Technology

How to trace and block anonymous calls

Published

2 years ago

July 1, 2024

Spam calls are on the rise, and the scammers behind those calls are getting more and more sophisticated. Because of this, it can be harder to determine whether or not a call is actually a scam, especially if the scammer has phone spoofed a legitimate number that you may recognize.

Often, people can quickly identify a scam call, especially when their caller ID shows “Unknown Caller.” But what happens when this anonymous caller persistently calls again and again? This can become irritating very quickly. The usual solution is to block the number, but this is easier said than done when the actual phone number is hidden on the Caller ID.

Fortunately, there are several effective methods and tools available to help block and even trace anonymous calls, ensuring these nuisance calls stop for good.

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Incoming call on phone (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

3 ways to block anonymous calls

Spam callers can find all sorts of ways to trick you into answering the phone and giving up your sensitive data. When you don’t answer or don’t give them what they want, they may keep calling and calling.

Some scammers even rely on robots to initiate what’s known as robocalls to make it easier to call their victims over and over again at a faster rate without requiring a human to do it. Whatever the case may be, here are ways you can get ahead of them and stop them from bothering you:

1) Use your phone’s built-in features

To start, your phone already has built-in features that can help you block anonymous calls or at least prevent them from trying to call you in the first place:

On iPhone:

On iPhone, the best way to block anonymous callers is to silence them.

Go to Settings > Phone
Scroll down and select Silence Unknown Callers
Toggle it on. Calls from unknown numbers will be silenced and sent to voicemail

On Android:

On Android, the way to do it is to block anonymous calls. Here’s an example of how to do this on a Samsung Galaxy, though keep in mind the steps may be slightly different depending on which type of Android phone you have.

Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer.

Open the Phone app
Tap the More icon (three vertical dots) > Settings > Call blocking
Turn on Block anonymous calls

If you have a different Android device and can’t find the “Block anonymous calls” feature, you can download an app instead that helps with this:

Download and install the ShouldIAnswer? app from the Google Play Store.
Open the app and configure it to block unknown and hidden numbers. This handy feature can help you maintain your privacy and avoid unwanted calls.

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2) Download third-party apps

Speaking of the ShouldIAnswer app, if you don’t have that option and/or prefer not to use your phone’s built-in settings and want an extra layer of security, these other third-party apps can help block out anonymous callers:

TrapCall: TrapCall is available for both iOS and Android. It reveals the phone number of anonymous callers and provides options to block them. Just install from the App Store or Google Play then follow the steps to set up the app.

Truecaller: Truecaller is another option that’s similar to TrapCall in that it identifies phone numbers that appear “unknown” or “private” on your Caller ID, and it has features to then block them. Download the app from the App Store or Google Play and then configure the app.

A person accepting an incoming call (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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3) Reach out to your phone carrier

Reaching out to your phone carrier is an effective step to combat spam calls. Many carriers offer services specifically designed to help customers manage and reduce unwanted calls. Whether you ring them up, contact them online or stop at your local phone store, they can help you.

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How to trace anonymous calls

Sometimes, you want to know who is calling you so much. By unveiling who is behind the anonymous caller, you can find out if it’s actually a scammer or someone you know who is calling you over and over again to harass you. There are several reasons you may want to trace these calls. We won’t cover all those reasons here, but if you need help finding out who is actually calling you, try these methods below:

Dial *57: If you receive harassing calls, you can dial *57 after the call. This traces the call and logs it with your phone company, which can take action if needed.

Dial *69: This service redials the last number that called you, even if it was anonymous, allowing you to identify and block the number.

A man picking up an incoming call (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Invest in personal data removal services

In an era where our personal information is increasingly digitized, the risk of it being misused by scammers is ever-present. Investing in personal data removal services is one of the most proactive steps to protect yourself from spam calls and potential identity theft. These services work diligently to remove your personal information from public databases and websites often scraped by scammers to find their next target.

Why personal data removal services are worth considering

By removing your details from public view, you reduce the chances of being selected by a scammer in the first place. Also, knowing your information isn’t easily accessible gives you greater peace of mind. In addition, these services often allow you to control which information you want to be public and which you prefer to keep private.

How personal data removal services work

While no service promises to remove all your data from the internet, having a removal service is great if you want to constantly monitor and automate the process of continuously removing your information from hundreds of sites over a longer period. Remove your personal data from the internet with my top picks here.

