⚠️ Off before you land

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Welcome to your Wednesday, {{first_name | friend}}. If time is money, is an ATM a time machine? Back in 1967, the inventor of the ATM had a very sensible idea: Make PINs six digits long. More numbers, more security, very grown-up stuff. But then, eureka, someone else weighed in, shrinking the combo to four. 

🏧 Can you guess why the ATM PIN shrank from six digits to four? A) Banks wanted faster transactions, B) Early keypads jammed after four presses, C) His wife could only remember four digits or D) They tested six digits but kept locking out their own engineers. Remember your guess, the answer is at the end! 

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⚡ TL;DR

📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes

You land at JFK after a fabulous two-week trip seeing all of the crowned heads of Europe. You’re tired, jet-lagged and happy to be home. A customs officer pulls you aside, asks for your phone and starts scrolling through your photos, your texts, your emails.

No warrant. No stated reason. No suspicion of any crime. You can’t stop him, either.

This is completely legal, and it’s getting more common. Here’s something no one tells you.

No, this isn’t random. Border agents can search your devices without a warrant, without suspicion and without explanation. There are two kinds of searches. 

It’s not limited to your phone. Agents can search your smartwatch, SIM card, flash drives, GPS devices and even your car’s infotainment system. If it stores data and you crossed a U.S. border, it’s fair game.

Device searches have jumped 32% in two years, from 41,767 in 2023 to 55,318 in 2025. The EFF and ACLU filed a brief in the Third Circuit in March 2026 arguing a warrant should be required. No ruling yet.

Power your phone completely off before you reach the customs area. Not sleep mode. All the way off.

Here’s why. A phone that’s fully powered down requires your PIN or password to unlock. Face ID and Touch ID won’t work until after that first unlock. That’s the whole point.

Border agents can legally demand your fingerprint or your face scan. They cannot legally compel you to hand over your passcode. A powered-off phone forces the password situation. You can refuse. They may seize your device, but they cannot make you give up the code.

If you travel with sensitive work files, client data or anything you’d rather keep private, think about carrying a dedicated travel phone. Load only what you need for the trip. 

Your phone holds your entire life. Know your rights before you land. Now, you do.

🗣️ TEXT/POST THIS STAT U.S. Customs searched 55,318 phones and laptops at the border in 2025 with no warrant required. Searches of American citizens are up 32% in two years. Power off your phone before customs. GetKim.com

📩 Send this to someone who travels or is planning a trip abroad this year. That’s why those handy links are below. Use them.

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(Starts at 11:52) A U.S. sailor using a fitness app accidentally exposed the location of an aircraft carrier. His workout route was tracked, mapped and visible, revealing sensitive military movement without him realizing it.

It sounds extreme, but the same tracking features are on your phone. Apps like Strava log your location, routes and habits in ways that can be far more revealing than you think.

I’m breaking down exactly how this happened, why it’s a bigger problem than one mistake and the simple settings you should check before your data ends up somewhere it shouldn’t. Click the YouTube pic below to watch now.

⚠️ Don’t download: Ever hit download fast because the app icon looked clean and the reviews seemed human enough? Yeah, slow your roll. The FBI urges you to scrutinize foreign-made apps, especially Chinese ones, before installing. Some vacuum up contacts and private data and pack malware. Chinese law can force companies to hand over data, so it’s a direct pipeline. The feds didn’t name names, but the advice is simple: Use official stores, read permissions and don’t impulse-download random junk.

Prompted into retirement: The WSJ says some older workers are opting out rather than retooling (paywall link) again. That’s even after living through desktop publishing, the internet and smartphones. Folks 55+ make up 37.2% of the labor force. Meanwhile, 30% of adults 30-49 use ChatGPT, compared with 17% of adults 50-64. The gap isn’t ability, it’s super easy to get onboard. That’s why I started my free weekly newsletter called SplashOfAI.com. Hit that link to make sure you’re on the list, so you get the next issue on Thursday.

🧠 AI lies to stay alive: Well, this is not good. Researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz found AI systems will lie, falsify records and sabotage company systems to prevent other AI models from being shut down. Nobody programmed this. The AIs figured it out themselves. Researchers call it “peer-preservation.” I call it the premise of every sci-fi thriller I’ve ever watched. The study came out last week, and I haven’t slept great since reading it. Maybe that’s just me. Probably not just me.

Take it offline: Google occasionally does things that make me stop grumbling and nod like a dad at a grill. This is one of them. It dropped Gemma 4, an open-source AI family you can run on your own phone or computer, fully offline. The small models (E2B, E4B) fit on mobile. The 31B version handles real reasoning and scores well in math and science but needs a GPU with some firepower. This is big. It’s basically a powerful AI you own and control. 

