LITS bits:
This week, Matt and Griff dive into another round of tech twists, from the Louvre’s shockingly simple password to Nvidia’s record-breaking $5 trillion valuation. They unpack SonicWall’s state-sponsored breach investigation, debate whether AI really is dumber on Mondays and take a closer look at Apple’s upcoming Maps ads as well as ChatGPT’s privacy hiccup(s). It’s a wild mix of cybersecurity blunders, AI drama, and trillion-dollar milestones that prove once again: in tech, the only constant is surprise.
Have a listen and find details about each topic below:
🔐 Password = “LOUVRE”
You’d expect one of the world’s most famous museums to guard its treasures and its tech a little better. But reports suggest that as recently as 2014, the password protecting the Louvre’s surveillance system was simply “LOUVRE.”
Even worse, a software suite from the same vendor, Thales, was reportedly secured by the password “THALES.”
While it’s unclear whether those credentials have changed, the story highlights just how lax digital security can be — even in world-renowned institutions. Rumors claim the museum’s security server dates back to 2003 and runs on its original, unsupported Windows 2003 operating system.
If that’s true, it’s a museum piece in more ways than one.
☠️ SonicWall Breach: Mandiant Confirms State-Sponsored Attack
In September, SonicWall detected suspicious activity involving its cloud backup systems. The company immediately called in Mandiant, who confirmed that a state-sponsored threat actor accessed firewall configuration backups through cloud API calls.
The good news:
- Only cloud backup files were affected no firmware, source code, or broader systems.
- The incident was not related to the Akira ransomware campaign.
- All remediation steps have been implemented, and cloud infrastructure has been reinforced.
SonicWall’s transparency and swift response should serve as a case study in crisis management done right.
💸 Nvidia Breaks Records: First $5 Trillion Company
Nvidia just became the first company to hit a $5 trillion market valuation — worth more than AMD, ARM, Intel, and TSMC combined.
Fueled by the AI boom, Nvidia now represents the engine powering the world’s most ambitious tech projects. But while investors are celebrating, others are asking the hard question:
Can any valuation this big be sustainable?
One thing’s for sure AI chips are the new oil, and Nvidia owns the well.
🤖 Is AI Dumber on Mondays?
Developers have noticed something strange AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and Codex seem to perform worse on Mondays.
Theories range from weekend updates to cloud resource allocation, but without transparency from AI vendors, it’s anyone’s guess.
In one case, Anthropic admitted to weeks-long quality drops caused by backend bugs while users were left thinking they were imagining things.
Maybe AIs need coffee too.
🤐 ChatGPT’s Privacy Problem
A researcher recently discovered that ChatGPT prompts were showing up in Google Search Console data meaning website owners could see snippets of user prompts.
The culprit? A bug that sent queries with the prefix https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/ directly into Google’s index.
This effectively leaked portions of user conversations to third parties, raising serious privacy concerns.
The takeaway: If you’re using web search inside ChatGPT, don’t assume it’s private — and OpenAI, maybe stop scraping Google the old-fashioned way.
🔎 Reddit vs. The Data Scrapers
Reddit is officially going to war with AI data scrapers. The platform filed lawsuits against SerpApi, Oxylabs, AWMProxy, and Perplexity, accusing them of bypassing API restrictions and scraping user content through Google search results.
After raising API fees in 2023, Reddit’s been cashing in on licensing deals — bringing in $35 million in Q2 from “data licensing” alone.
The message is clear: if AI companies want Reddit’s human-generated insights, they’ll have to pay for them.
🗺️ Apple Maps Ads Are Coming
Starting in 2026, Apple Maps will reportedly introduce paid advertising, allowing businesses to pay for enhanced visibility a move that could undermine the app’s current ad-free appeal.
Apple insists its ads will be “smarter” and less intrusive than Google’s, but users aren’t thrilled at the idea of routes influenced by sponsorships. Expect the conspiracy theories (“Did Apple just route me to Starbucks because they paid for it?”) to begin in 3…2…1.
📍 Pinterest: The Feel-Good Platform
While other social networks chase engagement at all costs, Pinterest is leaning into positivity. CEO Bill Ready says the company wants to build “social media that doesn’t make you hate yourself.”
It’s working over half of Pinterest’s 580 million users are now Gen Z, drawn to its inspirational and shoppable content.
Even so, the platform faces challenges managing AI-generated posts flooding user feeds.
Pinterest’s “inspiration over outrage” model might just be the antidote social media needs.