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# // Friday Five — October 16
- URL: https://adjacent.media/five/2026-10-16-five/
- Published: 2026-10-16T19:30:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-16T19:30:02.000Z
- Description: This week's lesson is that concentration is the vulnerability: when control collapses into one vendor, one platform or one database, a single failure stops being local. One IoT flaw put 700 French supermarket refrigeration systems in an attacker's hands.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #friday-five, theme-connected, theme-culture

This week's lesson is that concentration is the vulnerability: when control collapses into one vendor, one platform or one database, a single failure stops being local. One IoT flaw put 700 French supermarket refrigeration systems in an attacker's hands. Russia's routing of internet services through one company let a few data centre strikes ripple nationwide. AI moving into American reactor operations and protester photos pooling in a Palantir system replicate the same design in power and surveillance. A pair of earbuds with swappable batteries—built so one worn part can be replaced without discarding the whole—suggests an alternative.

Scout's Pick — Outlier

 Connected

### [Supermarket fridge hack traced to basic security lapses, not scale](https://adjacent.media/signals/supermarket-fridges-hacked-in-france-in-major-iot-security-failure/)

Seven hundred systems fell together due to poor security hygiene, not consolidation. Splitting control across vendors would not have closed those gaps.

Source: [Adjacent](https://adjacent.media/signals/supermarket-fridges-hacked-in-france-in-major-iot-security-failure/)

 Connected

### [Strikes on a few data centres disrupted Russia's internet nationwide](https://adjacent.media/signals/ukraines-data-centre-strikes-expose-russias-internet-centralisation-gamble/)

Moscow routed services through a single company for control. That same consolidation meant a handful of strikes could paralyze the nation.

Source: [Adjacent](https://adjacent.media/signals/ukraines-data-centre-strikes-expose-russias-internet-centralisation-gamble/)

 Connected

### [American nuclear operators are routing plant work through AI systems](https://adjacent.media/signals/us-nuclear-plants-are-adopting-ai-for-reactor-operations/)

Shared AI tools across a reactor fleet create a common dependency: one flawed model could reach every plant that runs it.

Source: [Adjacent](https://adjacent.media/signals/us-nuclear-plants-are-adopting-ai-for-reactor-operations/)

 Culture

### [ICE is pooling protester photos inside a single Palantir database](https://adjacent.media/signals/dhs-stores-protester-photos-in-palantir-database/)

Centralizing protester images in one vendor's system converts scattered records into a single point of vulnerability for civil liberties.

Source: [Adjacent](https://adjacent.media/signals/dhs-stores-protester-photos-in-palantir-database/)

 Connected

### [Fairbuds 2 earbuds let owners replace worn batteries individually](https://adjacent.media/signals/fairbuds-2-offer-replaceable-batteries-as-repair-alternative/)

Isolating the part most likely to fail keeps the failure local. That design principle is missing from refrigerators, networks, and databases.

Source: [Adjacent](https://adjacent.media/signals/fairbuds-2-offer-replaceable-batteries-as-repair-alternative/)

6 themes · 235 signals · 86 sources