By combining the use of personal data removal services with the methods outlined in this article to block and trace anonymous calls, you can significantly bolster your defenses against the ever-growing nuisance of spam calls.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Dealing with spam calls can be frustrating, but there are effective strategies to combat them. By utilizing your phone’s built-in features, downloading third-party apps and reaching out to your phone carrier, you can significantly reduce the number of unwanted calls. Also, investing in personal data removal services can further protect your privacy and minimize the risk of being targeted by scammers. Stay vigilant and proactive to keep those pesky spam calls at bay.

What role should government and telecommunications companies play in addressing the spam call epidemic? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to

Published

10 minutes ago

February 15, 2026

Press Room

AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about video game industry’s pushback against generative AI, follow Jay Peters. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

Long before the generative AI explosion, video game developers made games that could generate their own worlds. Think of titles like Minecraft or even the original 1980 Rogue that is the basis for the term “roguelike”; these games and many others create worlds on the fly with certain rules and parameters. Human developers painstakingly work to make sure the worlds their games can create are engaging to explore and filled with things to do, and at their best, these types of games can be replayable for years because of how the environments and experiences can feel novel every single time you play.

But just as other creative industries are pushing back against an AI slop future, generative AI is coming for video games, too. Though it may never catch up with the best of what humans can make now.

Generative AI in video games has become a lightning rod, with gamers getting mad about in-game slop and half of developers thinking that generative AI is bad for the industry.

Big video game companies are jumping into the murky waters of AI anyway. PUBG maker Krafton is turning into an “AI First” game company, EA is partnering with Stability AI for “transformative” game-making tools, and Ubisoft, as part of a major reorganization, is promising that it would be making “accelerated investments behind player-facing Generative AI.” The CEO of Nexon, which owns the company that made last year’s mega-hit Arc Raiders, put it perhaps the most ominously: “I think it’s important to assume that every game company is now using AI.” (Some indie developers disagree.)

The bigger game companies often pitch their commitments as a way to streamline and assist with game development, which is getting increasingly expensive. But adoption of generative AI tools is a potential threat to jobs in an industry already infamous for waves of layoffs.

Last month, Google launched Project Genie, an “early research prototype” that lets users generate sandbox worlds using text or image prompts that they can explore for 60 seconds. Right now, the tool is only available in the US to people who subscribe to Google’s $249.99-per-month AI Ultra plan.

Project Genie is powered by Google’s Genie 3 AI world model, which the company pitches as a “key stepping stone on the path to AGI” that can enable “AI agents capable of reasoning, problem solving, and real-world actions,” and Google says the model’s potential uses go “well beyond gaming.” But it got a lot of attention in the industry: It was the first real indication of how generative AI tools could be used for video game development, just as tools like DALL-E and OpenAI’s Sora showed what might be possible with AI-generated images and video.

In my testing, Project Genie was barely able to generate even remotely interesting experiences. The “worlds” don’t let users do much except wander around using arrow keys. When the 60 seconds are over, you can’t do anything with what you generated except download a recording of what you did, meaning you also can’t plug in what you generated into a traditional video game engine.

Sure, Project Genie did let me generate terrible unauthorized Nintendo knockoffs (seemingly based off of the online videos Genie 3 is trained on), which raised a lot of familiar concerns about copyright and AI tools. But they weren’t even in the same universe of quality as the worlds in a handcrafted Nintendo game. The worlds were silent, the physics were sloppy, and the environments felt rudimentary.

The day after Project Genie’s announcement, stock prices of some of the biggest video game companies, including Take-Two, Roblox, and Unity, took a dip. That resulted in a little damage control. Take-Two president Karl Slatoff, for example, pushed back strongly on Genie in an earnings call a few days later, arguing that Genie isn’t a threat to traditional games yet. “Genie is not a game engine,” he said, noting that technology like it “certainly doesn’t replace the creative process,” and that, to him, the tool looks more like “procedurally generated interactive video at this point.” (The stock prices ticked back up in the days after.)

Google will almost certainly continue improving its Genie world models and tools to generate interactive experiences. It’s unclear if it will want to improve the experiences as games or if it will instead focus on finding ways for Genie to assist with its aspirational march toward AGI.

