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Compromising Positions - A Technology Podcast · Compromising Positions

Self-driving Cars, Cybersecurity and Trust

March 26, 2026·50 min·5 clips
Leanne concludes that repairing trust after a cyber attack is complex and irrational, comparing it to remembering a near-death experience over a mundane online order.
A hacked car is personal. The episode starts in horror-movie territory, but the worry is not sci-fi machines going evil. It is the passenger's body reacting in the moment. Leanne moves the conversation away from a simple can-it-be-hacked question and toward the feeling of sitting inside a system that is failing. Jeff widens it from there. An M&S-style retail breach may be annoying, but a banking app showing the wrong balance or brakes failing before a crash hits the body differently. That stomach-drop feeling is the point. Cyber harm can be emotional, physical, and tied to where you are when it happens. Losing access to socks or hummus is not the same as realizing an autonomous system could hurt someone. Healthcare sharpens the comparison. If a doctor accidentally disconnects vital monitoring and someone dies, the cyber issue stops feeling abstract fast. The hosts then pull cars into the wider spread of AI systems, oversight, surveillance, and public spaces where people may not get much choice. Driving an autonomous car can be voluntary. Sharing a sidewalk with delivery robots, or living under surveillance, is murkier. Even the dog example works because it is so ordinary. A small robot hurting or killing a dog makes the whole thing feel less theoretical. The security problem is only one layer. The harder question is who gets put in the compromising position when trust moves out of human hands and into automated systems.

As heard by us

A sharp look at how cyber risk turns trust into the real battleground.

The piece starts with autonomous vehicles, but the real subject is trust. It stays close to the human cost of a cyber attack, especially the fear of being trapped in something that should feel safe. That focus keeps the stakes plain.

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Why you'd press play

Want a cyber story where the stakes are literally in the passenger seat?

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