Earlier this month, I finally achieved the elusive goal I had set for myself in Bungie’s Marathon. I collected six of the game’s rarest items, allowing me to attempt and then successfully clear the raid-style Compiler boss. I felt a massive weight lift off my shoulders — nearly 185 hours of playtime and I had managed to complete Marathon’s pinnacle activity. A day later, I took my first break from the game.
Technology
Holiday travel privacy risks and how to stay safe
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Holiday travel is stressful enough with crowded airports, expensive flights and last-minute itinerary changes. But there’s a hidden part of the travel industry most people don’t know about: your personal data is being harvested, packaged and sold every time you book a flight, reserve a hotel room or check a travel app.
Whether you’re traveling for a Christmas break or booking early for New Year’s, the companies you trust with your most sensitive details—full name, home address, passport info, travel dates and device data—are sharing and selling far more than you think.
And during the holiday rush, that data becomes a goldmine for scammers.
Let’s unpack how this works, which companies collect the most and what you can do before you travel to keep your personal information out of the wrong hands.
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PROTECT YOUR DATA BEFORE HOLIDAY SHOPPING SCAMS STRIKE
Holiday travel brings more than stress because every booking and check-in quietly generates personal data you may not realize you are giving away. (iStock)
Why holiday travel puts your data at risk
The holiday season is the peak period for travel-related data collection. Airlines, hotels, booking platforms, loyalty programs and travel apps all experience massive traffic spikes—millions of Americans are searching for deals, comparing prices, checking gate changes and re-booking delayed flights.
Every one of those actions creates trackable data points, including:
- Email address
- Phone number
- Full name and DOB
- Address history
- Travel itineraries
- Passport or ID data
- Device fingerprint
- IP address and location
- Shopping habits and spending patterns.
You might assume this data stays with the airline or hotel. It doesn’t.
Most companies share it with advertisers, analytics firms, data brokers and dozens of unnamed “partners.” Some even use your data to profile you—how often you travel, how much you’ll likely spend and whether you’re a “high-value” target.
That information can easily leak into scammer databases, which is why holiday travelers suddenly see:
- Fake “your flight is canceled” texts
- Phishing emails that look identical to hotel confirmations
- Bogus baggage fee requests
- Fake TSA PreCheck renewal notices
- “Urgent re-verification required” messages.
Scammers rely on the fact that you’re stressed, rushing and expecting travel updates. And because they already have your personal data, their attacks are frighteningly convincing.
STOP FOREIGN-OWNED APPS FROM HARVESTING YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Airlines, hotels, apps and booking platforms collect far more information than most travelers know and that data often gets shared with advertisers and data brokers. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
Examples of what major travel companies collect
Here are real-world examples of how holiday travel platforms collect and share your data:
1) Airlines (Delta, American, United, Southwest)
Major U.S. airlines collect not just your name, phone number and email, but also travel companions, payment details, geolocation data, device data and loyalty-program activity.
They share this with:
- “Marketing partners”
- Analytics platforms
- Third-party advertisers
- Data-enrichment firms.
Many of these partners, over time, become part of the data broker ecosystem.
2) Booking platforms (Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com)
Each booking platform details what it collects in its privacy policy. Oftentimes, these sites track:
- Search history
- Price views
- Device fingerprint
- Click behavior
- IP-based location
- Payment attempts—even abandoned carts.
This is used to build profiles that determine what deals you’re shown and how aggressively you’re targeted.
3) Hotel chains (Marriott, Hilton, IHG)
Marriott’s privacy policy and other privacy statements list over 60 categories of data it collects. Some chains were caught sharing guest data with:
- Ad networks
- Social media platforms
- Third-party “guest experience” tools
- Affiliate networks
- Data brokers for cross-device tracking.
Cybercriminals have been using the information of over 500 million Marriott guests, exposed during a four-year-long breach that started in 2014, to craft and execute travel-themed scams to this day.
4) Travel apps (Airbnb, Hopper, KAYAK, TripIt)
These are some of the most aggressive data collectors because they run nonstop on your phone. Many collect:
- Real-time location
- Contacts
- Clipboard data
- Behavioral analytics
- Device ID
- In-app browsing.
