is wait

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until a season of something

you want to watch drops, subscribe

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for the month, watch it, and then,

you know, get rid of the subscription.

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At that point if you want to switch

between these services.

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So, it's an interesting way to be able

to get to these things and watch them,

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you know, in a way that actually kind of

does make sense.

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There's also a new video game

in development.

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This is something,

that I thought was kind of interesting.

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Star Wars feed of the Old Republic,

action Archie PG

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game from Lucasfilm Games.

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We'll have to see what this ends up being.

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And Bill, you and James will have

to review this for us when it comes out

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and let us know what you think of it.

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I don't know a lot of details on this.

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I tried to look

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it looks like it's going to be PlayStation

and Xbox and possibly switch platforms.

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I don't know if there's

435

going to be a PC version,

but a lot of that information is not.

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I don't even think they've

completely determined that.

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But one of the other things

I thought that was really cool

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that they're talking about

is a toy, which is a Lego smart brick

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for Star Wars.

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And smart bricks are an interesting thing

just in our of them selves.

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It's Legos

that do things really well, which is,

442

yeah, which is actually something

443

we probably should cover here

because it's a fun thing,

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especially if you have kids

that are interested in Stem and stuff.

445

You can take Legos to the next level,

but it allows you

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to be able to really create and program

and all that kind of stuff.

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And having a Star Wars

version of this actually kind

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of makes a lot of,

449

a lot of fun, you know, and,

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I don't think that they were talking about

is changing the canon a little bit.

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And again,

no one was willing to confirm this,

452

but they're talking about rewriting

453

or refocusing elements from The Rise of

Skywalker and adjusting canon directions.

454

And I think that might be

455

a very nice way of saying that

they're going to fix some of the problems.

456

Yeah.

457

So, you know, anyway,

458

so we'll have to see where we end up going

with all of this and where it goes.

459

But, you know, creative shift under

Dave Filoni I think this is really a step

460

in the right direction streaming

first approach,

461

looking at having series instead of movies

and that type of a thing.

462

And we'll see where we end up

going from there.

463

All right.

464

When we get back in the second segment,

465

we're going to be talking

about smart devices

466

and things that have been compromised

and what you can do to protect yourself.

467

This is user friendly,

2.0. We'll be back after the break.

468

You see here he's from the future.

469

He's got a really big computer

470

and he uses it uses it every day.

471

And he uses it in every way.

472

Want to use it for you know what

not to show because he uses it.

473

Welcome back.

474

This is user friendly 2.0.

475

Check out our past show.

476

Send us your questions and your comments.

477

User friendly dot show is your one

478

stop for being able

to do all of those things and more.

479

Just go to the website, find

the blue button that says ask a question.

480

We love to hear from you. It's

how we do our programing.

481

We're going to be actually

482

doing a Q&A next week based on the stuff

you have sent in.

483

So if you want it,

484

your question to be answered, there's

still time to get it into us again.

485

User friendly dot show.

486

All right, so we've been talking over

the past couple of weeks about tracking

487

and some other things that a lot of modern

technology is allowing to be done.

488

Some of it kind of creepy.

489

And one of the things that we wanted to

touch on

490

is what has been going on

491

with some of the past devices

that have been compromised.

492

So what I wanted to do is go through

some of the different things.

493

These are actually things

that have happened.

494

And then we're going to talk about

some steps you can take to minimize this.

495

So let's just go ahead and jump right in.

496

First one is under the category of smart

toys.

497

That teddy bear isn't just listening.

498

It's remembering

499

internet connected toys of like children's

voices, names and family messages.

500

Hackers didn't break into homes.

They simply logged out.

501

So what this is talking about is

children's devices a specific teddy bear.

502

In the past,

this was on the news when it happened

503

that is able to hear your child

504

or anything around,

you know, and be able to interact with it.

505

So it's, talked tied to an eye

or something of that nature.

506

And can respond.

507

Now, this isn't like teddy rub skin

or some of those from the 80s that either

508

had very, very rudimentary voice

recognition or played a tape.

509

All that was close.

510

These are actually connected

to the internet,

511

and the hackers were actually able

to get in listening to

512

what the child was saying

and respond back to them

513

and make it sound like it was coming from

the toy in the toys voice.

514

That's creepy.

515

That that's creepy.

516

Yeah, I warned you.

517

Going into this,

we're going to have some creepy things

518

here, but it's just some of the stuff

that has happened

519

and it's important

to be aware of this stuff

520

because you can do things

to make this a lot less of a problem.

