June 21 & 22, 2025 Show Notes
Start of Summer / National Indigenous Peoples Day / Weekend Edition!
🎙️ Show airs live
Saturday: 10:05am-Noon
🔁 Rebroadcast
Sunday: 1:05pm-3pm on C-FAX
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Tech Talk - June 21, 2025 by Tech Talk with Alan Perry
This week on Tech Talk, your technology tutor Alan Perry is joined by Gary Beyer from Tesseract Computers to unpack the latest in tech! From comparing phone plans and travel tips to dodging online scams and scoring great tech deals, they also take your live tech questions by call and text.
Or, you can subscribe to "Tech Talk with Alan Perry" (it's free) on any podcast app including these…
1) 16 billion passwords exposed in record-breaking data breach, opening access to Facebook, Google, Apple, and other services
Researchers have discovered several online collections of login credentials rhat suggest one of the largest data breaches in history, totaling a humongous 16 billion exposed login credentials. The data most likely originates from various infostealers.
The datasets that the team uncovered differ widely. For example, the smallest, named after malicious software, had over 16 million records. Meanwhile, the largest one, most likely related to the Portuguese-speaking population, had over 3.5 billion records. On average, one dataset with exposed credentials had 550 million records.
One dataset with over 455 million records was named to indicate its origins in the Russian Federation. Another dataset, with over 60 million records, was named after Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging platform.
The only silver lining here is that all of the datasets were exposed only briefly: long enough for researchers to uncover them, but not long enough to find who was controlling vast amounts of data. Most of the datasets were temporarily accessible through unsecured Elasticsearch or object storage instances.
You can find out if any of your passwords have been leaked by using the free CyberNews Password Leak Checker — and yes, it's safe to use, because the website has no idea who you are or which account(s) the password is for. It uses what you type to generate an encrypted hash and then uses that to check their list of 33 billion leaked passwords…
2) Watch out for scam emails or texts that say your cloud storage is full — they're a gateway to an expensive membership scam
The messages, like the one in the screenshot below, try to scare you by claiming all your stored files will be deleted if you do not take action…
This one came by email from an account in Australia (.au), is not addressed to anyone in particular or specify what cloud service, and has dubious sentence structure — including urging you to use a 'flush door'!
If you were to Hold your finger on the “update” button on the original email, or hover your mouse over it you would see that that button would take you to a page on a OptimizedSmartReliableDefense.autos website (hosted in Arizona) that most browsers flag as being unsafe…
If you were to ignore the unsafe warning and go to that website, it would take you to this page…
…and if you were to click on the "Claim Now" button, it'd redirect you to a webpage where you'd be offered not additional cloud storage, but instead 'one year of protection' for $29.95 USD…
If you proceed, you'll be taken to a page asking for your contact info and credit card info, but the scam is in the fine print on that page, which I've magnified here…
What you're actually signing-up for is a two-day trial of a loyalty club service (based in Cyprus — 357 country code) which converts on the third day to a non-refundable membership of 46.97 Euros every 14 days, which works out to $74.30 CAD every two weeks!
To get back that money, you'll have to get your credit card firm to dispute the charge, and cancel your credit card and issue you a new one. NEVER click on links or buttons in texts or emails like this!
3) Watch out for fake phone numbers inserted by scammers into real websites for firms like Microsoft, Apple, HP, Netflix and other firms
Tech support scammers have devised a way to inject their fake phone numbers into search boxes on official websites for Apple, PayPal, Netflix, and other companies, as shown in these screenshots…
The unknown actors behind the scam begin by buying Google ads that appear at the top of search results for Microsoft, Apple, HP, PayPal, Netflix, and other sites. While Google displays only the scheme and host name of the site the ad links to (for instance, https://www.microsoft.com), the ad appends parameters to the path to the right of that address. When a target clicks on the ad, it opens a page on the official site. The appended parameters then inject fake phone numbers into the page the target sees.
If you have the free Malwarebytes Browser Guard installed on your computer, it'll now warn you if a website has been corrupted by this technique…
But either way, be wary of phone numbers that appear in search-boxes that appear near the top of websites for companies…
5) Investigation has found that 23andMe 'failed to take basic steps' to protect private info, resulting in massive 2023 hack
An investigation by Canada's Privacy Commissioner has concluded that DNA testing company 23andMe didn't have adequate data protections and ignored warning signs ahead of a massive data breach almost two years ago,
Commissioner Philippe Dufresne says proper protections were not in place in 2023 when hackers gained access to roughly 6.9 million profiles on the 23andMe site — nearly half its client base.
