> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.freshfromcache.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # This week: the login you never made, plus the app list you forgot - URL: https://www.freshfromcache.com/newsletter/the-login-you-never-made/ - Published: 2026-09-22T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-22T15:00:00.000Z - Description: Also: who can still see you in a private window, and the printer on your PC that makes a file instead of paper. - Author: Joel Folgner - Tags: newsletter Good morning! You have a Social Security account whether or not you ever made one. The record exists, the sign-in page exists, and the screen that controls where your benefit payments get deposited sits behind it. That turned out to be the shape of the whole week. Every piece below is a control panel you already own and have probably never opened. **In this issue:** - [Claim your Social Security account before someone else does](https://www.freshfromcache.com/claim-your-social-security-account/) - [What you agree to when you tap Sign in with Google](https://www.freshfromcache.com/sign-in-with-google-or-apple/) - [What incognito mode hides, and who still sees you](https://www.freshfromcache.com/what-incognito-mode-actually-hides/) - [Save anything as a PDF. No printer required.](https://www.freshfromcache.com/save-anything-as-a-pdf/) - Plus: three scams making the rounds - And the Scary Headline of the week: the people reading your ChatGPT chats --- [**Claim your Social Security account before someone else does**](https://www.freshfromcache.com/claim-your-social-security-account/) That sign-in page is also where the direct deposit screen lives. The agency's own inspector general audited direct deposit changes made by telephone in late 2023, and of the 3,109 beneficiaries in that audit, about 1,197 had payments misdirected. It was enough to change the rules. A phone change now needs a one-time code you generate by signing into your own account, so holding the account is what puts you in the middle of a change somebody else tries to make. If you have an old Social Security username written in a notebook, cross it out. Those stopped working in June 2025, and Login.gov and ID.me are the only two ways in now. *Learn* --- [**What you agree to when you tap Sign in with Google**](https://www.freshfromcache.com/sign-in-with-google-or-apple/) Google's own help page lists what the button hands over: your name, your email address, and your profile picture. It never hands over your password, which is the thing you least want sitting in a small app's database. The one-basket objection has an answer, which is that the basket already exists, because every account you made with an email and a password sends its resets to that mailbox. Disconnecting an app later stops the automatic sign-in and leaves the account you made there exactly where it was, so the second half of the job happens inside the app. Google keeps the full list at myaccount.google.com/linkedapps. *Learn* --- [**What incognito mode hides, and who still sees you**](https://www.freshfromcache.com/what-incognito-mode-actually-hides/) Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox all describe the same feature, and it's smaller than the dark window suggests. Private mode keeps a record from being written on the device you're sitting at. Chrome names the three who still see you anyway: the websites, the organization running your network, and you, the moment you sign in to anything. Firefox puts it on its own help page in one line, that private browsing does not make you anonymous on the internet. And a file you download in a private window sits in your Downloads folder for anyone to open, even though the browser has forgotten the download ever happened. *Learn* --- **If you only read one:** [the sign-in piece](https://www.freshfromcache.com/sign-in-with-google-or-apple/). It's the one with a list you can go read right now, and mine had apps on it I couldn't place. --- ### 5-Minute Tech Tip Press Ctrl and P on almost anything and there's a printer in the list that makes a file instead of paper. On Windows it's called Microsoft Print to PDF, and in Chrome, Edge and on Android it's Save as PDF. [Pick it and the whole page comes out as one file](https://www.freshfromcache.com/save-anything-as-a-pdf/) that will look the same in ten years, which the website it came from won't. The box that opens next is what decides where the file goes, and on a PC with OneDrive the Desktop folder is OneDrive's Desktop, which is where the missing ones usually turn up. If the page is a wall of cookie banners, switch to reader view first and print from there. --- ### Fresh Trouble **The farm equipment ad.** An ad on social media or in search results offers equipment at a good price, the invoice asks for thousands by wire transfer, and the delivery date comes and goes with new excuses. ([FTC](https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2026/09/scammers-are-impersonating-farm-equipment-businesses?ref=freshfromcache.com)) **The call about the warrant.** Somebody claiming to be a police officer or a federal agent says you missed jury duty or broke a law, won't speak to anyone but you, and tells you to keep the call to yourself. No agency calls to demand payment. ([FBI](https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260917?ref=freshfromcache.com)) **The permission pop-up.** A message you weren't expecting opens a real-looking sign-in page, then an app asks you to click Allow, and the access it gets survives a password change. ([FBI](https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260901?ref=freshfromcache.com)) --- ### Scary Headline of the Week *"Inside 'Project Lily': The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats"* 404 Media reported on September 14 that OpenAI is hiring hundreds of contractors to read real conversations between people and ChatGPT and score the answers. The reporting is solid, and the practice is also how most of these assistants get built. A person reads the exchange, rates the response, and the rating goes back into the model. OpenAI says it tries to strip personal information out before a reviewer sees a prompt, and acknowledged that sensitive details still get through. OpenAI's own privacy policy has said the underlying part for a long time: "we may use Content you provide us to improve our Services, for example to train the models that power ChatGPT." The setting that turns it off lives in Settings under Data Controls, and turning it off leaves your chat history where it is. **Verdict:** nothing here was hidden, and almost nobody reads a privacy policy, so the effect is the same as if it had been. Type into a chatbot the way you'd type into a work email, on the assumption a person can read it. Then go turn the setting off, the same as [anything else that trains on your writing](https://www.freshfromcache.com/stop-ai-training-on-your-writing/). Seen a headline this week that scared you? Reply and send it. It might get next week's verdict. --- ### Help Fresh From Cache grow This newsletter is free and written by one person. If it earns its spot in your inbox, there are two ways to help. Forward this email to one person who might want it, and if it was forwarded to you, [subscribe](https://www.freshfromcache.com/#/portal/signup) to get your own copy every Tuesday. And if you would rather chip in a few dollars, there is a [support page](https://www.freshfromcache.com/support/) now. Thank you for your support. --- What did you find on your linked-apps list that you had forgotten about? Hit reply. Joel