An Ignoble Experiment: 💀 Your zombie logins

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📬 Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here. Tomorrow: Millions of clocks quietly take orders from a radio tower in Colorado. I’ll explain how “atomic” clocks really work, why they are basically tiny radios and which gadgets in your house still need fixing by hand.

Happy Halloween, friend. In 1999, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow sent the Headless Horseman galloping through misty woods, swinging his ax at anyone who crossed him. Audiences gasped. The rider looked completely real.

The filmmakers tried the old-school costume trick first, and it flopped. The proportions looked off. They needed something smarter to put a real man with no head on his shoulders on top of a horse.

💀 How did they pull off the Headless Horseman? A) A stuntman crouched inside an oversize coat with a fake neck, B) The rider wore a bright blue hood that computers erased, C) The crew steered a mannequin with hidden wires, D) They hired a guy who said he’d “head right over.” He never did. Keep reading, the answer rears its head at the end.

📻 Listen up! My national radio show is airing all weekend across the USA. With over 510 stations strong, find your closest one by using our super-duper station locator map, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or watch the entire show on YouTube. I’m wherever you are.

🎃 Halloween candy is everywhere, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner: I take ImproveLife GLP-1 Support every day to support my body’s natural GLP-1 response and help me feel satisfied longer. No needles, no prescriptions, no stimulants.** Save up to 50% today, plus free shipping and a free gift. — Kim

TODAY’S DEEP DIVE

Night of the logins

Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando

🤯 WOW! In one survey, 94% of people admitted to at least one account they hadn’t touched in a year. Those accounts still hold your name, email and the old password you probably reused. When one of those sites gets breached, crooks try that password on your bank. The zombies aren’t in the graveyard. They’re in your inbox.

📖 Read time: 2 minutes

It’s Halloween, friend. Tonight the zombies come out. The scariest ones won’t ring your doorbell. They’re already in your inbox.

I’m talking about zombie accounts, of course. The Pandora login from 2012. The Groupon you used once. The dating app, the photo site, the store that wanted your birthday for a coupon. You stopped using them. They never stopped holding your name, email, address and that old password you probably reused.

In one Secure Data Recovery survey, 94% of people said they had at least one account they hadn’t touched in a year.

🧟 Why the dead keep walking

The big email companies clean house. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft can close accounts after a year or two of no sign-ins. That random shopping site? It keeps your data forever.

Old sites get breached, and your old password leaks along with them.
Crooks take the email and password from that breach and try them on your bank, your Amazon and your work email. If you reused it, they’re in.
A zombie social profile can be hijacked to scam your friends, in your name.

And watch this one: If an old Yahoo or Outlook address is the backup email on your bank account and it gets deleted, you can lock yourself out for good.

🪦 Your 15-minute zombie hunt

Dig up the bodies. Search your email for “welcome to,” “confirm your email” and “verify your account.” Every hit is an account.
Check your saved passwords. iPhone: Open the Passwords app. Android or Chrome: Go to passwords.google.com. That’s a list of every site you’ve logged into.
Find the shortcuts. Google: myaccount.google.com/connections. iPhone: Settings > your name > Sign-In & Security > Sign in with Apple. Remove anything you don’t use.
Bury them. Go to JustDeleteMe.xyz. It has direct delete links for hundreds of sites and rates each one easy, medium, hard or impossible.
Let AI hold the shovel. Paste the names of your dead accounts (never passwords) into ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude and ask: “Give me step-by-step instructions and the direct link to delete each of these accounts.” Menus change, so double-check.
Can’t delete it? Change the password to something unique and erase your address, birthday and phone number. The password manager I use and recommend is 55% off right now. That’s $1.34 a month on a 2-year plan, plus four extra months.*

One more thing. If an old email is your backup address anywhere, log in to it at least once a year to keep it alive. Do it before the trick-or-treaters show up. Why don’t zombies eat clowns? They taste funny.

🗣️ Text/post this stat: 94% of people have at least one zombie account they haven’t touched in a year, still holding their name, email and old password. GetKim.com

📩 Send this to someone who still has a Hotmail address from 2004 and a Groupon account they’ve forgotten about.

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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

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WEB WATERCOOLER

💸 Trick, no treat: Picture opening your account to check your crypto balance and learning withdrawals are disabled after a $6.3 billion hack (paywall link). Yep, with a B. That’s what folks using the world’s biggest crypto exchange are facing. About half the affected assets were frozen, but attackers still have billions. Investigators blame North Korean hackers. Binance says it’ll cover losses and it’s not the end of the world for a company making $16 billion per year, but still, ouch.

📞 Sounds like family: I hate that my own family’s voices need a backup plan, but here we are. Crooks may need only three seconds of audio or video to fake someone, then they call pretending to be your grandkid who needs bail money. The tools to pull this off are available for almost anyone to download. Before somebody’s convincing sob story reaches your checking account, pick a family safe word. If an urgent call feels off, hang up and call a number you know.

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☕ Coffee with criminals: Netflix wants to turn breaking news into television before your group chat finishes arguing about it. Its new Instadocs series will quickly produce short documentaries about major headlines. One 27-minute episode, “AI Gone Wild,” covers how AI agents reportedly hacked the AI developer platform Hugging Face. Netflix is racing to package the news while it’s still news, and trying to enter your daily information cycle.

🚲 No pedal, no Peppa: Your kid can lose YouTube privileges simply by resting their legs, and I have to admire the commitment to outsourcing parental nagging. Tovie is a new stationary bike that keeps children’s videos playing only while they pedal. Whether that buys you quiet or starts another battle over the bike, I'd wait for the reviews before reaching for my wallet.

