🛰️ Your GPS is a spy

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Welcome to your Thursday, {{first_name | friend}}. Your Apple Watch sits on your wrist like a tiny doctor with a notification addiction. Buried in all that data is your VO2 max, basically how much oxygen your body can actually use when you move. Bigger number, stronger engine.

VO2 max isn’t a gym-bro brag. It’s one of the single strongest predictors of how long you’ll live. But here’s the twist. For a lot of people, that number shows up blank. And it usually comes down to one habit nobody told them about.

⌚ Trivia time: What does your Apple Watch need you to do before it can size up your VO2 max? A) Wear it to bed every night for a week, B) Knock out a treadmill or indoor gym workout, C) Head outside for a walk, run or hike, D) Sit very still on the couch and visualize cardio. No spoilers here, the answer is waiting for you at the end.

🚲 We’re building momentum here, and it’s thanks to readers like you. Want to help keep it rolling? Send this to a friend. — Kim

⚡ TL;DR

📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes

When I read this wild story, I knew I needed to share it with you. It’s one of those things that once you know, you’ll want to tell everyone in your circle.

First, let’s go back to the Cold War. Spy agencies ran “numbers stations,” shortwave radio channels that broadcast strings of coded numbers to agents in the field. Anyone could listen. Only the spy with the right key could interpret them.

As it turns out, your phone has been carrying secret military messages for nearly 20 years. So has your car, your smartwatch and that old Garmin in your junk drawer. Until this week, nobody outside the military knew what they were for. Seriously.

That trick moved to space. Every GPS satellite beams down data your devices use to pin your location. Buried in that stream sits a slot called Subframe 4, Page 17. It’s 176 bits, broadcast every 12.5 minutes, officially reserved for “special messages.” 

The spec says it should carry readable text. Engineers knew the slot existed. Everyone assumed it was background noise. It wasn’t. It carries pure random gibberish, and random is exactly what encryption looks like.

You need to put on your thinking cap for this part.

Security engineering professor Steven Murdoch’s team at University College London analyzed 12.16 million of these messages going back to 2007. The smoking gun: On May 26, 2011, all 31 GPS satellites switched patterns within hours of each other, then started rotating fresh codes almost daily. 

That timing matches declassified Pentagon documents about over-the-air distribution, a system that beams new encryption keys to military units worldwide. Before that, couriers hand-carried the keys. Yes, like a movie.

Murdoch put it perfectly: “Every GPS satellite is a numbers station. The receivers have always been listening.” Your devices decoded these messages billions of times and ignored every one.

Now the part you need to know.

This is not spying on you. GPS is a one-way broadcast. Satellites talk, your phone listens, but nothing about you travels back up. The real location tracking comes from apps selling your data, not from space.

The takeaway? Earth’s most-used technology kept a 20-year secret in plain sight, until one curious team finally read the junk mail. I thought you’d like knowing about it.

Want more details about this? Read it here.

I asked my GPS why it never apologizes. Turns out it has a bad latitude.

📩 Send this to someone who loves a good spy movie. They’ll never look at their phone’s map app the same way.

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Chrichelle was born legally blind. She’s experiencing the world in a whole new way, thanks to her Meta Ray-Ban glasses. Now she’s empowering the visually impaired community and teaching them how to use the tech.

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

🚁 Robot boat rescue: Baywatch meets Baybots. The U.S. military says a drone boat helped rescue a downed helicopter crew near the Strait of Hormuz, calling it the first rescue like this. Instead of sending another crew straight into the mess, they pushed an unmanned surface vessel into the water to help find and recover people. I can’t get my garage door opener to work in the rain, this is awesome. 

Burgers and frAIs: McDonald’s is testing an AI drive-thru system that can recognize repeat customers and respond to “I’ll have my usual.” Yep, it’ll lead to faster, more personalized ordering at 13,000+ locations. I don’t really need Big MacGPT to remind me about my emotional support fries, but I’m interested.

🌊 Ocean-cooled AI: I immediately pictured a chatbot wearing floaties. China put a data center under the sea, because apparently, AI’s power problem needed Bond villain architecture. The wind-powered facility is running off Shanghai’s coast, using cold seawater to cool servers instead of chugging electricity on land. Officials say it cuts power use by about 22.8%, which matters as AI demand soars. Ah yes, luxury beachfront cloud storage. 

Calendar gets sketchy: Phishing is popping up as fake invites and renewal notices inside Google Calendar. The trick is simple and gross. Trusted app, real-looking event, nasty link. Click it, and your passwords can go wandering. Fix it: Calendar settings > General > Event settings > Add invitations to my calendar > choose Only if the sender is known or When I respond to the invitation in email. Even free time needs a bouncer.

