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If you click on one of these scam CRA links,you'll be taken to a fake CRA sign-in page that looks just like the real CRA sign-in page (see screenshot below) — except this one is hosted on a website in Thailand (most browsers will flag this as being Dangerous)……

If you click on the Sign-In Partner button, it takes you to a page with logos for all the main banks and credit unions here in Canada…

…and if you click on your bank or credit union, it takes you to a realistic-looking but fake sign-in page for your institution (mine is Royal Bank)…

If you type in your log-in info, you've just given the overseas scammers access to your account.

In most cases, your bank or credit union will text or email you a code before granting access, but the scammers know that, and you'll be redirected to a screen asking you to put in that code.

If you do, the scammers will be into your account and will immediately start initiating money transfers to themselves via untraceable crypto-currency.

This is not a new scam, but it's happening again, and it's expensive and stressful, so Sidney/North Saanich RCMP are asking us to warn you again.

The scam starts with a phone call from an alleged Rogers employee, who explains how you can get a cheaper phone plan with a free iPhone or iPad.

The employee explains how to sign up for the promotion on the Rogers app, and a couple of days later, the iPad arrives in the mail, followed by a phone call from another person in the Rogers activation department.

You get upset because you were told that this was a free iPad, and there weren’t going to be any charges, but it turns out there’s a $120 monthly bill for the iPad with the data plan.

The Rogers employee tells you that if you just return the iPad with the shipping label they'll email you, you won’t be charged.

However, the returned iPad never goes back to Rogers — it goes to the scammer. And you didn’t sign up for a new phone plan; you actually signed up for an iPad financing agreement. Now you’re on the hook for this $2,350 iPad that you have to pay off over the next couple of years, and Rogers won't forgive that bill, because you did order the iPad.

The key is the return shipping label — it goes to a vacant apartment or an AirBnB which the scammers rented so they could collect the returned iPads, which they then can sell.

Never agree to purchase a device over the phone or online, from someone who calls you. Contact the company directly to see if the offer is legitimate.

And if you're returning something you ordered, double-check the address on the return shipping-label. If in doubt, contact the company directly to confirm the address is theirs.

Campbell River RCMP are sounding the alarm about a fraudulent email.

Mounties are urging us to be vigilant after receiving a report of the email, which claims a package had been intercepted and would only be released upon payment of a fee.

In this incident, a Vancouver Island resident contacted the Campbell River RCMP after receiving an email purportedly from FedEx. It said a package addressed to them had been intercepted south of Campbell River.

The email asked for a $1,200 payment to secure the package’s release.

In this case, the recipient recognized the potential scam, contacted police, and did not send money or click any links.

Upon review, the RCMP noted the email had several indicators commonly associated with fraud, including numerous spelling and grammatical errors, poorly written content, and the unauthorized use of a crude RCMP logo intended to make the email appear legitimate.

“Scammers frequently attempt to create a sense of urgency or authority to pressure people into making payments or providing personal information,” said Campbell River RCMP Officer in Charge Jeff Preston. “If you receive unexpected correspondence demanding money, take the time to verify the information through official channels before responding.

These messages can take various forms, but often look like this iPad screenshot from "Tech Talk" listener Derek in Kelowna…

The message is often overlaid on what looks like your Settings page, to make it appear it's an official notification from Apple.

It's NOT — it's a clever scam.

Look closely at the top of the screenshot, and you'll see that it's actually just a webpage — SecureSweep.pro — which is displaying the warning message over top of a screenshot of an iPhone Settings page.

The scammers want you to tap on RUN A TEST which will take you to a different webpage that'll play a video of what looks like a security scanner in action, and within seconds, it'll switch to a screen showing that your device is supposedly 'infected' badly, and you need to run a cleaner app.

In this case, it offers the free Trust-Access app as shown in the next screenshot — the same app suggested by a different scam webpage that claims your device has been 'severly' (sic) damaged by viruses from adult websites…

Other similar ones aimed at Android users also claim your phone has been badly infected.

In all of these cases, your device has NOT been damaged or infected.

It's scam. You were hit with a pop-up ad from an app or were tricked into clicking on a link that took you to a scam web-page.

What's the scam? Trust-Access, and a rotating list of similar other apps, are harmless free apps, but they come with a free three-day trial which then charges you $19.95 a month USD unless you cancel it! The scammers are gambling that if you do cancel it, it'll be after they got their first $20 out of you.

They avoid getting caught because they delete the app from the app store almost weekly (before anyone can post a review that it's a scam), and replace it with one with a different name. And because apps like these are not harmful to your device, it's hard for Apple or Google to detect that they're being used for subscription scamming.