Some of these firms then “share information with partners for marketing enhancement,” which is typically code for data selling.
YOUR DISCARDED LUGGAGE TAGS ARE WORTH MONEY TO SCAMMERS
Scammers use leaked travel details to send fake flight alerts, hotel messages and urgent payment notices that look real because they already have your personal information. (iStock)
How scammers use your travel data
Once your information enters the ecosystem, scammers build travel-themed attacks designed to hit you at the worst possible time. Some common examples include:
- Fake airline notifications: (e.g., “Your flight has been canceled, click here to rebook”)
- Urgent hotel “payment failure” emails: Scammers use leaked address and booking data to send emails that look exactly like they’re from the Hilton or Marriott
- Fake baggage fees: (e.g., “Pay $24.90 to release your checked bag”)
- TSA and Global Entry renewal scams.
This isn’t guesswork. They already have your name, flight, hotel, location and travel dates—because the travel industry’s data partners sold or leaked them.
How to protect yourself before you travel
Here are my top steps to staying private this holiday season:
1) Check what data the travel companies already have
Hotels, airlines and booking sites all have data removal options—though they’re buried in their privacy settings.
2) Stop apps from tracking your location
Turn off location permissions for apps like:
- Hopper
- Airbnb
- Expedia
- HotelTonight.
Many track you even when not in use. Here’s how to do it for iPhone and Android:
On iPhone: Open Settings, tap Privacy & Security, then tap Location Services, scroll down to the app and tap each app, and set location access to “While Using the App” or “Never,” and turn off “Share My Location” if you don’t want them to see your exact spot.
On Android: Open Settings, tap Location, then choose App location permissions or App permissions, find the app and tap it, and change each one to “Allow only while using the app” or “Don’t allow” so they can’t track you in the background. (Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer.)
3) Remove your personal data from data broker sites
This is the most important step. Even if you stop airlines and hotels from collecting new data, your existing data is already circulating through dozens of data brokers, and that’s what scammers use to target travelers.
Data brokers hold:
- Your travel patterns
- Address history
- Email and phone details
- Income level
- Household info
- Your family members’ names.
You can manually request removal from hundreds of sites, but it takes months. That’s why I recommend a data removal service. While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com
4) Use an email alias for bookings
An alias email reduces the amount of spam and phishing attempts you’ll receive. By creating email aliases, you can also protect your information. These aliases forward messages to your primary address, making it easier to manage incoming communications and avoid data breaches.
For recommendations on private and secure email providers that offer alias addresses, visit Cyberguy.com
5) Avoid airport Wi-Fi for anything involving payments
Scammers often run fake hotspots. So, avoid airport public Wi-Fi when accessing financial information.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
The holiday season is here, and many of us are getting ready to travel to see family and friends. As travel picks up, personal data collection and sharing also increases. Airlines, hotels and travel apps often share your information with unknown third parties, which scammers can use to target you during your trip. Before you pack your bags, take a few minutes to remove your personal data from online brokers. Doing this helps protect your identity and lets you travel with peace of mind.
How do you protect your personal information when you travel during the holidays? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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I had been playing Marathon virtually every day since it launched in March, and I needed to put it down. Treating a Bungie game like it’s a grueling second job is nothing new. Certainly not for me or the many fellow Destiny players that cut their teeth on repetitive level grinds, randomized gear chases, and the difficult raid encounters of Bungie’s prior looter shooter. I have thousands of collective hours in the Destiny franchise. So I knew to expect from Marathon something generally familiar: a game with which I would develop an addictive and complicated relationship, equally defined by love and frustration. But I wasn’t prepared for just how quickly I’d go through the stages of that relationship.
I’ll admit: Characterizing how you play an online video game as if it’s a toxic relationship is probably an indication that the problem is more with me than the game. But my experience is not unique — three months since Marathon’s launch, its player numbers have plummeted, and its abrasive nature, complex risk-and-reward systems, and sometimes excruciating difficulty are starting to grate on diehard players, too.
