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Geek Note:  This issue of It’s Geek To Me is a special “Tech News You Can Use” edition, filled with tech stories that almost surely apply to you, but that you might have missed if you don’t follow tech news as closely as I do.  It should go without saying that if you have any questions about any of these, or if you want me to expand on any topic, just hit my website and submit your question.

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FCC Deadline for foreign-made routers and drones: In a recent issue (I.G.T.M. #978, April 19, 2026) I answered questions from reader Jim R. regarding the FCC’s announcement that it had banned the import and sale of all consumer grade routers manufactured outside of the United States.  Not surprisingly, this ban includes software fixes and security updates.  The deadline for the ban to take effect was March 1, 2027.  What I didn’t mention at that time is that there is a similar ban that is already in place on new foreign-manufactured drones.  Since the world’s foremost drone manufacturer is DJI, and since DJI is owned and operated by (*GASP*) China, that effectively slammed the door in the face of the burgeoning drone market for the foreseeable future.  Well, apparently cooler heads have prevailed – for now.  While the bans haven’t been rescinded, the FCC has extended the effective date on both routers and drones until Jan 1, 2029.  The extension is ostensibly to prevent an imminent security vacuum that would leave literally millions of existing drones and routers permanently vulnerable to hacking, various nefarious cyber activites, and incompatibilities with operating system upgrades.  This surely isn’t over, so stay tuned for more!

Microsoft announces one-time critical update to Windows Secure Boot cryptographic certificate: There are a great deal of intricacies hidden within Windows, most of which the average user never knows nor cares about.  Case in point: back in 2011 Microsoft introduced a new level of cryptographic support into the Windows boot process that ensures PCs only boot trusted software.  This closed the attack vector for the infamous BlackLotus bootkit vulnerability.  Well, it turns out that in mid-2026 these certificates are expiring for the first time since their inception. There is a push on to transition devices from the legacy 2011 Certificate Authorities (CAs) to newer 2023 CAs to maintain boot integrity.

What to expect: the new CAs should roll-out to your PC automatically via Windows Update.  This could be a problem for those of you who don’t allow your computer to be updated automatically.  If your computer is not patched before the certificates expire, it will not stop working altogether, but it will enter a degraded security state and lose the ability to receive future Windows Boot Manager protections, or mitigations of any newly discovered boot-level vulnerabilities.  The initial patches were deployed as early as May 2023.  In April 2026 Microsoft began the automatic rollout of new certificates via Windows Update.  The Windows Security App was updated to allow you to view the status of your computer.

To verify your system’s status, open the Windows Security App, navigate to “Device Security” and view the “Secure Boot” section.  You’ll find the date of your certificate there.  If it hasn’t yet been updated, you can either wait for Windows Update to do it automatically, or scan for new updates and install it manually.

Gmail is using AI to scan your private email: You might actually have heard about this because the original story went viral due to the overwhelming percentage of people who use Gmail.  However, what you may not have heard is that this is a very public and widespread misunderstanding of the truth; one that Google has taken pains to publicly correct, but which isn’t as salacious as the original story, and so didn’t gain traction and achieve widespread coverage.

The original story, circa late 2025 and early 2026 was that Google automatically opted all users into a program that allowed their AI to scan private emails for the purpose of training its commercial AI models.  Google insists that was never the case, and that while Gmail does scan your emails locally to enable AI power convenience features, these are fully under your control to turn off as you see fit. If you want to opt out, look for the setting called “Smart Features” in the Personalization section of the Gmail options, and just turn it off.

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