521

Next one is security cameras.

522

They're everywhere.

523

Ring cameras, nest cameras,

you know, and on and on that list goes.

524

And hackers have taken over smart cameras

and spoken to people through them.

525

In some cases,

526

thousands of feeds were exposed at once

hospitals, homes, even offices.

527

This happened about three years ago

528

and a lot of our equipment,

529

most of our equipment is internationally

made, a lot of it in China, and there's

530

different levels of quality control

with all of this stuff that comes out now.

531

Most of the name

brands have software and do updates

532

and all of that to maintain it,

but some of the knockoffs don't.

533

Yeah, the knockoffs are a lot cheaper.

534

So getting into this, there was

security cameras that didn't come out.

535

They're no longer sold here,

but it was a very basic system

536

that was a copy of,

I believe, the nest camera

537

and the software on at

the ROMs were not encrypted very well.

538

Default passwords.

539

And in a lot of cases, people

540

setting up security cameras

don't even realize there is a password.

541

You know, it's something that just links

and you're good to go.

542

And the hackers were able to compromise

these cameras

543

very easily and watch people

that didn't even know about it,

544

although they could talk back to you

over the camera.

545

I mean, talk about creepy, right?

546

Yeah.

547

You're saying

548

you're watching television or something,

and that type of a thing happens.

549

Gretchen, you're smiling there. What?

550

What you're feeling on that?

551

Well, I remember,

Jeremy and I house sitting

552

or checking up on a certain person's house

that was unoccupied.

553

And you were talking to us

when we went to check on the house.

554

Yeah.

555

The certain person is me.

556

And that was over my ring camera.

557

Now, that wasn't a hack.

558

I mean, I had definitely access to it,

but it did surprise you, I remember.

559

Yeah, you're like,

560

I was

561

like, t especially I was in the UK

when that happened to.

562

So I'm actually sitting in England,

talking to you off camera.

563

Camera is.

564

And I think you've

565

surprised your mom

a couple of times doing that, too.

566

Yeah, yeah.

567

You're a bit mischievous, aren't you?

568

It's one thing

being that I'm the owner of the system.

569

Now, think about somebody

570

you didn't know, that you didn't know

was there, then that would be scary.

571

You know?

572

Yeah.

573

And, speaking of such things, smart

speakers, you're all them to play music.

574

It's been listening ever since.

575

Smart speakers are designed to wait

for a wake word, but bugs and exploits

576

have shown they can be triggered

or accessed in ways never intended.

577

So you're basically placing

a microphone in your house.

578

I can remember during the Cold War

579

that something like

this would have been really a no no.

580

You know, and now, not only is it

581

everywhere, but we pay money for a, well,

most of the time.

582

And a big part of this

583

from the primary makers of this,

which is Amazon, Google and Apple

584

with their various smart speakers, is

they really don't want this to happen

585

because like with a lot of technology,

if it started being a thing, it,

586

would cause people not to be as inclined

to have these type of things now.

587

Yeah, I'm someone that I freely admit.

588

I love the smart speakers, I use them,

I have them all over the place,

589

and it does add a lot and make life easier

in that type of a thing.

590

But there is the other side.

591

The convenience comes with the risk of

somebody being able to get in and hack it.

592

Now I'm a programmer and an engineer,

and I firewall my network

593

so that if something like this did happen,

594

I'd know about it at the very least

and probably block the outgoing set up.

595

But at the end of the day,

that's not most people,

596

you know, for a device that they can buy,

plug in and use.

597

And these type of things can happen.

598

And again, like with the cameras,

the hackers, when they got into these

599

devices, you didn't know they were there

necessarily.

600

And I know one of the things that they did

on the Amazon Echo devices,

601

since that happened, it was an echo

where this exploit happened.

602

But, I would imagine I don't use nest

603

or, Apple, but I would assume there's

the same thing with that.

604

When you say the trigger word,

light comes on on the smart

605

speaker, usually blue, and it's a band,

606

but it's a little bit different

on some of the different models.

607

And they changed it

so that whenever the speaker is listening,

608

now that light comes on.

609

So if someone was

to get in and activate the, microphone,

610

my understanding is that's hardcoded

into the ROM on the device or it Android.

611

There's never cat in the hacker world,

612

but it would be extremely difficult

to be able to disable that.

613

So making that assumption, if you look at

your speaker is just has its light on.

614

You want to be a little bit careful.