Marathon puts unreasonably tall walls in front of its players
The magic of Bungie game design is marrying deep systems with unparalleled gunplay and incredible art direction. When all three work in concert, it’s exhilarating, a near-perfect loop of minute-by-minute sensation inside of a long and rewarding arc of self-directed mastery and aspiration. Marathon nailed the gunplay and the art. But its systems, combined with the high-stakes lose-it-all nature of extraction shooters, keep putting unreasonably tall walls in front of its players.
Season 2 is just a few days away, slated for June 2nd. It will involve a complete reset of every player’s progression: All loot will disappear, faction levels will be reset, and players will be asked to start over again from scratch. It’s also a chance for Bungie to reset the narrative around Marathon.
For the company, the stakes could not be higher. Earlier this month, Bungie announced that it would cease active development on Destiny 2, ending a definitive chapter in the studio’s post-Halo history after more than 12 years. Fans are understandably upset, and many are now directing their ire at Marathon, claiming it pulled resources away from continuing Destiny 2 or from kickstarting a full-fledged Destiny 3. Bloomberg has since reported that Bungie is now planning layoffs as part of the decision to end development on Destiny 2.
The studio’s future now depends more than ever on the success of Marathon, a game that has been defined, almost immediately after launch, by its lackluster performance. The longevity of the live-service title has become the central point of anxiety and contention within the Marathon community, as players debate what went wrong, what could fix it, and whether this downward spiral is an existential threat to their favorite new hobby. It has gotten so extreme that the game’s official subreddit has now banned all discussion about player numbers except those made in a single megathread now dedicated to the subject. Now, Destiny’s demise has only exacerbated every conversation about Marathon and its future.
Image: Bungie
As someone who’s gone all in on Marathon, I feel confident I can diagnose at least one of the central issues at play. Marathon is simply too demanding: It requires too much time, too much wasted effort, and far too much failure. It is simply too hard, not just for new players, but for everyone. Yes, the game has a problem bringing in new people, but it also treats those that do stick around with increasing levels of disregard. I want to feel like the time and effort I dedicate to Marathon is being rewarded, and often I am disappointed.
Every online multiplayer game has to contend with the tension between courting and keeping casual players and maintaining a competitive atmosphere and high skill ceiling. Yet I’ve never seen a game accelerate from its honeymoon phase into struggling to survive this quickly. Visit the game’s Reddit community and you’ll see players penning multi-hundred-word personal essays, analyses, and straight-up confessionals about what they think is wrong with Marathon. These players are not the problem. Marathon has serious flaws that inhibit its ability to be enjoyed like a normal video game.
Marathon has serious flaws that inhibit its ability to be enjoyed like a normal video game
In many ways, the extraction genre Marathon occupies is built on failure. You cannot let so-called “gear fear” — the anxiety of losing rare and hard-fought items — control your experience. You’re conditioned to not care about the guns and mods you lose, the time you waste, and the opportunities you squander because of bad luck or another better team or a lobby of high-level streamers. One tiny split-second decision can ultimately ruin an entire run, and that’s just how it goes. What one team does to you, you can always do to another. A free kit in Marathon can also turn into a backpack of purple gear if you play your cards right.
Yet Marathon takes these genre staples several steps too far. It does with the soul-killing brutality of its ranked play (which is also plagued by cheating, including teams collaborating over proximity chat); the incomprehensible uphill battle of its complex and confusing progression system; its stinginess around upgrade materials; and its overreliance on randomness.
Marathon also gets harder the longer you play, thanks to features like level-based matchmaking and by increasingly upping the ante of the risk-reward loop required for high-level activities. Take for instance the vaults needed to access the Compiler boss. Each one requires a key that must be earned from another map, meaning you must fight other teams for it and successfully exfil. You then must take that key into the endgame Cryo Archive map to attempt to unlock a vault, an elaborate puzzle room that broadcasts your location to nearby teams and invites them to try and take you down. You must do this six times, with six different vaults of increasing complexity, to even access the Compiler, which itself requires a rare consumable keycard upon every attempt. This is so grueling that high-skill players are selling Compiler runs on eBay.