NEVER install apps on the basis of a pop-up screen like this one!

You can make the message go away by simply closing your web-browser, or in the case of the iPhone home screen pop-up, by tapping on the small "x" in the upper-right corner of the screen, or, by re-starting your device.

And if you do install a subscription app and don't realize that till after your free trial is over, contact Apple or Google and they'll almost always refund your first subscription fee.

Here's how for Apple device users…

…and here's how for Android device users…

Feel free to bookmark that page, as we'll keep updating it with screenshots of the latest scams!

The recent hacking incident involving Crime Stoppers Canada has raised significant concerns about the anonymity promised to tipsters.

The breach, which occurred between November 2025 and March 2026, exposed more than 1.5 million tips submitted to Canadian Crime Stoppers programs over the last 25 years.

The info was stolen last March by hacktivist collective Internet Yiff Machine, who stated they wanted to disprove the claim by Navigate360, the company managing the P3 tip-management platform, that its platform was "anonymous" and "secure."

CBC News analyzed a copy of the hacked data and found that more than 1.5 million tips submitted to Canadian Crime Stoppers programs over the last 25 years were exposed, along with tens of thousands of unredacted personal details. 

The breach has led to the suspension of the Crimestoppers 'anonymous' tip service by virtually all police services across Canada and the USA.

The incident has also prompted a review of the security measures in place and the need for stronger privacy protections for tipsters.

If you submitted tips to Crimestoppers, be aware that that info is now out there, and could potentialy be sold on the dark web; criminal organizations most definitely want to get ahold of it, so they can see what tips police got about their members, and from whom.

So far, the hackers have said they don't intend to sell the info they stole — their motive for the hacking, they say, was just to make people aware that the tip-line system was nether secure nor anonymous.

Items start at #10, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more security items above!

This issue is being described as one of the biggest — if not the biggest — security vulnerability to be discovered since the internet became mainstream.

PHP is a popular computer programming language used to create dynamic websites and web applications.,,it's used by 50- to 70- percent of the world's websites.

Originally, PHP stood for "Personal Home Page", but it now officially stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".

Researchers using the latest frontier model of artificial intelligence from OpenAI — the makers of ChatGPT — went looking for flaws in PHP, and found two massive ones that have been lurking out there for decades. Hackers who learned of these holes could very simply take over entire websites and not just steal info, but also change the content.

The researchers notified the PHP Foundation, which raced to come up with patches to fix the holes, but word leaked-out before they could create patches for all the various versions of PHP.

Because of the severity of these flaws, cybersecurity agencies around the world recommended that government agencies and companies take down their websites until they could get them patched, and that's happened at a rapid rate over the last few days.

However, some mainstream websites that rely on older versions of PHP, are still offline, because their web developers are struggling to patch the holes. In many cases, will probably not be able to do that and will instead have to rebuild the entire website using the current PHP version.

For those who run websites written in PHP, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has guidance that can help you…

In short, if you are running PHP 8.2 and above you have patches available. If you are running anything older (PHP 5.6 and 7 are quite common), you need to upgrade as soon as possible. Upgrading is generally not as simple as switching your running version of PHP as there are a number of "breaking" changes between versions of the programming language.

There are some patches that have been "backported" to earlier PHP versions but they aren't necessarily perfect and your best course of action is upgrading. There is some good news if you use CloudFlare as your DNS provider: by default they have implemented some firewall rules that will help block attack attempts.

affected PHP versions upgrade

(Any versions not listed here do NOT have patches available.)

Rogers is taking a page from Telus’ playbook and will soon hit you with a credit card processing fee if you use a credit card to pay your phone or internet bill.

Rogers says it'll start charging a 1.6% credit card processing fee on January 17, 2027.

This will only apply to those who pay their bills via a credit card, with other payment options, such as debit card payments, or bank account transfers,/tablet being exempt.

Rogers says credit card processing fees have gone up by more than 40% since 2026, to the point they paid credit card companies more than $150 million in card processing fees last year.

It's worth noting that there are some exemptions to this new fee: former Shaw Mobile customers on migrated plans will not have to pay it, and neither will Rogers customers in Quebec because that province’s Consumer Protection Act prohibits charging those kinds of fees.

One of the most common questions we get from seniors is how they can compile all of the online info that will be needed, in the event they can no longer handle their own affairs, or pass away.

We've found an excellent and very comprehensive planner which you can buy and fill-out and keep in a safe place.