615

And I actually did have that happen once.

616

So I unplugged and plugged it back in and

broke the device because it was doing it

617

when I was trying to do a software update,

which was somewhat unusual.

618

I think that was a bug, but I would prefer

619

to have that happen than just the thing

sitting there open, you know,

620

again, and there are some times when,

621

she I'm not gonna say her name

because I might activator.

622

That I'll be saying something

and all of a sudden she'll say something.

623

So she must misunderstand. Yeah.

624

And I'm like, what?

625

I'm again,

not going to activate various devices,

626

but you're talking about the, new Amazon

version of the Amazon.

627

I, which is actually, I have to say,

they've been kind of incredible.

628

I've been able to hold off

for long conversations.

629

My relatives find that creepy,

but it's kind of fun. But,

630

I've noticed, though, with the new system,

which is still in beta,

631

that it is a lot easier

to accidentally trigger it.

632

The old one didn't seem to do this

as often, but the new one does.

633

And because it's a full, large language

model, you can do things in it.

634

Like one time,

635

I don't know what I did to trigger it,

636

and it ended up turning off my television

and all my lights,

637

and it's like,

I didn't mean for you to do that.

638

And it's like,

oh, I'm sorry, is what it said.

639

And then it turned everything back

on, which was also interesting.

640

But, you know,

641

okay.

642

Right. You know, it's weird.

643

I'm having a hard time

getting used to the different

644

personality and voice.

645

It's like, I almost feel like I'm

a traitor, you know?

646

It's like I had the relationship

with the older one, and it's like, now

647

she's gone and I've just tossed her aside

and it's like, oh, no,

648

this employee has retired

and it has taken over.

649

I know, and I keep telling myself that.

650

And, you know,

when we do pass singularity,

651

we're going to have to think of it

that way.

652

So you might as well start now. So, yeah.

653

Yeah.

654

But now next

655

one is smart TVs and game consoles

go on this list.

656

TV is off. It's still awake.

657

Smart TVs track what you watch,

listen for commands,

658

and quietly talk to the internet

even when you're not watching.

659

We talked about this

in the last couple of episodes

660

because there's actually a lawsuit

in Texas on this right now about smart

661

TVs, monitoring what you're doing

and sending it back to the provider.

662

And you may not know that

that is actually going on.

663

And the final video is is and this isn't

664

this isn't just televisions that

this is true for, but a lot of devices.

665

Now, when you turn them off, they're not

off. They go into a standby mode.

666

So and

this has been somewhat controversial

667

from an environmental standpoint

because they're using a lot more power

668

than they would need to

if they're actually shut off.

669

But you're seeing this

with a lot of different things.

670

Televisions

the PlayStation and Xbox do these do

671

that as well where you're not turning it

off, you're going into a standby mode.

672

Part of the reason why this is done is

so that it can receive updates

673

when you're not using it,

and also when you turn it back on,

674

it doesn't take as long to boot back up

because it's still active.

675

It's just in a like a sleep mode kind

of thing, but it is still drawing power.

676

And if these devices get compromised,

it is possible for a hacker to wake it up

677

out of the standby mode

and turn on the microphones

678

and other things

that are present in these devices.

679

You know, again, at the end of the day,

it's like,

680

I don't know, with manufacturers

figuring these things out, especially now

681

with non-viable memory and stuff,

it isn't as necessary as it used to be.

682

But one of the other things that I work

with a little bit

683

as a hobby is the retro televisions.

684

And in that crowd,

685

if you look at TVs

686

that were made in the 70s and 80s,

they did the same standby thing

687

and especially the tube sets.

688

But even the solid state ones,

everything is fried

689

because it was never off.

690

So all those components still had power

running through them,

691

and especially with tubes

and everything else.

692

I mean, there is a life expectancy

of those things and our modern stuff,

693

and when it's on, it is on standby or not.

694

And now with everything being connected,

695

you definitely,

696

you know, have some risk of someone

being able to compromise that device.

697

And one of the things that goes

along with this that has happened,

698

this isn't a device per se,

but is something called botnets.

699

So for anybody

that's not familiar with that,

700

hackers

will attempt to take over a lot of devices

701

and then use them for targeted,

cyber attacks on other things

702

like taking down websites

or other things of that nature

703

where what they do is they start throwing

so much traffic at the target

704

that it essentially overloads it.

705

I'm oversimplifying a little bit,

but that's basically what happens

706

is denial of service or DDoS attack.