The game’s progression and loot system ensure that the less you play, the lower your chances of survival, a problem that compounds as a season drags on because other players quite literally have better stats, better guns, and more funds to purchase items necessary for success, like healing consumables and ammo. One particularly mind-boggling design choice is a season-long grind to unlock the ability to simply purchase purple shields, a feat I have yet to accomplish after more than 200 hours. The more you feel like each run is fruitless — a slot machine pull at best and an inevitable failure at worst — the more likely you are to give up. This shrinks the player base even further and accelerates what some in the community have come to call Marathon’s “skill-based death spiral.”
The more you feel like each run is fruitless — a slot machine pull at best and an inevitable failure at worst — the more likely you are to give up
Bungie, to its credit, has gone to great lengths acknowledging Marathon’s shortcomings. Game director Joe Ziegler penned a refreshingly reflective and self-aware season 1 postmortem. He called the game “overwhelming to learn,” admitted that its overall vibe was too intense, and said it was “hard to find that chill moment in Marathon” that would make it a place you wanted to hang out in, instead of one that singularly rewarded ruthless competition.
The developer has also promised major changes in season 2. In one particularly telling blog post, Bungie said progression in Marathon “should feel more like a staircase where you take one step after another, not like a wall you must climb.” With season 2, Bungie promises to speed up that faction progression, move runner upgrades to a new buildcrafting system called the Cradle, and enact a slew of changes designed to make the game feel more intuitive and rewarding and at the same time less brutal.
Perhaps the most monumental change on the way is the addition of experimental queues that will reduce or remove competitive PvP, in a bid to win over Destiny fans. It’s also an acknowledgment that though Marathon does exist primarily as an extraction shooter, the game may need to move, and do so quickly, beyond the limitations of the genre to achieve something even remotely close to the mass appeal of Destiny. And in a sign of just how serious Bungie is taking these issues, it announced that it would offer the game for free to all players for the first week of season 2, with your progress carrying over if you buy a copy of Marathon.
These are all great starts, and if Bungie is able to make the core loop of Marathon feel quicker, less punishing, and more streamlined, I have no doubt I’ll want to sink back in. Whether these changes will be enough to bring in jaded Destiny fans or players who steadfastly profess that extraction shooters are just not for them is a big question mark. What I do know is that Marathon is a game with an amazing foundation that deserves a fighting chance to become something greater, especially now that the studio has wagered more of its future on the game. The ingredients are all there — Bungie just needs to stop getting in its own way.
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A humanoid robot just walked into someone’s San Francisco apartment and cleaned it. Yes, really.
Gatsby, a local robotics startup operating under West Egg Labs, says it has completed the first consumer home cleaning by a humanoid robot in the United States. The customer came from Gatsby’s San Francisco waitlist, was picked at random and booked the cleaning through the company’s iOS app.
With Gatsby, instead of buying a pricey robot for your home, you book one when you need it, much like ordering a ride or food delivery from an app.
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HOME ROBOT AUTOMATES HOUSEHOLD CHORES LIKE ROSIE FROM ‘THE JETSONS’
The robot cleaning service raises new questions about privacy, trust and accountability as humanoid robots enter private homes. (Gatsby / Kurt “Cyberguy” Knutsson)
What Gatsby’s humanoid robot cleaning service does
Gatsby describes itself as an on-demand cleaning service in San Francisco that uses humanoid robots instead of human cleaners. You open the iOS app, pick a time and a robot shows up to clean your apartment.
This is not a robot vacuum. Gatsby says it uses full-size humanoid robots that walk through the apartment and handle chores such as dishes, surfaces, floors, making the bed and folding laundry.
The price is also part of the hook. Gatsby says it charges a flat $150 per clean, regardless of apartment size. That means a studio and a penthouse cost the same, with no tips, hidden fees or surcharges, according to the company. Gatsby compares that with typical San Francisco apartment cleaning services, which it says often run from $150 to $300. Gatsby says the robot cleaned the customer’s entire apartment on its own, with no human cleaner physically inside the home. The company also says a typical cleaning takes about 3 hours. One recent San Francisco cleaning ran from 8:42 a.m. to 11:47 a.m., with one robot and no human cleaner physically present.