It's called the Lamorial "Everything They'll Need" Planner; it's about 65 pages, and has lots of room for the important things that are so easy to forget to document. Here's a list of the topics included in the Canadian edition…

I've linked below a Lamorial Planner Walkthoiugh, so you can see if you think it's right for you…

The Lamorial "Everything They'll Need" Planner usually sells for $65 CAD for one person, or $130 for two people, but there are usually discount offers you can use to pay less.

.JXL is the file extension for JPEG XL, a modern image format designed as a successor to JPEG (which is an the ancronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group — the name of the group that created it in 1992.

JPEG XL aims to provide better image quality at smaller file sizes while supporting features that traditional JPEG lacks.

Key advantages

Comparison with older formats

This combination of features is one reason JPEG XL is often described as a potential "one format for everything".

If it's this good, why isn't everyone using it?

The biggest obstacle is software and browser support, not image quality. Although JPEG XL is now an international standard and is technically impressive, adoption has been slower than formats such as WebP and AVIF because support across browsers, operating systems, and image-editing applications has been inconsistent.

Windows 11 support

Windows 11 does not currently include universal native support for opening .jxl files out of the box, but a free downloadable codec is in the works and should be available soon from the Microsoft Store. Support may depend on third-party software or codecs. Popular apps such as ImageGlass, XnView MP, IrfanView (with plug-ins), and some modern image editors can already open JXL files.

MacOS support

MacOS 27 includes native JPEG XL (.jxl) support. You can open .jxl files in Preview, view thumbnails in Finder and Quick Look, and display them in Safari.

Bottom line

All the carriers have a few dead spots where it's hard or impossible to get a good cell signal, and the carriers are working hard to rectify that. But, shortages of 5G gear and the challenge of finding acceptable tower locations has slowed that work.

But in Gordon Head, now that the main part of the University Heights Centre redevelopment has been completed, Freedom Mobile just turned-on a new 50' tower providing 5G+ coverage to the surrounding area. The high-quality frequencies used by the tower allow way more people to have their devices connected to it without experiencing speed slowdowns.

This follows last year's installation of 5G Freedom Mobile towers at UVic, which has prompted a lot of students and faculty to switch to Freedom.

The carrier now has an updated online map showing how strong coverage is, and we've linked to that below; one of the main reasons were such a big fan of Freedom Mobile is that if you go beyond the reach of a Freedom Tower, Your phone will automatically connect to Telus, Bell, or Rogers, at no extra cost to you, so you actually get the best coverage of any carrier.

Apple warned that walk-in supply of the iPhone Duo would be tight on launch day, but readers who lined up at Apple Stores across the country this morning are telling a more encouraging story. Several people on X said they walked out with Apple’s $2,999 foldable, even after waiting behind dozens of other shoppers.

With online orders showing February 2027 delivery dates, a store lineup was the only realistic way for most people to get one today. Apple hasn’t shared how many units each location received, so these reader reports are the clearest picture we have so far.

Gregory S. was in line at the Apple Store in Port Coquitlam, at 6:40 AM, ahead of the mall opening at 7 AM. A few hours later, he said on X that he was “the 37th in the line” and got the last 256GB model…

iPhoneInCanada.com has rounded-up who got what, and where…

More than a few peoplewho buy a used phone over the internet — or in person — discover when they go to activate it, that it's either being reported stolen, or a carrier has “blacklisted" it for nonpayment of a bill.

A blacklisted phone cannot be activated until someone pays the outstanding bill.

Here's a fast, easy way to find out if a phone has been reported stolen or blacklisted:

Once you have the IMEI, go to DeviceCheck.ca, input the number and click on Search.

Here's what appeared when I put in the IMEI for my iPhone 16 Pro (IMEI partially redacted)...

What this check does NOT cover, is potential device damage (water damage in particular), as well as if any parts have been replaced, or need to be replaced.

Apple Music has hidden a fully interactive original iPod on its 404 page to celebrate the iconic music player’s 25th anniversary.

When you navigate to a broken web link on the platform such as Music.Apple.com/404), Apple displays a fully functional, original iPod, complete with its classic click wheel, which you can use!

The timing of this Easter Egg is no coincidence; the interactive web app arrives to mark the 25th anniversary of Steve Jobs unveiling the original iPod on October 23, 2001.

AI-generated slop and spam don’t belong in your recommendations, and Spotify says it's continuing to make changes to keep them out and protect the listening experience.

This year alone, Spotify says it's taken more than 50 million slop and spam tracks out of recommendations. This is in addition to more than 75 million spammy tracks they’ve removed from their platform altogether for serious or repeated violations of their rules.

