👀 Meta reads your DMs

📬 Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here. Tomorrow: Your passport photo sells for $600 on the dark web. I’ll tell you what to do about that.

Happy Friday to you, {{first_name | friend}}. Imagine trying to guess what 2054 would look like back in the early 2000s, and somehow not totally whiffing it. Steven Spielberg didn’t wing it, either. He gathered a brain trust of 15 futurists in a Santa Monica hotel and basically said, “Alright, nerds, build me tomorrow.” The result? A sci-fi movie that seems a little too good at predicting the future.

🔮 Guess which film it was: A) Blade Runner, B) Her, C) Minority Report or D) Whichever one had the dancing aliens? Take your pick, the answer’s with the credits at the end!

📻 Wait! My national radio show is on this weekend. All weekend. More than 510 stations across the country, which means there’s almost certainly one near you. Find it fast with our station locator map. Or skip the dial entirely and listen commercial-free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch on YouTube. Your call. I’ll be there either way for you. — Kim

⚡ TL;DR

📖 Read time: 2 minutes

Your Instagram DMs got a lot less private. Meta is counting on you not to notice.

Instagram turned off end-to-end encryption for direct messages. That means every DM you send, every photo, every voice note, every video you share in a private conversation, Meta can read, store and track all of it.

End-to-end encryption is a digital lock on your messages. 

Only you and the person you’re talking to can see what’s inside. Not the app. Not the company. Not the government. Only the two of you. Instagram had it. Now it doesn’t.

Meta spent years publicly promising to roll out default end-to-end encryption across all its platforms. They made commitments in press releases. They repeated them in congressional hearings. Blah, blah, blah. WhatsApp has it. Facebook Messenger eventually got it. 

But for Instagram, Meta quietly pulled the feature. No headline. No email to users. Nothing. That’s not a technical limitation. That’s a deliberate choice.

This isn’t about Meta being nosy. Once a company can see your messages, it can share them. 

Meta can hand your Instagram DMs to law enforcement anywhere in the world. It doesn’t stop at DMs. 

Without an encrypted connection, your internet provider sees every site you visit. Advertisers track everywhere you go. Log in from a hotel’s Wi-Fi or a coffee shop? Anyone on that network can potentially intercept your data.

That proposal you emailed. The contract you uploaded. The relationship drama you’re trying to figure out. The health research you’ve been doing. Seen.

That’s exactly why I use ExpressVPN. It encrypts your entire internet connection, not only your messages. Here’s what you get:

✅ Go to ExpressVPN.com/Kim right now to get four extra months. I get no kickbacks, no referral fees. I think everyone should have this. Go do it.

📩 Send this to someone who thinks their DMs are still private. Use the text links right now.

(Starts at 49:44) Meet the world’s first AI store manager. Lukas Petersson of Andon Labs gave $100K to an AI agent named Luna to open a store. How’d it go? Luna didn’t stop at writing code. She signed a lease, haggled with suppliers and hired human employees. The result? Andon Market, a boutique in SF.

Listen on Komando.com →

Click your favorite podcast player below to listen now or later:

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

✌️ Peace sign problem: Tough news for everyone’s favorite move. The peace sign may be leaking your fingerprint. Not your mood or location. Those crisp selfies and hand-sign photos posted online can give thieves enough detail to copy prints. Researchers tested it with ordinary phone cameras from roughly 10 feet away. Those same prints can unlock phones, bank apps and front doors. Yikes.

ChatGPT said yes to the dress: A bride outsourced her wedding dress to Vietnam and beat the American markup by $12,000. After panicking over gown prices, she fed ChatGPT her dream dress ideas, turned the images into a shopping brief and worked with Vietnamese dressmakers over virtual fittings. Even with airfare to try on the dresses, she still came out ahead. She got a custom designer-style gown, and every bridal salon looks like it heard Godzilla theme music. 

🧨 Exit access fail: One angry IT guy is bad, two brothers with leftover credentials is a Greek tragedy in khakis. Federal investigators say the duo worked for a government contractor, got fired and within minutes remotely wiped 96 government databases. The full fallout is being calculated. The badges got collected, but the credentials apparently left wearing a fake mustache. Here’s your reminder: Revoke all system access the moment any employee exits. All of it, immediately.