No human cleaner, but there is a key detail
Gatsby says no human cleaner is physically present during the clean. For anyone who has ever cleaned frantically before the cleaner arrives, that may sound appealing. However, that does not necessarily mean there is no human involvement at all. Gatsby says harder tasks can be handled through remote human teleoperation, while routine work is autonomous. So, while a person may not be standing in your apartment, the service may still involve remote human help.
That detail does not erase the milestone. But it does change how people should think about privacy, trust and what “autonomous” really means inside a home.
Why Gatsby chose house cleaning first
Cleaning makes sense as a starting point because almost everyone has some relationship with it. Some people hate it. Some people outsource it. Others squeeze it in late at night because the day got away from them.
Gatsby founder and CEO Aron Frishberg frames housework as more than an annoying chore. He sees it as a time problem that falls hardest on people who are already stretched thin.
“Housework is the largest unpaid job in human history, and it falls hardest on the people with the least time to give,” Frishberg said. “Right now, somewhere, there’s a parent scrubbing floors who would rather be with their kid. A worker mopping after a sixteen-hour shift. We’ve mapped every neuron and synapse in a fruit fly’s brain, yet we still clean our homes the same way our ancestors did hundreds of years ago. We didn’t build this to clean apartments, we built it to give that time back to humanity.”
Gatsby is taking a robot-agnostic approach
Many humanoid robot companies want to build and sell the machine itself. Gatsby is trying a different route. The company says it is building the consumer distribution layer for humanoid robotics. In other words, Gatsby wants to be the app and service layer that connects customers with whichever humanoid robot performs best.
That could be smart if the robotics market keeps changing quickly. A better robot may arrive six months from now. A cheaper one may show up after that. Gatsby wants the flexibility to swap in stronger hardware while keeping the same app, booking flow and service model. The company describes itself as robot-agnostic. That means Gatsby is not betting everything on one robot body. It wants to work with multiple robot makers as the technology improves.
5 WORRISOME PRIVACY CLAUSES HIDDEN IN SMART HOME DEVICES
Gatsby says it completed the first consumer home cleaning by a humanoid robot in the U.S. at a San Francisco apartment. (Gatsby / Kurt “Cyberguy” Knutsson)
The humanoid robot still raises big questions
Home cleaning is brutally hard for robots. Apartments are messy, unpredictable and full of awkward objects. A robot has to deal with chairs, cords, clutter, pets, tight corners and the occasional pile of laundry that nobody wants to discuss.
Gatsby says the robot can handle tasks that go well beyond vacuuming, including dishes, surfaces, floors, bed-making and laundry folding. That sounds impressive. It also raises the bar for reliability. A robot that handles one apartment is a milestone. A robot that can clean many different homes, day after day, without awkward failures is a much bigger challenge.
The privacy angle people should not ignore
Letting any cleaner into your home requires trust. With robots, that trust gets more complicated. Gatsby markets the service as a way to avoid having a stranger physically inside your home. Still, remote assistance raises its own privacy questions. Customers should know what remote operators can see, how home data is handled and whether any video, audio or mapping information is stored.
That does not mean Gatsby is doing anything wrong. It simply means consumers should ask direct questions before letting any connected robot into a private space. Before booking any robotic home service, read the privacy policy, check what data the app collects and think about what parts of the home you are comfortable exposing to a connected device.
What happens if something breaks?
This may be the first question many people ask. A humanoid robot walking through an apartment sounds convenient until you picture it bumping into a lamp, knocking over a vase or dropping a dish.
Gatsby says customers are covered if the robot damages anything during a cleaning, with the company promising to replace items the robot breaks. That is a helpful promise, but customers should still review the fine print before booking.
Robots entering homes may need the same kind of trust-building that ride-sharing and food delivery needed years ago. People want convenience, but they also want accountability when something goes wrong.
Why this could shake up home services
If Gatsby can make this work reliably, the impact could stretch beyond spotless counters. A $150 robot cleaning visit could appeal to busy parents, older adults, people with mobility challenges and anyone who wants help without coordinating with a human cleaner. It could also put pressure on traditional cleaning services, especially in expensive cities where household help already costs a lot.