Stolen customer profiles contained delicate personal data, including birth year, geographic location, health information and the percentage of DNA users share with their relatives — some of that info has since been offered for sale on the dark web.
"23andMe failed to take basic steps to protect people's info, their security systems were inadequate, the warning signs were there and the company was slow to respond," Edwards said.
23andMe filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and announced that it would be selling off its assets — meaning customers' data could be "accessed, sold or transferred." However, the company insists the bankruptcy process will not affect how it stores, manages, or protects customer data.
Tech Deals This Weekend
The end of an era:
London Drugs is clearing-out all DVDs and Blu-Ray's for just $5
With most people now streaming and/or downloading shows and movies, the market for discs has all but disappeared.
But, if you like having physical copies, here's your chance to stock up before they're gone.
$5 each for all remaining DVDs and Blu-Ray's, at all London Drugs stores while they last.
Crave is offering three months of video-streaming at 35% off
Because we tend to spend a lot less time watching movies and TV shows during the summer, Bell-owned Crave is offering three months at 35% off if you sign-up before July 7.
The temporary new plan pricing is…
- Basic with ads (720p) – $7 (reg, $12)
- Standard with ads (1080p) – $9 (reg, $15)
- Premium (4K) – $14 (reg, $22)
After the three-month deal, the plan you sign up for will revert to its original price, unless you cancel before then. So, if you're going to go for this deal, we suggest you put a reminder into your calendar for a couple days before the three-month expiry, to make a decision whether or not to cancel.
Telus is offering free 30-day Apple TV+ trial
Telus is now offering a new perk, in the form of a free 30-day trial of Apple TV+ to some customers.
Typically, Apple TV+ comes with a free seven-day trial, but this Telus offer extends that to 30 days.
The offer is listed as a Perk, meaning it won’t cost you any Telus Rewards points. However, it’s only available to customers who don’t already have an active Apple TV+ subscription.
To check if you’re eligible, visit the Telus My Rewards portal. The promotion is part of the latest refresh to Telus’ Rewards Program.
iPhone in Canada | Canada’s source for Apple, telecom, tech news, and deals
Telus Offering Free 30-Day Apple TV+ Trial for Customers | iPhone in Canada
Telus recently updated its Rewards program and is now offering a new perk, in the form of a free 30-day trial of Apple TV+ to some customers. Typically, Apple TV+ comes with a free 7-day trial, but this Telus offer extends that to 30 days. The offer is listed as a Perk, meaning it won’t
Tech News Of The Week
Items start at #10, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more security items above!
Tip: if an item in these Show Notes has the icon on the right in the upper-right corner, you can click/tap on it to make the additional info open in a new tab.
10) Bell, Koodo, and Fido are upping rates for mobile service by $5-$7 a month — consider switching providers to get a better deal
If your smartphone is on Bell, Koodo, or Fido, if you check your bill, you'll likely see a note that they're upping your rate starting next month, unless you're paying-off a phone on contract. In that case, the rate hikes will take effect once your contract is up.
Bell customers say they're being advised that their rates will be going up by $6/month for phones and $3/month for smartwatch plans; Koodo customers say their rates are going up by $7/month. and Fido customers say they're seeing notices of a $5/month price hike.
Bell is defending the rate hike, saying it's to offset rising costs and market shifts, and pointing-out hat it has invested “almost $23 billion to deliver Canada’s best and fastest networks at competitive prices” since 2020. Bell says during the same time, “the cost of cellular services has dropped by 50% while the cost for all items has risen by nearly 20%,” citing Statistics Canada.
If you feel you are — or will be — paying too much, consider switching carriers.
The companies are gambling that you'll grudgingly accept the rate-hikes rather than switch, but the CRTC has put rules in place to make switching fast and painless.