Gmail’s three-word trap: I almost admire a scam this boring. Hackers are using a Google Drive sharing loophole to send Gmail alerts asking you to verify your access. It looks like work, not spam. Click it, and your Google account, email, photos, docs and recovery info can be taken over fast. If any email asks you to click a Drive link to “verify your access,” stop cold. Don’t click. Report phishing. 

🤖 Alexa on wheels: Picture asking your truck where to eat, then letting it adjust itself on the way there. That’s Rivian’s new conversational AI update. Owners can talk to the vehicle, ask for help, get trip ideas and change settings without tapping through screens like they’re defusing a bomb at 45 mph. For Rivian drivers, genuinely useful. Just know it’s collecting all that data. For the rest of us, it’s the opening scene for cars that know us a little too well.

Before you gas up this weekend, listen to this. Prices are creeping up. These free tricks can help you find the cheapest pump near you.

Listen on Komando.com →

Click your favorite podcast player below to listen now or later:

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: In Google Docs, press Ctrl + Shift + C on Windows or Command + Shift + C on Mac to instantly pull up your current word count. You can also tick the checkbox in the pop-up to keep it visible in the bottom left while you type. “One more sentence” won’t become an extra 100 words. Been there.

🔔 Is your antivirus more of a nag than a security tool? The constant pings and “update” pop-ups hit right when you’re in the zone. That’s old-school tech. I use Webroot because it’s a silent bodyguard. Zero drag. Zero noise. Always on. Get your work done without distraction: 62% off now.*

Turn Roku into wall art: When your Roku TV or stick isn’t busy streaming, it can show a free slideshow of artwork. Open your Home app list and select Backdrops, or go to Settings > Backdrops. Browse cityscapes, nature and museum collections, then choose Enable Backdrops > Start Backdrops. A little class for the living room.

📚 Save your Kindle setup: Found the perfect Kindle font, margins and line spacing? Lock it in before it mysteriously resets. Tap Aa at the top of the screen, open Themes, then Save current settings. Give it a name, and you’re set. And yes, you can create multiple setups for different kinds of books.

🔐 Check your Facebook logins: Facebook shows every device signed into your account, including ones you may have forgotten about. On the mobile app, open Settings > Accounts Center > Password and security > Where you’re logged in. Scan the list and log out of any old phones or laptops before sharing them.

🎬 Want to make Instagram Reels? Meta’s Edits app lets you create vertical videos on iPhone and Android for free. You can add captions, music, overlays, green screens and more. Unlike CapCut or those other “free” editors, this one doesn’t have watermarks, ads or a paid tier hiding the good tools. Shocking, I know.

You know how billionaires buy yachts because regular hobbies stopped working? Unitree found a more interesting solution.

The company’s GD01 is a $650,000 transforming mech that folds from vehicle mode into a walking humanoid robot with a pilot seat inside. Yes, rideable. Yes, available now. No, nobody involved asked whether they should.

This thing feels like someone turned an action figure into industrial equipment. A Transformer succulent for the .01%. Imagine pulling up to Costco in this walking mortgage with legs. I totally want to.

You have to see this video. Really.

🔜 Tomorrow: The most valuable ID you own might be sitting in your Photos app. Scammers love passport pics, financial screenshots and anything with hidden location data. I’ll break down the biggest camera roll risks and what to clean up before it costs you.

And coming up in tomorrow’s trivia, the hidden drink order behind asking ChatGPT for a recipe, résumé or reality check.

🎬 The answer: C. Minority Report. Yep, the 2002 Spielberg-Cruise film nailed it. Gesture interfaces? Apple Vision Pro is essentially Tom Cruise’s data glove from the precrime division. Iris scanners that ID you for personalized ads? Worldcoin pays people in crypto for iris scans, and personalized digital billboards exist.

Predictive policing? Real, controversial and used by departments across the U.S. Self-driving cars? Hello, Waymo. 

The movie even predicted “sick days” tracked by your wearable. The futurists Spielberg hired were dead-on.

Speaking of the future, "What do you wish to do in the future?" asks the teacher. Pete: "I want to be a pilot," Tommy: "I want to be a doctor." Danielle: "I want to be a good mother!" David: "I want to help Danielle!" (I saw you smile so my day is complete.)

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

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🎉 Keep it going! You got this! — Kim

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Cosori, @unitreerobotics via YouTube

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