Earlier this year, Spotify says it looked closely at the tracks listeners were skipping, ignoring, or telling us they didn’t want to hear. A clear pattern emerged: these tracks were consistently ones identified as slop or spam. Over the past six months, they've made numerous updates to their recommendation system to remove slop and spam, and surface more music made by authentic, human artists. Since they made these changes, they say they’ve seen a marked decrease in listener concerns about this content showing up in recommendations.

No single signal catches slop or spam on its own, so Spotify combines many: listener engagement and feedback, upload patterns, metadata, and information from multiple third-party AI detection tools. AI detection technology in particular has limitations, and it will only get harder as generative AI evolves. Using these signals together, Spotify says they can identify likely slop or spam with more confidence. They also hunt for new tactics, including mass uploads, duplicates, SEO manipulation, spammy playlist networks, and artificially short tracks. As spammers change tactics, they promise to keep updating their systems.

A team of University of Victoria students has won the Canadian edition of an international ocean innovation competition with a machine learning tool that identifies whales and dolphins from underwater recordings.

The team’s prototype app, Sea Who’s Calling, won Ocean Hackathon 10 here in Victoria earlier this month, beating three other teams. The team now represent Canada at the competition’s global finale in Brest, France, on Dec. 10.

Their app analyzes hydrophone recordings to identify marine mammal species, with the goal of helping the Royal Canadian Navy plan exercises while mitigating potential impacts on marine life.

The team said the idea emerged after learning about the navy’s need to identify marine mammals to reduce the impacts of sonar testing and other activities.

Initial trials using expert-labelled recordings from Ocean Networks Canada showed the prototype outperformed several leading bioacoustics models, including those from Google DeepMind, Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang Centre for Conservation Bioacoustics, and the Earth Species Project.

Air Canada has started charging customers a $30 fee for booking flights over the phone.

The change went into effect on Oct. 15, per Air Canada’s website, and includes flights booked by redeeming Aeroplan flight rewards.

We'll still be able to call Air Canada for support with existing reservations, travel disruptions and other inquiries without paying any fees.

Air Canada says the reason it has introduced this fee is to push its self-serve digital tools.

“Air Canada’s website and mobile app make it easy to book and manage your travel,” writes the airline. “Using these digital tools for everyday travel needs helps reduce wait times and allows our Contact Centre agents to focus their expertise on situations that require personalized support. ”

Air Canada is following the lead of WestJet and Flair who charge $25 for bookings made over the phone.

There are now more than 40 of them, and they're in a separate Travel Tech Tips notes, which you can find on our Home Page, or on the toolbar at the top of any of our Notes.

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.

Health Canada earlier this year gave the green light for Canadians to buy hearing aids over the counter — instead of requiring a prescripotion from an audiologist — and also approved specific Apple AirPod models to be used as hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.

However, it's up to the body that regulates hearing professionals in each province to also approve that big change, and because of intense lobbying by the audiology industry, which stands to lose a lot of very profitable business, they'd all been refusing to do that.

In June, the BC government overruled the Audiologists of BC and gave the okay for people here to start buying hearing aids, and also approved specific Apple AirPod models to be used as hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Now, Ontario's Health Minister says they'll be introducing a legislative change in the fall economic update later this year, enabling these devices for use in that province, too.

The AirPod models which you can currently use as hearing aids are the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, and AirPods 5 with ANC.

Check out our new YouTube Favourites playlist #2:

YouTube.com/playlist?list=PLOKnlVLuXE5URgg0ou8uGg4CnHXcou1UA

Our original Favourites playlist maxxed-out at 5000 videos; it's here…

YouTube.com/playlist?list=FLPPpa_PY8rxt-z1RoYZ7QJ

Videos start at #40, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more tech news items above!

40) Watch Tim Pan fold an iPhone Duo 10,000 times and subject it to -4° temperaturess to see how it would hold up…

41) In one of his most moving videos to date, watch Fred MIlls and the B1M crew show us efforts to finish Gaudi's 'Sagrada Familia' in Barcelona…

42) Watch how Paris has added a gondola system to extend its Metro service to areas on the other side of highways and high-speed train tracks…

43) Watch "The Industrious Beaver" celebrate the "75%: Stay' outcome of Albert's independece referendum…

44) Watch "Violin Phonix" and friends stage a memorable flashmob performance of Vivaldi's "Winter" at the Eiffel Tower…

I was in Vancouver earlier this week, playing 'tour guide' with my good friend Omun for a retired judge friend of his from the Philippines in her 80's, who was here on her first visit to Canada, and the weather was brilliant! We walked down to English Bay at sunset, and she was amazed by how warm and beautiful it was, and how many people were on the beach enjoying the setting.

Earlier we took her to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver, where everything is decorated for Halloween (BC residents get a free annual pass when you pay your admission)…