Enterprising scammers have found some very clever ways to trick you into believing your computer needs fixing, when in reality it’s just fine. Using various techniques, fake web pop-up alerts can cause your browser or computer to seem sluggish or malfunctioning. And then you get a helpful pop-up alerting you of a serious problem and offering to help you fix it – for a fee. I’ll tell you how to spot these fakes and how to recover from the issues they’ve inflicted.

In other news: there’s a new and nasty Bluetooth bug, Emotet malware infections are spiking, Apple accidentally notarized malware in its App Store, Apple chooses to delay it’s key privacy feature on iOS 14 due to push back from marketing companies like Facebook, the Epic/Apple battle ratchets up yet again, a US circuit court rules that warrantless wiretapping is illegal, Portland enacts the country’s strictest ban on facial recognition technology, and the secure messaging app Threema has decided to go open source.