However, other leaders of AI companies are already pushing for interactive AI experiences. xAI’s Elon Musk recently claimed that “real-time” and “high-quality” video games that are “customized to the individual” will be available “next year,” and in December, he said that building an “AI gaming studio” is a “major project” for xAI. (Like with many of Musk’s claims, take his predictions and timelines with a grain of salt.) Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who is now pushing AI as the new social media after the company cut jobs in its metaverse group, envisions a future where people create a game from a prompt and share it to people in their feeds. Even Roblox, a gaming company, is pitching how creators will be able to use AI world models and prompts to generate and change in-game worlds in real time, something that it calls “real-time dreaming.”

But even in the most ambitious view where AI technology is feasibly able to generate worlds that are as responsive and interesting to explore as a video game that runs locally on a home console, PC, or your smartphone, there’s a lot more that goes into making a video game than just creating a world. The best games have engaging gameplay, include interesting things to do, and feature original art, sound, writing, and characters. And it takes human developers sometimes years to make sure all of the elements work together just right.

AI technology isn’t yet ready to generate games, and whoever thinks it might be is fooling themselves. But AI-generated video is still bad, and it was still used to make a bunch of bad ads for the Super Bowl, so tech companies are probably still going to put a lot of effort toward games made with generative AI. In an already unstable industry, even the idea that AI tools could rival what humans can make might have massive ramifications down the line.

But the complexity of games is different from AI video, which has improved considerably in a short period of time but has fewer variables to account for. AI game-making tools will almost certainly improve, but the results might never close the gap from what humans can make.

In a long X post, Unity CEO Matthew Bromberg argues that world models aren’t a risk, but a “powerful accelerator.”
While the video game industry probably shouldn’t feel threatened by AI world models just yet, generative AI tools will continue to be controversial in game development. Even Larian Studios, beloved for games like Baldur’s Gate 3, isn’t immune to backlash.
Steam requires that developers disclose when their games use generative AI to generate content, but in a recent change, developers don’t have to disclose if they used “AI powered tools” in their game development environments.
Some games, like the text-based Hidden Door and Amazon’s Snoop Dogg game on its Luna cloud gaming service, are embracing generative AI as a core aspect of the game.

NYU games professor Joost van Dreunen has a take on the situation around Project Genie.
Scientific American has a great explanation of how world models work.

Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

Jay Peters

Technology

Clean up your social media feed and cut the noise

Published

40 minutes ago

February 15, 2026

Press Room

Clean up your social media feed and cut the noise

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Scrolling used to be relaxing. Now it often feels chaotic. That is not a coincidence. Nearly everything you see on social media is controlled by algorithms that track what you like, watch, click and ignore. Over time, those signals get muddy. One curiosity click can reshape your feed for weeks. The solution is not deleting your accounts. It is retraining the system.

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Your social media experience starts the moment you tap an app, and every click helps shape what shows up next. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

How social media algorithms decide what you see

Algorithms pay attention to behavior, not intention. They track engagement patterns and repeat what keeps you scrolling. If your feed feels off, it usually means the algorithm learned the wrong lesson. Resetting your feed helps correct that.

Note: This article is written desktop-first (PC or Mac). When a step is phone-only or significantly different on mobile, it is clearly labeled.

How to clean up your Facebook Feed

Primary device: PC or Mac. Phone differences noted.

Use Content Preferences to retrain Facebook (PC or Mac)

Facebook’s feed is built around people, pages and groups you follow, plus recommended content and ads.

Click your profile photo in the upper right
Select Settings and Privacy > Content Preferences

From here, you can:

Add people and groups to Favorites
Snooze posts temporarily
Unfollow accounts without unfriending them
Reconnect with accounts you muted before

These tools are easiest to manage on a desktop.

Filter your Feed view (PC or Mac)

To bypass the main algorithmic feed:
Click Feeds in the left navigation
Choose to view only Favorites, Friends, Groups, or Pages

This shows content chronologically within those categories.

Hide and flag posts as you scroll (PC, Mac and phone)

On any post in your Facebook feed:

Click the three-dot menu in the upper right of the post
Choose Hide post, Snooze, or Unfollow, depending on what appears

Hiding posts and snoozing or unfollowing accounts sends the same signal to the algorithm. Use these options often. Facebook responds more reliably to repeated negative feedback than occasional clicks.