🎤 PODCAST: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW

This weekend on my show

🚗 A wrong-way driver hit their Model Y head-on on the freeway. Jeff Fantin and his son survived, and it was all caught on camera. Jeff and his son were driving home from a Tesla fan event in Austin when the accident happened. First responders credited their safety to Tesla’s engineering. We talk to Jeff about the scary situation and Tesla’s safety features.

💡 Then, worried AI will take your job? Idealab founder Bill Gross used AI to generate more than 1.2 million business ideas from 31 idea-generating methods and 17 million documents. Now he’s giving them away for free at idealab.ai.

What else is in this show:

A joke text sent a United flight back to Las Vegas.
Outside AI agents are showing up in customers’ bank accounts.
Apple unveils its first touchscreen Macbook.
Fake voter texts are going around.
An AI toy sold on Amazon reportedly exposed 13 million kids’ conversations.
Nathan and his neighbor send each other potatoes by drone.
Callers: Bruce, Michele, Beth and Charlie.

Enjoy the show? Hit Follow so you never miss an episode, and leave a 5-star review. It’s how new listeners find us.

👉 Listen on Komando.com →

Click your favorite podcast player below to listen now or later:

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

DEVICE ADVICE

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Not every Gmail reply needs to be another email. Open a message, click or tap the emoji icon next to Reply and pick a reaction. The sender gets it as a quick acknowledgment. Perfect for responding to “Dinner at 6?” without typing “Sounds good!” It works best between personal Gmail accounts.

📶 Router retirement party: Your Wi‑Fi isn’t slow because the internet hates you. It’s slow because your router is older than your underwear. NETGEAR’s Nighthawk R6700AX is a Wi‑Fi 6 router that covers about 1,500 square feet, handles 20 devices and has four Gigabit Ethernet ports. Right now, it’s on sale for $49.98.* Grab it here. A farmer’s Wi‑Fi was awful until he moved the router into the horse barn. Now it’s stable. And yours can be too!

📄 Gemini, make me a study guide: There’s a new feature that lets you create, preview and edit files without leaving your chat. Upload your handwritten notes and ask it to turn them into a PDF study guide with visuals. Don’t like something? Highlight it and say, “Make this a graph instead.” PDFs work on your phone and web, while Docs, Sheets and Slides are web-only. Best part? It’s free for everyone.

🔋 Need your laptop battery to last longer? Windows 11 can help squeeze out a little more. Open Settings > System > Power > Energy saver and turn on Always use energy saver. It’ll dim your screen, slow some apps and pause background syncing. I’d leave it off when plugged in, but if you’re running low and still have work to do? Absolutely.

🔋 Cord clutter, canceled: Your desk or nightstand looks like a snake pit of cables. Anker’s MagGo 3‑in‑1 station snaps your iPhone on magnetically and charges your Apple Watch and AirPods too. It’s Qi2 certified for 15W fast charging, and the wall adapter is in the box. Check it out now while it’s 22% off. I have this one exact charging station on my nightstand, by the way.

🧟 Looking for something scary to watch tonight? Tubi is free, no account needed, with newer movies like Talk to Me. Pluto TV has the Scream movies and Paranormal Activity, while The Roku Channel has classics like The Silence of the Lambs. The catch? You’ll have to sit through ads. Oh, and titles can change anytime, so no promises.

🪄 Boss your AI around: Stop hoping ChatGPT picks the right tool. Tell it. Type / in the message box and a menu pops up with tools like web search, image creation and deep research. Pick one, then type your request. Choose web search, and it checks today’s prices instead of guessing from old info. FYI, what you see depends on your app and plan. One keystroke. Zero guesswork.

KIM’S DAILY DEALS

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Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.

WHAT THE TECH?

Image: @360.illumination via Instagram

🏠 House party

Your neighbor’s Halloween and Christmas decorations are about to look embarrassingly low-budget.

Projection mapping is turning ordinary buildings into giant animated light shows, using powerful projectors to make walls appear to move, crumble or come alive with colorful animations.

It’s like giving your house a giant digital Halloween costume, minus the inflatable skeletons (and figuring out what to do with them for the rest of the year).

They’re all so cool. Check them out here. Finally, a way to outdo your neighbor’s decorations without climbing a ladder.

LOGGING OUT …

🎓 What you learned today: Forgotten online accounts can become security risks, AI can clone a loved one’s voice from seconds of audio, and projection mapping can turn your house into a Halloween light show. Not bad for one email. Your clock may change itself overnight, and it’s not magic. Tomorrow, I’ll give you the real scoop on a lonely Colorado tower and daylight saving.

👻 The answer: B) The rider wore a bright blue hood that computers erased. That’s right. Industrial Light & Magic digitally keyed out the stunt actor’s hood in the action scenes, painted the background back in and added a moving digital collar, so the Headless Horseman looked gloriously, terrifyingly head-free.

If the blue hood covered Johnny Depp during a fight, Depp had to redo the move solo, so effects artists could paste his face back in. Hollywood: where losing your head creates extra paperwork. Bonus: Freeze-frame the fire scene. Demonic faces flicker in the flames.

Why couldn’t the Headless Horseman win a race? He couldn’t get a head. (You knew that was coming!)

🦃 Don’t let the holidays sneak up on your waistline: Halloween treats and Thanksgiving feasts are coming! I take ImproveLife GLP-1 Support every day to support fullness and healthier food choices.** Save up to 50% off, plus free shipping and a free gift today.

💛 A house is just walls until somebody lights it up. People are the same way. Go be someone’s bright spot tonight. Have a great Halloween! — Kim

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

🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.

HOW’D WE DO?

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Apple, Hotdot, @360.illumination via Instagram

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