Rates change monthly and sometimes even weekly; the current best rates are being offered by Freedom Mobile, which is owned by Quebec-based Videotron; they have Canada/USA/Mexico plans starting at $25/month…
If you want more data, and/or if you're going to be traveling overseas, Freedom offers "Roam Beyond" plans that let you use your phone in more than 100 countries at no extra cost…
…or if you aren't going to be traveling and won't be phonng people outside Canada, they also have a $40/month plan that includes 100GB/month of data…
11) Bell has followed the lead of Telus, and now offers international Roaming Passes for Europe as well as for Mexico and the Caribbean
Telus and Koodo have been offering add-on Europe travel passes since last winter, and now Bell is doing the same. Bell's "Roam Better" passes are now available for Mexico and the Caribbean, or for Europe…
A 7-day Roam Better pass for Mexico and the Caribbean will cost you $70 — so $10 a day, compared to the $16/day daily rate. For Europe, $70 will get you a 14-day Roam Better pass , which works out to $5 a day, way better than Bell's $13/day international Roam Better rate.
Telus and their budget brand Koodo offer 14-day and 30-day Easy Roam Travel Passes, which are good across Europe…
A Telus Easy Roam Travel Pass will work in Aland Islands, Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, St. Pierre & Miquelon, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Wales.
If you're headed to the USA on Bell, Telus, or Rogers or their budget brands, unless you have a pricey plan that includes Canada and USA roaming, you'll still have to pay $13 a day to use your phone in the USA.
By far the best deal for international travel, though, is from Freedom Mobile, which includes Canada/USA/Mexico use at no extra cost in all its plans starting at $25/month and up.
And if you're going to the Caribbean, Central America, South America, or overseas, Freedom's $46/month and higher plans come with "Roam Beyond", which let you use your phone at no extra cost in more than 100 countries.
If you're just going on one overseas trip, you can go on a cheeaper monthly plan, and then before you travel, buy a 30-day Roam Beyond pass, with a choice of two options:
- $30 for 5GB of 5G data good in 100+ countries + unlimited calls within a country and back home
- $50 for 10GB of 5G data good in 100+ countries + unlimited calls within a country and back home
If you need more data while oversaes, you can buy a second pass.
12) You can now visit all National Parks and Historic Sites here in Canada for free till the fall via the new Canada Strong pass
You don't actually need a physical or digital pass; you just have to go to a National Park, National Historic Site, or National Marine Conservation Area, and you'll be waved right in!
The Canada Strong program, which has been implemented to encourage us to vacation within Canada (instread of going to the USA), includes:
- Parks Canada: Free admission for all visitors to national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas administered by Parks Canada and a 25% discount on camping fees.
- National museums and the Plains of Abraham Museum: Free admission for children and teens aged 17 and under and a 50% discount for young adults aged 18 to 24.
- VIA Rail: Free travel for children aged 17 and under when accompanied by an adult, and a 25% discount for young adults aged 18 to 24.
- Participating provincial and territorial museums and galleries (including the Royal BC Museum here in Victoria): Free admission for children and a 50% discount for young adults aged 18 to 24.
13) Think twice about booking a cheap flight through a third-party travel app or website
If your flight is cancelled -- and that's happening a lot more often now because of staffing shortages and weather problems -- you'll have to deal with that third party to get rebooked, if you can even reach someone, and that can be really stressful.
There's another reason to avoid third-party travel sites: most are not regulated by provincial travel regulators, so if they make a mistake — such as spelling your name incorrectly on a flight booking — you can find youself on the hook (see below) for paying for a new ticket.
By all means, search the web for the best fares (see how to use Google Flight Search in the next item), but once you've found the best fare, then we encourage you to go to the app or website of the airline in question and book the flights there.
CTVNews
Ontario couple’s dream vacation ruined after typo on airline ticket
An Ontario couple booking their dream vacation to Africa says they were searching for flights online when they got a call from a travel website offering a good deal, but after reserving the tickets, a typo of just one letter ended up ruining their trip.
14) Use Google Flight Search to find the cheapest airfares
There are a tonne of airfare search tools out there, but the one which consistently finds the cheapest fares is Google's Flight Search tool at Google.com/Travel/Flights. Start by putting in your To/From cities and then your ideal travel dates. I've picked Paris from Aug. 25 to Sep. 7 as an example…
The cheapest cost for those dates would be $1212 per person — and this search was for a family of four. But, there are built-in tools in the lower-right of your search results that can save you a lot of money. One is the Date Grid, which shows which days have the cheapest fares. You'll see, in our example, below, that they could save $320 per person by going a day earlier, and back two days later — a saving of $1280 for the family of four!