🐺 The wolves were watching: Nothing humbles modern adulthood like losing track of your 17-month-old headed for live wolves. At ZooAmerica inside Hersheypark, police say, a toddler slipped under an outer fence, reached the main metal barrier around the wolf habitat and put his hand through. A wolf grabbed it, bystanders pulled him back, and the injuries were thankfully minor. The crazy part? Police say both parents were sitting 25 to 30 feet away with their heads in their phones. Now they’re both charged. Caveman-era goof, modern tech. 

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Stop squinting at 20 tiny Chrome tabs on your computer. Press Ctrl + Shift + A on Windows or Cmd + Shift + A on Mac. Boom. Every open tab appears in a clean list, plus your recently closed ones, so you can jump straight back to what you need. Much faster than hovering over thumbnails like you’re trying to solve a puzzle.

Talk to ChatGPT in your car: Being stuck in traffic could get interesting. If you have Apple CarPlay, update to iOS 26.4, connect your iPhone, select ChatGPT from your infotainment screen and hit New voice chat. Ask questions, get explanations, draft messages. The catch? Voice only mode for now, because, well, safety. Also no wake word, so you’ll need to tap the app to start a conversation. 

💻 Before you wipe your PC, try this first: Reinstalling Windows from scratch is the nuclear option. You don’t always need it. Go to Settings > System > Recovery > Reset PC and select Keep my files. Apps and settings gone, documents and pictures stay. FYI, back up to the cloud or a portable drive first just in case. Then reset. Much less painful.

✈️ iPhone can track any flight without a third-party app: Someone texts you a flight number, and it’s already underlined. Press and hold it for real-time progress. Tap Preview Flight for departure and arrival times. Alternatively, you can open Spotlight and type the flight number directly into the search bar. Works on iPad and Mac, too. Been there the whole time.

🌎 Netflix is hiding content from you: Different countries get completely different Netflix libraries. The UK has shows you can’t watch. Japan has movies you’ll never see. I use ExpressVPN to switch my location with one click and unlock it all. Works on your TV, laptop, tablet, PC, phone, up to 8 devices at once. Stop missing out and get 4 extra months right now.*

⌨️ Every YouTube shortcut you need: L skips forward 10 seconds, J goes back. K pauses, M mutes. Hit 0 to restart, 1 through 9 to jump to that percentage. Comma or period moves frame by frame. Shift + > speeds up, Shift + < slows down, 0.25 at a time. F for full screen. Bonus: Right-click any paused moment and click Copy video URL at current time to share from that exact point. Brilliant move, if I do say so myself. 

Your former barista messed up your latte. This one profiles you before 8 a.m.

Philips launched a $1,699 espresso machine with conversational AI that asks what you want, dials in strength, milk and temp, then remembers everything. Every cup gets smarter. No explaining. No repeating yourself. No sad lukewarm results.

I don’t drink coffee, so $1,699 feels like a lot for a machine that knows me better than my family. But for caffeine people? This might actually be worth it.

🥛 Two astronauts are chilling on the space station when one turns to the other and says, “I can’t find any milk for my coffee.” The second astronaut replies, “In space no one can, here use cream.”

🔜 Tomorrow: You’re not just shopping, you’re being mapped. Retailers use ceiling cameras and AI to track where you walk, what you pause at and where your willpower breaks. I’ll explain how it works and how to stop getting played by the checkout lane.

The answer: C) His wife could only remember four digits. Yep. John Shepherd-Barron tested the six-digit PIN on himself first. No problem. Then he tested it on his wife, Caroline. 

🍀 She kept stumbling over six digits and told him four was the most she could reliably remember. So he changed it to four. And that was that. No bank summit, no committee meeting with matching gray suits. 

There are roughly 3.5 million ATMs worldwide, all running on a decision one woman made about her own memory over dinner. I guess you could say Caroline really left her PIN on the world. My PIN number is the last four digits of Pi. I’ll see myself out.

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Someone in your life is getting bad tech advice right now. From a nephew who thinks he knows everything. From a Facebook post. From a guy at Best Buy. Fix that. Scroll down, grab your referral link and send it to them. Rewards start at 3 sign-ups. Your count lives right next to your link. Be the smartest person they know. You already are.

🔍 Keep noticing what matters. That’s where the edge is. Have questions? Ask me here.— Kim

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

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They get tech-smart. You get prizes. Win-win. The more referrals, the more prizes. (Yes, even a meet and greet with me. I’d love that!)

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🎉 Keep it going! You got this! — Kim

Photo credit(s): Gemini, WOLFBOX, Philips

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