707

And what it means is the people

that legitimately are trying to get

708

to that service can't,

because it's overloaded.

709

And we've seen things like from coffee

makers to refrigerators to other smart

710

devices, even the things that control

like your lights and stuff,

711

especially the knock offs

712

on these things being compromised

and used for that purpose.

713

So what's going to happen

is now unknowingly, you're part of that.

714

And when the bad guy wants to target

something,

715

they have all of these resources available

and you might not even know about it.

716

The device may even continue

to work properly.

717

You know, from your own standpoint,

but it's just something to be aware of

718

because as we, you know, are in a world

now where everything can monitor.

719

I mean, my refrigerator has cameras in it

so I can see what I need to buy when I'm

720

at the grocery store, which I don't think

is necessarily a needed feature.

721

And they're actually doing something

now with AI, so it can tell if your food

722

spoiled or not.

723

Oh yeah.

724

So yeah.

725

I don't know, just before

we get into what you can do about it,

726

what do you,

both of you think about all this

727

just kind of in summary,

is this somewhat eye opening?

728

A little bit?

729

I mean, for me, it's not because I keep up

on this kind of stuff, but,

730

you know, I think for a lot of people,

it should be.

731

I don't know, it

just there's something about it.

732

I just I've mentioned this in the past.

733

You and I are both looking at new cars,

and I'm

734

actually very reluctant to get one

because of these kind of things.

735

It tracks you.

736

It knows where you are.

737

I, you know, and I've asked a couple

of different manufacturers,

738

can I put a Faraday cage over the,

you know, computer in at the block it out.

739

Yeah, yeah, but it won't work.

740

You know, it has to do that, right?

741

So. Okay.

742

It's just, I think that's a

743

mistake

that where they keep doing that stuff.

744

I mean, it is.

745

I also don't like the fly

by wire or whatever the the fake.

746

I want brakes that have real

braking systems, not a computer button

747

being pushed.

748

I want real stuff.

749

So I think I think my question though,

with the tracking and all that is

750

how is that legal?

751

Because if you put a tracker on someone's

car is illegal in most states.

752

Oh yeah.

753

I mean, there's been a lawsuit here

in Nevada about,

754

was it the Reno mayor or something?

755

Had it?

756

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a private

detective did this,

757

and I vaguely remember that.

758

Yeah, there's all kinds of stories

759

like that out there, and,

you know, not again, not as an attorney.

760

And there are people on the internet,

the deep dive into the legal sides

761

of these things.

762

But we're seeing

we're a police department,

763

put a tracker on a woman's car

and they get it with a warrant.

764

So it wouldn't have been illegal.

765

But you're seeing these type of things

all over the place,

766

and you can buy these trackers

just inexpensively, you know,

767

the AirTags and Bluetooth and even stuff

now that's 5G enabled.

768

The positive side of it

is, is stories like,

769

oh, we've lost your luggage, but

it's on its way to, you know, the airport.

770

This happened at, London Heathrow.

771

And they kept getting told

the other luggage is on its way

772

and he looks on his phone.

773

Well, my bag is in Houston,

774

so how are you going to have it

to my hotel in the next two hours?

775

Yeah, well, trackers for your pets, too.

776

Those little tags, you know, so it's,

you know, and it's one of those things to.

777

The technology's great.

778

Your pet gets lost, you're going

to be able to find them or otherwise.

779

You probably can't.

780

But the other side of it is, is just

all this stuff's constantly being traced.

781

You know, we've talked about your phones,

782

track

you all that different type of thing.

783

And, on the more legitimate stuff,

you can turn it off.

784

But I have for just had it

I think it was it it was one of the,

785

domestic automakers

here in the United States,

786

had some federal lawsuit

where they were able

787

to get them to stop doing this

because they were getting data

788

and selling it to insurance companies,

other things.

789

And it was becoming as much

of a revenue stream as making the cars.

790

Yeah. You know,

which is a wrong motivation.

791

Exactly. This type of a type of a thing.

792

And it's just,

yeah, it's a scary situation.

793

So what can you do to protect yourself?

794

Well, the best way is to become a hermit.

795

Let's just rid.

796

Unplug everything, turn the power off.

797

You know, get some candles,

leave the planet and fly away again.

798

I'm sure your spaceship is track, too.

799

But anyway, you're you're.

800

I think I said this before,

but I think your toaster

801

is probably writing a report on

you right now, you know, and setting that.