…the other useful tool is the Price Graph, which shows you what happens to fares if you shorten or lengthen your trip, or if you change your dates. In our example, we can see that we've found the cheapest option, but I've found savings of hundreds of dollars on other searches by making small changes to the length of a trip.
Google Flight Search also lets you filter prices to show what's important to you, such as non-stop flights, or avoiding long layovers. And living in Victoria, you can also easily check to see if it's a lot cheaper to fly from Vancouver or Seattle. In our case, if we pick the cheapest travel dates from Victoria but change to departing from Vancouver…
…the price drops by $186 to $706 per person! That's an $506 per per person saving from what we started with, or a saving of $2024 for the family of four…so they'll be taking the ferry, bus and Skytrain to the Vancouver Airport.
Once you find the best fares, you can then book directly with the airline, or you can forward the results to a travel agent and pay them to book it for you. We do not recommend booking with an online travel site like Expedia or SkyScanner — especially for flights overseas — because you don't want the stress of having to try to contact someone at those sites if your flight gets cancelled, and there are a lot more cancellations these days than in years past, especially in the winter.
16) If you want to see where a transit bus is anywhere here in BC (except on the lower mainland), check-out BCTracker.ca
A brilliant fellow named James Ward has created a website that uses GPS tracking data from transit bus systems across BC (and some also in Alberta), to show you where transit busses are.
The best part of his website is that it includes real-time bus info for lots of smaller transit systems, including ones on the Gulf Islands. Check it out at TrackerBC.ca
If you're wondering why the BCTracker.ca website doesn't include Translink/Coast Mountain Bus routes on the lower mainland, James says that's because there are numerous websites providing transit schedules and realtime info for Vancouver, including T-Comm and Sorry Bus Full. James says BCTracker was created specifically because there were no equivalent websites for the rest of the province.
17) If your YouTube app on an iPhone is acting-up, Google suggests (seriously!) that you uninstall it and reinstall it,
Following a series of problems with its YouTube app for iPhone, Google has now issued an updated version and recommends users reinstall it, rather than updating the version they have now.
According to YouTube parent company Google, users have been reporting a general unresponsiveness, or unexpected closing, after the app was auto-updated to version 20.23.3, starting on June 9.
Google has released an update to try to fix the problem, but for reasons that are still unclear, Google is actually suggesting iPhone users delete the YouTube app, and then go to the App Store and reinstall it, instead of just updating it…
18) Dating app Tinder is now using Face Check video-selfies here in Canada to battle bots
Tinder has launched Face Check here in Canada (outside of Quebec), which is designed to eliminate fake profiles and increase trust with the profiles people are connecting with.
The new feature requires users to take a mandatory video selfie that helps confirm with the service that the user is an actual person, and not a bot.
Face Check compares your photos with those on your profile to prevent fake accounts and using someone else’s photos to catfish someone, a long-standing issue with online dating platforms.
19) Apple has made PowerPoint presentations for new university students who want help convincing their parents to buy them a Mac
In a brilliant bit of marketing, Apple has created an excellent customizable PowerPoint presentation for students heading to university who want some help convincing their parents to buy them a Mac…
The PowerPoint deck (which is also available as a Keynote or Google Slides presentation) consists of 45 fully-customizable slides with catchy text and slick graphics detailing reasons why it makes sense to buy them a Mac, and includes an appendix of specific slides customized for various potential occupations and lifestyles…
Check out the full presentation below (link will be in the upper-right on the page)…
20a) Apple shareholders sue over Siri delays and massive losses
Apple shareholders are suing the company over AI rollout delays they claim cost them nearly a trillion dollars. They claim that the Cupertino-based company has deliberately downplayed how long it would need to launch the new and improved AI-powered Siri.
Because of the delay, shareholders are claiming that they have suffered potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of losses in the year ending June 9. Apple shares have lost nearly one-fourth of their value since their December 26, 2024 record high, wiping out approximately $900 billion of market value.
Shareholders, led by Eric Tucker, claim that Apple led them to believe that Apple Intelligence would be a driving force behind iPhone 16 sales. However, after the WWDC 2025 keynote, shareholders came to believe that the company had deliberately downplayed how long it would need to launch features promised a year prior.
The only references to Siri in the 2025 WWDC Keynote speech was Craig Federighi promising the company was, still in fact, working on the project.
It's worth noting that the vast majority of the share price loss this year 2025 has been over tariff fears, not AI rollout speeds. It's not clear how the suit filers consider this fact in their filing.