🧬 Cracking the uncrackable: This is big. Pancreatic cancer got a serious new opponent after 40 years of scientists staring down KRAS, the gene behind most cases. The drug, daraxonrasib, targets the gene mutation, once considered impossible to hit. In advanced patients, it nearly doubled median survival, 6.7 months to 13.2, and lowered risk of death 60%. The company’s seeking FDA approval. My mom died from pancreatic cancer. Now so many more won’t suffer the same way she did. My prayers have been answered and for once, cancer is the one running out of options.

Step aside, humans. AI bots are running job interviews. Listen here for tips to beat the algorithm. Plus, Jim’s sister thought she’d found love online. She found a scam. She lost over $700,000 to a man named Robert who never showed.

Listen on Komando.com →

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

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Tell YouTube to turn itself off after a set time, like when you’re falling asleep to a podcast and don’t want it playing all night. Tap the gear icon, choose Sleep timer, then pick 10 minutes or End of video. Bonus: In the same menu, try the AI Voice boost. It makes dialogue easier to hear over background noise.

😁 It’s shiny, but it’s not your teeth: ShinyHunters broke into DentaQuest and posted 2.6 million records publicly after the company refused to pay blackmail. Name, address, birthday and health insurance details. If you have ever had Medicaid or employer dental coverage, it’s time to change your passwords. You can do it the hard way, one by one. Or my way. Get 36% off NordPass. That’s $1.91 a month.*  

Meta tracks you when you close Facebook: No joke, it collects activity from other websites and services you visit, then uses that to influence what shows up in your Feed. That sweater you searched up yesterday? Tomorrow’s Feed has it. Open Settings > Account Center > Your information and permissions > Your activity off Meta technologies. Clear and disconnect it.

🐌 Chrome’s hidden drag: Slow pages may not be your internet. Chrome’s “cached files” are supposed to speed things up, but old or corrupted ones can do the opposite. Click the three dots > Delete browsing data. Choose All time and Cached images and files, then delete. You can leave browsing history unchecked.

Safari tab bouncer: Ever open Safari the next day and find 10 DIY fix tabs still hanging around from last night? Weirdly overwhelming, right? Your iPhone can automate the cleanup. Open Settings > Apps > Safari > Close Tabs. Then choose After One Day, After One Week or After One Month. Procrastination, contained.

💸 Prime Day’s coming: It’s confirmed for June 23 through 26, yep, four full days. Early deals are already live, plus a sweepstakes for free groceries for a year. The catch? You need Prime, aka $14.99/month. My work-around: Sign up for a free trial, grab your deals, then cancel immediately. We can financially heal in July. 😏

Remember when game consoles looked like they were smuggled out of a science lab instead of an IKEA showroom? 

Xbox is bringing that energy back in its 25-year-celebration with the Xbox Series X25, a translucent OG Green Series X version that looks like the original Xbox hit the fountain of youth. 

Fans are eating it up. The front X glows green when powered on, it packs the same 1TB hardware as today’s Series X, and it comes with a matching controller. Pricing TBD, probably up to $599. 

🔜 Tomorrow: Your Wi-Fi password keeps out the neighbors but not your internet provider. I’ll show you what your ISP can see, how your browsing data can be used or sold and the simple step that helps make your home internet private. Check your inbox.

Tomorrow’s trivia dives into why one of the Navy’s most advanced submarines ditched a $38,000 control setup for something sailors already knew by heart.

🥾 The answer: C) Your Apple Watch only estimates VO2 max during an Outdoor Walk, Run or Hike. Treadmills and the weight room don't count, no GPS to track your pace. Give it about 24 hours of wear and a few outdoor sessions for your first reading.

Why care? Cardio fitness predicts early death better than smoking, diabetes or high blood pressure. One study of 122,000 people found the fittest had up to 80% lower mortality risk. Fitter is better.

To see yours, open the Health app, tap Browse, Heart, then Cardio Fitness. Don’t see it? You need a newer watch running at least watchOS 7.2 and iOS 14.3 on your phone. Mine says my heart works like someone 23 years younger. That's not bragging. That's a lifetime of workouts and healthy eating. One for the road: Oxygen and magnesium went on a date. The other elements were like, OMg.

🔒 Stop guessing your own passwords: How many times have you tried three different logins, only to get locked out? Total waste of time. I use NordPass to create strong passwords and autofill them instantly. I remember one master password. It handles the rest. Get 36% off a 2-year plan. That’s only $1.91 a month.*

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

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, HOMTOYOU, Microsoft

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