802

So my Breville

would never do such a thing.

803

Thankfully, my $20 toaster only toasts.

804

Yes. Oh, why?

805

How last century? You're in just toast.

806

I mean, you know, it's,

Anyway, I'll give my opinion

807

on combining devices later, but before,

yeah, we did carry separate devices,

808

but I think they did their jobs better.

809

Sometimes you don't have to worry

about all of these things.

810

Well, that you just brought up a topic.

811

Okay.

812

The,

when an engineer is no longer focused

813

on making a car a wonderful

driving machine, and they're worried

814

about making sure it tracks people, it's

no longer about the transportation

815

or the enjoyment of driving a vehicle

and how it moves on the road.

816

They've lost sight of what it is,

and again, it's it's pushing for revenue.

817

Subscription based models on

things are a huge revenue stream.

818

And I you know, not to be hypocritical,

I'm just say this

819

because I work on both sides.

As a programmer.

820

I have clients where we set it up this way

because they're going to make

821

a lot more money off of whatever product

they're doing.

822

And the manufacturers of the big things

are not unaware of this.

823

And this is why it's starting to

824

become harder and harder to find software

you buy.

825

Yeah, you just buy a license

and you kept it

826

as long as, you want it to

and then you bought it.

827

Upgrade. Now you ran it.

828

You wouldn't

get updates forever or anything like that,

829

but you didn't have to pay an ongoing fee.

830

My big fight on this is, with QuickBooks,

and I've talked about this in the past,

831

is I would replace my QuickBooks

every 3 or 4 years.

832

Well, I believe 2020 somewhere around

there was the last one that you could buy,

833

and they forced a subscription on

everybody.

834

And I got in quite an argument with them

835

when we were doing our business payroll,

and I moved to somebody else

836

because I'm not going to pay a monthly fee

for the software.

837

I'm still using the 2020 version.

838

Well, then our payroll is not compatible.

839

Well, that's your problem, not mine.

840

You know, but these type of things,

I don't need to upgrade that.

841

And I'm not going to, especially

considering it's like 80 bucks a month,

842

you know, that's

843

so anyway,

844

to kind of circle back here

to what we're talking about today,

845

other than my rant,

what can you do to help yourself?

846

Okay. Becoming a hermit, it's an option,

but probably not one for most of us.

847

So the one big thing is change

the default passwords on your devices.

848

You think of it this way.

849

If you're if it came with a password,

so did everyone else's.

850

And it's going to be the same. Yeah.

851

So when you're putting things

up, you know change it and use a password

852

that's not password

or one, two, three, four or something.

853

I mean, you know, on a device,

it is a good idea,

854

but maybe not as important to use a,

you know, 50 character or random password

855

like you would on your bank and stuff,

but at least change it.

856

Change your router password.

That's another one.

857

Everybody knows that

the most routers are,

858

you know, admin and password

or router password.

859

You can look up the model online

and figure out exactly what it is.

860

And I notice with,

a lot of the newer equipment, it's

861

awesome that when you set it up now

and for this reason, you know,

862

and then the second thing that is

important to do is to update your devices.

863

Bill, you talked about this

a little bit earlier.

864

And basically

your smart device is a small computer.

865

And like any other computer,

it has software running on it.

866

And that software can be compromised.

867

So the manufacturer does or at least

should update it when that happens.

868

And this is also done to add new features,

stuff like that.

869

And when the software gets old,

first of all it's been around longer.

870

Second of all, it's

probably been updated for a reason.

871

The hackers know this

872

and they've had more time in to mess with

it and can break into stuff a lot easier.

873

So this is not just your computer,

this is your smart devices.

874

This is your

I had a clock that I just bought

875

and it goes out and can set online

and does, weather forecast and stuff.

876

First thing, I need to update my software

when I turned it on.

877

It's work. Yeah. And that's why,

878

you know, and keep things new.

879

It's the best.

880

But it's especially important

on networking devices

881

because that's the gateway

and everything else.

882

Your routers, your cable modems,

your devices of that nature

883

are very important to update.

884

And if somebody gets in and compromises

things,

885

they can leave software

on the inside of your network

886

so that even once you do fix these things,

they can still get back around.

887

And this is happening with businesses

a lot with ransomware and other things.

888

So the first step is just making sure

that you keep things

889

as up to date as possible.

890

Now I have we figured it out

when my system broke down the other day.

891

I have 231 smart devices on the networks

in my house now.