20b) Apple execs may be considering buying AI firm Perplexity to help give Siri its promised huge AI boost
According to unnamed sources within Apple, internal discussions are in a very early stage, and there has not yet been an offer made.
Also a possibility is a team-up with Perplexity, rather than an outright buy. Any partnership would put Perplexity in Safari, and perhaps integrated into the long-delayed improved Siri project, that is now not expected to ship until 2026.
The move may also get made to help Apple develop an AI-powered search engine. Google pays Apple about $20 billion a year to be the primary search engine on the iPhone and Mac, but that deal is in danger after antitrust and regulatory discussions.
If a deal is reached to buy Perplexity, the deal would be the largest in Apple history, and not by a little. Perplexity is valued at about $14 billion. This far eclipses the deal that Apple made in 2014 for Beats, which cost the company $3 billion.
21) Family-owned On Time Watch Repair Service, which used to be in Bay stores, has resurfaced inside select London Drugs stores
The closure of The Bay chain also meant the closure of the popular One Time watch and jewellry repair outlets which were located in many Bay stores — a family-owned chain that dates back 46 years to the days of the Eaton's and Woodward's department store chains.
The original company, founded by Chris Skews’ father in 1979, was called TimeHouse and it operated in Woodward’s stores. When Eaton’s came about, he formed a new company and it was called D&D Time, which stood for David and Della, the names of Skews’ parents. The company moved from Eaton’s to Hudson’s Bay stores in 1992, and at the peak of the arrangement, it ran watch and jewelry repair stores in some 33 Hudson’s Bay locations across Western Canada.
Now, we're happy to report that the company has found another new home, setting-up shop in 18 London Drugs stores across Western Canada, including the Tillicum Centre store here in Victoria, and the Harvey Avenue store in Kelowna.
Beyond their London Drugs locations, On Time Service Corp has also launching a website at OnTimeService.com hat will extend their services to customers across Canada — including those who don't live near physical locations and areas where London Drugs doesn't yet have stores…
22) CRTC decision: Canadian internet service providers must let competitors have wholesale-rate access to their networks
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) says it's sticking by its decision to allow current and new internet service providers (ISP's) to resell internet services using competitor's networks.
As well as allowing small ISP's to buy wholesale access to the networks run by Telus, Bell, and Rogers, this also means that the big three can also buy access to each other's networks instead of spending the money to install their own fibre lines in areas where they don't currently offer service.
23) New cell towers proposed to improve reception in Nanaimo
Dealing with troublesome dead spots and improving overall connection quality is the goal of several proposed cell phone tower installations in Nanaimo.
Telus is planning to install monopole towers in city-owned land adjacent to the Rutherford Road roundabout with Linley Valley Drive as well as at the City’s public works yard on Labieux Road.
In the Hammond Bay Road area, a tower is going to go up at the Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre; there'll be another erected off Mary Ellen Drive along the northern edge of Nanaimo city limits, and one is also in the works for private property on Serenity Place overlooking Nanoose Bay.
26) We've also started compiling a list of our favourite phone apps
The "Our Favourite Apps" list — which will have a lot more added in the coming weeks — is on our home page, and you can also get to it by going to Tech-Talk.ca/apps.
It's the final week with our Grade 11 and 12 international students — Klára from Czechia, and Elodie from Switzerland — before they head back home, and we're trying to fit as many special activities as we can into our last few days with them! We took them to a beautiful candlelight concert at St. Ann's where a string quartet performed music by Coldplay and Imagine Dragons…
Our good friends Rick and Zack took the girls kayaking up the Gorge Waterway…
Klára finished 2nd in javelin with an impressive throw of more than 37.5 metres at the big Garriock Track Meet at the Cowichan Sportplex last weekend…
We've also done less-exciting things like exploring the Trans-Canada Trail in Vic-West…
..and checking-out the deer amidst the historic gravestones in Ross Bay Cemetary…
If you'd like to host an international high school student starting this fall, school districts here and around the province are now looking for host families. Here are links where you can get more info:
Saanich: StudyInSaanich.ca/homestay
Victoria: StudyInVictoria.com/hosting-student
Gulf Islands: StudyInBC.ca/homestay
Cowichan: StudyInCowichan.com/homestay-program
Central Okanagan: International.SD23.bc.ca
…and finally, our "Sign Of The Week"…
And so it goes…