Hackers can do amazing things, even high schoolers. I saw a demo concerning internet security, and it had a hacker sitting outside a "Smart House" with a laptop in their car. They waited until the house-warming party, then they logged into the Wi-Fi of the house (past top notch security), turned the heat WAY up, locked and unlocked the doors, turned the sound system up loud, then turned off all the lights in the house and turned them on again after a short outage. Then they called the homeowner and told them they needed to review their security protocol. The Chinese have reportedly hard-wired a backdoor into every thing they make. It has been reported that they can log into IV pumps through a hospital Wi-Fi system and change the rate of flow through the pump remotely. It is not quite as easy as it looks on TV, but almost.... That is why I avoid microphones and cameras.
@Don Alaska I can't imagine making my house "smart." Not only would that expose everything to hacking, all this stuff makes upgrading a phone a larger hassle than replacing your computer. Can you imagine all the damned "apps" one would have to download and set up? You gotta take a week's vacation every time you get a new phone...and goodness help you if you lose the phone you got. There's a commercial for some wireless company where the frantic spokeswoman is in a home with the family making sure everything is "secured." She sees the grandfather clock and freaks out, saying to hook it up to the network so it can be secured. The depressing thing is there are lots of people for whom that would be a perfectly logical thing to do.
I just learned to use Zoom about 2 weeks ago, and I have to use my wife's computer when I do. (she is particular about her computer, so I have to sweettalk her into it) Is there a chance that this forum will let us use Zoom for seeing our friends on here, of course with their permission? I think that if some people here could see me face to face, then they would be more likely to see me as a friendly person. (and not the other way around)