By Carolyn Betts, Esq.

In September 2023, as part of Ask Catherine & the Solari Team, the Solari Report began offering our monthly Tech Corner feature on the last Friday of the month, hosted by Solari IT team member James and me. With the avalanche of tech challenges that all of us increasingly face, the show has been quite popular. This week, we look back at some of the most important topics we covered in 2024.

As Catherine often says, the days are past when a general-purpose tech user could safely outsource all needs to specialists. To protect ourselves from what Catherine and James call the “Data Beast,” as well as hacking and other threats facilitated by ever-more sophisticated digital technologies, we all must become conversant with at least the basics. From the beginning, this has been our Tech Corner goal—to help our subscribers become more tech-savvy.

In this end-of-year review, we discuss some of the most egregious examples of Data Beast tech, including neurowarfare, microchipping, police access to security camera data, deepfakes, and exploding pagers. We also take a look at some of the infrastructure underpinning the Data Beast (including the rise of AI as a smartphone surveillance tool) and other threats like cybercrime and QR code scams.

Fortunately, there is much each of us can do, and we cover some ideas in our discussion of pushback, best practices, and recommended equipment. If you would like to submit questions or links for Tech Corner in 2025, use the Ask Catherine & the Solari Team form here.

To view or download the script with links, click here.