Hackers are lurking behind the biggest online sales of the season, a huge share of voters are quizzing chatbots about their ballots, and a new Microsoft tool quietly keeps a record of everything that crosses your display. During this week’s Tech Talk Tuesday on 97.1 FM Talk, ThrottleNet owner George Rosenthal walked listeners through the online threats worth watching right now, smarter ways to use AI as the midterms approach, and why he remains optimistic about the technology, backed by the 800+ hours every month that ThrottleNet has gained by putting it to work. Interested in learning more? Continue reading below.
Big Sales Bring Big Scams
Amazon Prime Day is in full swing, with rival promotions from Walmart and Wayfair running alongside it. George’s opening advice was blunt: enjoy the bargains, but stay alert, because criminals follow the shopping crowds. Scammers watch the retail calendar closely and flood inboxes and phones with bogus messages just as shoppers hit “buy now.” The bait tends to look the same every time: a supposed problem with your payment, a change to your delivery schedule, or a “your package is delayed, click here for status” notice.
George boiled his guidance down to a few simple habits:
- Skip every link in an order-related text or email, no matter how convincingly it imitates Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair, or any other store where you actually shopped.
- Open the retailer’s official site or app yourself and check on your purchase from there.
- Employers should share this with their staff. Criminals aim at work email accounts, too, and one careless click on a phony shipping alert can introduce malware to a company network. George suggested telling your team to avoid clicking on anything tied to online orders from their work accounts, both now and throughout the days ahead.
The First “AI Election”: Asking Chatbots the Right Way
With the midterms less than a month out, George cited an eye-catching figure from Pew Research: roughly half of Americans who use a computer are also chatting with AI, and more and more of them are asking those tools for help deciding how to vote.
For anyone researching candidates or ballot measures with AI, he shared two practical pointers:
- Keep your questions neutral. Plenty of people hand the chatbot their own opinion first and then ask how they ought to vote. George suggests asking it to compare the candidates or positions on a specific issue instead, without hinting at the conclusion you’re hoping to hear.
- Switch to a temporary or private chat. Research that gets stored in a chatbot’s cloud history can be used to build a profile of you, which can then steer the ads and campaigns that reach you, not only in the coming weeks but into the next election cycle as well. A temporary or private session cuts down that exposure.
George also advised workers to avoid political research on company computers and networks. Tying that activity to company accounts and devices can blend it with business information in ways most employers would rather avoid.
He voiced a wider worry as well: AI is already effective at persuading people and is getting better fast. His biggest concern is younger people who may lean on AI for almost everything they learn, along with the possibility that a handful of giant AI companies could end up nudging public opinion in a particular direction. His recommendation is to take AI answers with a grain of salt and form your own conclusions. And when the host floated the idea of a chatbot one day offering to fill out your ballot for you, George said flatly that he hopes it never comes to that.
Microsoft Recall: The “Photographic Memory” Feature That Deserves a Second Look
George also flagged a Windows 11 tool called Recall. Once enabled, it captures an image of your screen every few seconds and lets AI search through all of it. You could, in theory, dig up anything you’ve ever viewed, which is handy until you remember what else shows up on a screen now and then: banking pages, card numbers, usernames, and other private details.
Should malware or ransomware find its way onto your machine, an attacker might gain a searchable library of everything you’ve seen. Security experts around the world have voiced worries about this, and George said he personally would steer clear of it.
His tips for setting up a new Windows 11 computer:
- Pass on “Express Setup.” Take the time to go through each privacy option yourself.
- Leave Recall switched off unless you have a clear reason for using it and understand what’s at stake.
Recall is opt-in, so it stays off unless you choose to turn it on.
Why George Says AI Isn’t Something to Fear
The segment closed on an upbeat note. Asked to share something encouraging, George insisted that AI will not wipe out everyone’s jobs. Inside ThrottleNet, he explained, AI has freed up about 800 employee hours each month without replacing a single team member. It has just made everyone more productive.
George likened today to the internet’s early years, when viruses were everywhere, privacy worries were widespread, and no one could say what living in a connected world would mean. AI feels new and unfamiliar, he said, and a little caution is reasonable, but the upside is huge: help with curing diseases and easing traffic jams, and a patient, ever-available tutor for every child. In his view, the answer is to use AI responsibly, build in guardrails, and stay engaged.
The Bottom Line
Go ahead and grab the deals, but check on your orders by visiting the store’s own site. Keep your prompts neutral and use private chats for anything sensitive. Be careful about enabling tools that record everything you do. And remember that, used wisely, AI can help both you and your business get ahead.
Catch George Rosenthal live every Tuesday for Tech Talk Tuesday on the Mark Reardon Show, 97.1 FM Talk. Have a tech question you’d like answered on air? Reach out to [email protected] or contact us here!