For suggested posts and reels, you may also see Not interested. Selecting it further trains the feed away from similar content.

Cut down ads and sensitive topics (PC, Mac and phone)

When ads appear:

Click the X to hide them
Or use the three-dot menu to hide or report

For deeper control:

Go to Settings and Privacy > Settings
Open Account Center
Click Ad Preferences > Customize ads
Select See All next to Ad Topics
Click View and manage topics
Click the topic name
Choose See less
Repeat this for every topic you want to limit.

To block specific words in comments:

Click your profile picture (top right on desktop)
Settings & privacy → Settings
In the left column, click Profile and Tagging
Under “Profile,” look for Hide comments containing certain words from your profile and click on the arrow next to it.
Choose a list of words, phrases or emojis you want to hide from your profile and type them in the box.
Click Save below it.

Using a computer gives you deeper control over social media settings that are harder to find on a phone. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

How to clean up your Instagram feed

Primary device: Phone only

Instagram does not currently offer a reliable, universal option to reset its algorithm. Feed control on Instagram is manual and behavior-based. That means the app learns from what you hide, mute, unfollow and ignore.

Tell Instagram what you do not want to see (phone)

On posts that miss the mark:

Tap the three-dot menu
Select Not interested, Mute, or Unfollow, depending on what appears

Use this consistently. Instagram responds more to repeated signals than one-off actions.

Fine-tune who appears in your feed (phone)

Visit accounts directly and tap Following to manage how their content shows up.

From here, you can:

Mute posts or stories
Add or remove Favorites
Restrict interactions
Unfollow the account

These actions immediately influence future recommendations.

Review account-level controls (phone)

Open Settings and review:

Muted accounts
Blocked accounts
Close Friends

Cleaning up these lists helps reduce clutter and repetitive content.

When a new Instagram account makes sense

If your feed still feels off after manual cleanup, starting fresh is the most effective reset.

To do this:

Log out and create a new account
Follow only accounts you truly want to see
Avoid mass-following during setup

Instagram’s algorithm is heavily influenced by early behavior, so a slow, intentional start matters.

Some users may hear about an Instagram “reset” feature, but as of now, it is not consistently available across accounts.

Fine-tune who you see (phone)

Tap the three-dot menu on posts to unfollow or favorite accounts.

From any profile, tap Following to:

Add Close Friend
Add Favorite
Mute posts or stories
Restrict interactions

Unfollow

Under Settings, review:

Muted accounts
Blocked accounts
Close Friends

Instagram’s feed is trained by what you hide, mute, and unfollow, not by a single reset button. (iStock)

How to reset your TikTok For You page

Primary device: Phone only

Train the feed gradually (phone)

Press and hold on a video
Tap Not Interested

Consistency matters here.

Remove past likes (phone)

Go to Profile
Tap the heart icon
Unlike videos that may be influencing recommendations

Refresh the entire feed (phone only)

Tap Profile
Tap the three-line menu
Go to Settings and Privacy > Content Preferences
Tap Refresh Your For You Feed
Confirm

This resets recommendations but keeps your following list.

For a total reset, unfollow accounts manually or start fresh with a new account.

TikTok’s For You page reacts quickly when you mark videos as not interested or clean up past likes. (iStock)

How to reset YouTube recommendations

Primary device: PC recommended

Clear or limit watch history (PC, Mac and phone)

On mobile:

Tap You
Tap the gear icon
Select Manage All History
Tap DELETE

On desktop:

Click your profile photo
Select Your Data in YouTube
Open YouTube Watch History
Click Manage History
Click DELETE

From here, you can:

Delete today
Delete custom range
Delete all time

Remove past feed feedback

Primary device: PC or Mac

This setting is easiest to access on a computer.

Go to YouTube.com and make sure you are signed in
Click your profile photo in the upper right
Select Your Data in YouTube
Scroll to the section labeled YouTube Watch History and click the right arrow
Click Manage your YouTube Watch History
Click Saving Your Watch History

On the history page:

Scroll down until you see YouTube Customize Your Feed Feedback
Click Delete to remove past feedback selections

This removes videos you previously told YouTube you wanted to see more of.