892

A few people,

893

including my girlfriend, has told me that

that's quite a lot, but I don't think so.

894

But in any event,

the networks bogged down because

895

there were too many devices and I couldn't

turn my lights on, which was a problem.

896

So as we're going through that, I'm

thinking about it.

897

Okay, 231 devices, each with their own

firmware or onboard software,

898

to try to keep that updated

manually would be a bit of a pain.

899

While the credible devices usually update

automatically unless you specifically

900

turn it off so you're okay

as long as you're not changing things.

901

But again,

902

if you're using some of the cheaper stuff,

knock offs, that kind of thing,

903

you want to be very careful

that it will update.

904

There's updates even available.

905

And the other thing you can do is just go,

okay, I've got this device, Google

906

the model number in the make

and you'll be able to see online.

907

A lot of times if there's been a problem,

908

you know, a known thing,

from that kind of thing.

909

Now, if you want to get

a little more into this and this,

910

if you know how to set up a network or,

you know, have your kid do it or

911

whatever the case may be,

912

a piece of

913

advice that's given is most modern

routers, network Wi-Fi routers

914

have the ability to have

what's called a guest network.

915

So you have a primary inside network

and then the guest network.

916

At least the idea or use case on that is,

if you have a friend

917

come over or business

with clients or something,

918

you can give them that password

and not the password to your main network.

919

But one of the things that's advised here

is to put your,

920

smart devices on the guest network,

not your internal network.

921

And by the default,

this will separate the two.

922

There's a firewall built into the routers

and some other things

923

that allows you to basically partition

the devices.

924

So if one gets compromised, it's

not a gateway into the rest of your

925

personal stuff.

926

And again, this

is a configuration thing for 231 devices.

927

That would take me a little bit of doing,

928

but it is something I think I'm going to

do, and I think it's a good idea.

929

And then the other thing of videos

is to disable what you don't use.

930

So turn off microphones and devices

if you don't need them.

931

So most smart speakers, if you have one

where you're just listening to music,

932

you don't need to talk to it.

933

There's a button on

I know the Amazon devices.

934

You push it, you get a red light

or some kind of an indication

935

on the device, and it turns off

the microphone and off camera,

936

that type of thing.

937

Cameras that you don't use, cover them.

938

I think all three of us do that,

where you can get

939

fancy and buy a little slider

that'll go over it.

940

Or you can just put a piece of tape

or something like that,

941

but this is something

to think about doing.

942

And then the other thing is disable

features. You don't use.

943

Never have asked for that kind of a thing

and don't rubberstamp the accept.

944

But when you put in an app

945

and you know it's a game where we're going

to play solitaire, but for some reason

946

that needs access to your camera,

microphone, contacts and bank information.

947

I hate that, just like except,

948

you know, you might want to think about

why is this the case?

949

Yeah.

950

And they depend on a lot of people

because we get busy

951

and there's so much of this stuff

going on, and, you know,

952

so a lot of times people, you know,

just don't think of these things.

953

It's nothing wrong with them. It's

just you're busy.

954

And then another thing is we've kind of

alluded to this by smart, not cheap.

955

The cheapest smart

device often cuts corners on security

956

and never gets updates.

We're just talking about this.

957

So you know,

you do get what you pay for sometimes.

958

And the more supported devices

will usually get more features

959

and stuff on down the road.

960

And then the next thing is assume

it's listening.

961

If a device has Wi-Fi, a microphone,

a camera,

962

treat it like it's always potentially

watching or listening because

963

sometimes it is a little creepy

to think about.

964

And also where you might put these

devices, you know, and that kind of thing.

965

So, you know, I don't know.

966

The smartest home

isn't one with most devices.

967

It's the one that knows when to say no.

968

And it's just something to think about.

969

These things are convenient.

970

They had a lot of quality of life,

and I am not suggesting in any way

971

that you shouldn't use smart devices,

but know what you have.

972

Think about where they are,

973

where they are in your home or office

or that type of a thing.

974

And just remember, they're never sleeping.

975

Even when you are those devices out

there are going to be doing their thing.

976

Office standby.

977

You know, things are different

from even the way this technology work.

978

Even as recent as ten years ago.

979

All right. Until next week.

980

This is User Friendly 2.0 keeping you safe

on the cutting edge, User Friendly 2.0.

981

Copyright 2013 to 2026 by User Friendly

Media Group.

982

Incorporated. All rights reserved.

983

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984

and does not necessarily

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985

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986

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987

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