The IT Privacy and Security Weekly Update for November 4th., 2025 and the Purported Porch Pirate

EP 265 Ahoy Matey! In this week’s update:A Rivian owner in Colorado turns the tables on police with dashcam evidence, exposing the dangers of overreliance on automated surveillance.In a rare lighthearted moment, President Xi Jinping jokes about backdoors while gifting Xiaomi phones to South Korea’s leader amid tense U.S.-China trade talks.Oslo’s transit authority disables internet on 850 Chinese electric buses after discovering hidden remote shutdown capabilities.OpenAI’s Atlas browser promises smarter browsing but raises alarms that users are the product, feeding vast new datasets to AI training models.Amazon fires a legal warning shot at Perplexity, accusing its AI shopping agent of fraud for making undisclosed purchases on its platform.AI browsers quietly defeat media paywalls by reading hidden content, threatening publisher revenue and reshaping online access.OpenAI’s Aardvark, a GPT-5-powered security agent, autonomously detects, validates, and patches software vulnerabilities in real time.Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome now use on-device AI to block scareware scams, protecting less tech-savvy users from fraudulent pop-ups.GitHub predicts AI agents will write over 30% of code by 2026, with India poised to surpass the U.S. as the top contributor nation.​Let’s cast off!Find the full transcript to this week's podcast here.