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Continue training the feed (PC, Mac and phone)

On individual YouTube videos:

Click or tap the three-dot menu next to the video
Select Not interested

Repeat this on videos that miss the mark. YouTube relies heavily on repeated feedback signals. This option is not consistently available on the YouTube mobile app. Use a computer for the best results.

Reset subscriptions (PC, Mac and phone)

Subscriptions heavily shape recommendations. Unsubscribe from channels you no longer watch. Rebuild your list intentionally.

YouTube recommendations are driven by watch history, search history, and subscriptions you may have forgotten about. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

How to reduce noise on X

Primary device: PC preferred

Adjust interests and ads (PC, Mac and phone)

Click your profile icon.
Go to Settings and Privacy
Click Privacy and Safety
Select Content You See
Open Interests

Here, X lists topics it believes you are interested in.

Uncheck interests you no longer care about
There is no “unselect all” option
Changes must be made one by one

This affects both recommended posts and ads.

Adjust ad personalization settings (PC, Mac and phone)

This is where “Ads Preferences” actually lives.

Click or tap your profile icon
Go to Settings and Privacy
Select Privacy and Safety
Scroll down and click Ads Preferences

From here:

Turn off Personalized ads
Review Ad categories and disable what you can
Turn off Ads based on inferred identity, if shown

X does not allow full ad removal, but these steps reduce targeting.

Train the feed as you scroll (PC, Mac and phone)

On posts or ads you do not want to see again:

Click or tap the three-dot menu
Choose Not interested, Block, or Mute, depending on what appears
Also:
Unfollow accounts that no longer add value
Block advertisers directly when possible

Repeated feedback matters more than occasional actions.

When starting a new X account makes sense

X’s algorithm is less forgiving than most platforms. If your feed feels irreparable, the most effective reset is:

Creating a new account
Following only accounts you truly want
Avoiding mass follows early on

Early behavior heavily shapes long-term recommendations. X offers fewer feed controls than most platforms, so changes may feel slower and less dramatic.

Small, consistent actions on your phone can gradually retrain algorithms and reduce daily feed fatigue. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

How to clean up Threads

Works on PC, Mac and phone

Control what appears in For You

On the For You feed:
Click the three-dot menu
Mark posts as not interested, mute or block

Use Hidden Words (PC and phone)

Open Settings
Go to Hidden Words
Add words, phrases or emojis separated by commas

These filters apply across Threads and Instagram.

How to make LinkedIn useful again

Primary device: PC recommended

Switch to recent posts (PC and Mac)

At the top of your feed, click Sort by: Top
Change it to Recent
To make it permanent:
Go to Me
Click Settings and Privacy
Select Preferred Feed View
Choose Most recent posts
Click the left arrow to save

Reduce ad targeting (PC and Mac)

Go to Settings and Privacy
Open Advertising Data
Select Interests and Traits
Turn off categories you do not want

Aggressively train the feed (PC, Mac and phone)

On unwanted posts:

Click the three-dot menu
Select Not relevant or Not interested
Under My Network, review Followers and Following and unfollow accounts that add noise.

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Kurt’s key takeaways

Social media feels overwhelming when it runs on autopilot. A few minutes of cleanup can dramatically change what you see. Algorithms respond to clarity. The clearer your signals, the better your feed becomes. You do not need to quit social media to enjoy it again. You just need to take control.

If your feed reflects your behavior, what does yours reveal about how you spend your attention right now? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com

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Technology

Jikipedia turns Epstein’s emails into an encyclopedia of his powerful friends

Published

12 hours ago

February 14, 2026

Press Room

Jikipedia turns Epstein’s emails into an encyclopedia of his powerful friends

The folks behind Jmail are at it again with a clone of Wikipedia that turns the treasure trove of data in Epstein’s emails into detailed dossiers on his associates. Entries include known visits to Epstein’s properties, possible knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and laws that they might have broken. The reports are dense, listing how many emails they exchanged with Epstein, basic biographical information, and details about how they’re connected.

Beyond that, there are entries for the properties Epstein owns, detailing how they were acquired and the alleged activities that took place there. There are also entries for his business dealings, including his relationship with JPMorgan Chase.

It is worth noting that the entries are AI-generated. While a casual glance seems to suggest Jikipedia is citing its sources, it’s still possible (if not likely) that there are some inaccuracies contained within them. The Jmail X account said that they’ll be implementing the ability for users to report inaccuracies and request changes soon.