At the same time, this raises labor questions. Human cleaners already work in a tough market. If robot cleaning becomes cheaper and more convenient, workers could feel that shift first. The near-term reality may be less dramatic. Robots may handle basic tasks while humans continue to do deep cleaning, delicate work and jobs that require judgment. But Gatsby’s first consumer cleaning shows that home robotics has moved from showroom fantasy into someone’s actual apartment.
IS THIS ROBOT AFTER OUR HOSPITALITY, RETAIL AND HEALTHCARE JOBS?
Gatsby says its humanoid robots can handle chores such as cleaning dishes, floors, surfaces, bed-making and laundry folding. (Gatsby / Kurt “Cyberguy” Knutsson)
Where Gatsby is available now
For now, Gatsby says the service is available only in San Francisco. The company has a waitlist for other cities. That limited rollout gives Gatsby a chance to test the service in real apartments before expanding. It also gives customers, competitors and privacy experts time to see how this model works outside a carefully controlled launch.
What this means to you
For now, this is mainly an early look at where home services may be headed. If you live in San Francisco, Gatsby may already be on your radar. If you live elsewhere, the bigger takeaway is that consumer robots are starting to arrive as services rather than expensive gadgets you have to own.
That could make robot help more accessible. It could also make it easier for companies to test new technology inside real homes. So, treat this as promising but early. Ask practical questions before you get excited. How does the robot enter and leave? What happens if it breaks something? Can a remote operator see inside your home? Does the company record video? Who handles problems if the cleaning falls short? Those answers will matter as much as the robot itself.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Gatsby’s first humanoid robot cleaning feels like one of those tech moments that sounds funny until you realize it may become normal. A robot showing up to scrub an apartment still feels strange. Then again, so did getting into a stranger’s car through an app. The big question is whether Gatsby can turn a clever first cleaning into a service people actually trust. Price helps. Convenience helps. But homes are personal spaces, and consumers will need more than a shiny robot and a slick app. If Gatsby can deliver clean rooms, clear privacy rules and dependable service, it could change how people think about housework.
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Cecil Baldwin’s résumé includes appearances on Gravity Falls, narrating the documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, and performing as part of the New York Neo-Futurists theater company. But he is best known as the host of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, a long-running fiction show that blends macabre Lovecraftian horror with absurdist comedy. As Cecil Palmer, the voice of Night Vale Community Radio, Baldwin keeps the people of the titular town abreast of all the goings ons with the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home and offers tips on how to best maintain their Bloodstone circles.
He also cohosts Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9 with Night Vale cocreator Jeffrey Cranor, recently directed the play As Sylvia and raises awareness for LGBTQ+ issues and HIV. In short — he’s a busy man. So we’re excited that he found some time to tell us about his tech pet peeves.
What is one thing you wish you could change about your phone?
I wish it were impossible to manually text and drive a vehicle at the same time. We are collectively way worse at it than we think.
What is your happy place online?
Adding books to my Favorite list on Amazon so I remember titles/authors, and then taking that list to my local new and/or used bookstore and buying them there.
Which tech trend do you wish would go away?
Please, I’m begging you, let me watch the credits of the film or television show in peace. I just finished a movie, you don’t need to roll me right into a whole new one. Let me digest for just a second.
What creation are you most proud of?
It would have to be the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, right? It was the acting role that changed the trajectory of my life.
What do you do when you’re feeling stuck?
I will literally say to myself “1, 2, 3, 4, 5…. Walk away.” It’s like an unbinding, spoken out loud when I don’t know how to move forward with a project or I’m stuck in a social media scroll-frenzy that is giving no pleasure. Put it down. Walk away. Focus on something else for a while.
What’s the last piece of physical media you bought?
Picked up a few albums at my local record store: Marianne Faithfull À la Télévision 1965-1967, Jorge Ben Jor Jorge Ben, and Dr John Gris-Gris.
What would the tagline for your biopic be?
Performing authenticity… for real.
What’s the last GIF or meme you used?
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