WEBVTT 00:00:00.051 --> 00:00:01.490 So I thought I'd talk about identity. 00:00:01.490 --> 00:00:04.270 That's sort of an interesting enough topic to me. 00:00:04.270 --> 00:00:07.448 And the reason was, because when I was asked to do this, 00:00:07.448 --> 00:00:11.011 I'd just read, in one of the papers, I can't remember, 00:00:11.011 --> 00:00:14.414 something from someone at Facebook saying, well, 00:00:14.414 --> 00:00:16.054 "we need to make everybody use their real names." 00:00:16.054 --> 00:00:18.315 and then that's basically all the problems solved. 00:00:18.315 --> 00:00:20.357 And that's so wrong, 00:00:20.357 --> 00:00:24.300 that's such a fundamentally, reactionary view of identity, 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:26.402 and it's going to get us into all sorts of trouble. 00:00:26.402 --> 00:00:27.643 And so what I thought I'd do 00:00:27.643 --> 00:00:32.068 is I'll explain four sort of problems about it, 00:00:32.068 --> 00:00:34.031 and then I'll suggest a solution, 00:00:34.031 --> 00:00:35.861 which hopefully you might find interesting. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:35.861 --> 00:00:38.154 So just to frame the problem, 00:00:38.154 --> 00:00:39.744 what does authenticity mean? 00:00:39.744 --> 00:00:44.834 That's me, that's a camera phone picture of me 00:00:44.834 --> 00:00:45.814 looking at a painting. 00:00:45.814 --> 00:00:46.579 [What's the Problem?] 00:00:46.579 --> 00:00:47.711 That's a painting that was painted 00:00:47.711 --> 00:00:49.753 by a very famous forger, 00:00:49.753 --> 00:00:51.616 and because I'm not very good at presentations, 00:00:51.616 --> 00:00:54.327 I already can't remember the name that I wrote on my card. 00:00:54.327 --> 00:00:58.633 And he was incarcerated in, I think, Wakefield Prison 00:00:58.633 --> 00:01:02.199 for forging masterpieces by, I think, French Impressionists. 00:01:02.199 --> 00:01:05.378 And he's so good at it, that when he was in prison, 00:01:05.378 --> 00:01:06.754 everybody in prison, the governor and whatever, 00:01:06.754 --> 00:01:09.601 wanted him to paint masterpieces to put on the walls, 00:01:09.601 --> 00:01:10.893 because they were so good. 00:01:10.893 --> 00:01:12.277 And so that's a masterpiece, 00:01:12.277 --> 00:01:14.276 which is a fake of a masterpiece, 00:01:14.276 --> 00:01:20.939 and bonded into the canvas is a chip which identifies that as a real fake, 00:01:20.939 --> 00:01:22.471 if you see what I mean. 00:01:22.471 --> 00:01:23.663 (Laughter) 00:01:23.663 --> 00:01:25.906 So when we're talking about authenticity, 00:01:25.906 --> 00:01:31.368 it's a little more fractal than it appears and that's a good example to show it. 00:01:31.368 --> 00:01:35.349 I tried to pick four problems that will frame the issue properly. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:35.349 --> 00:01:36.728 So the first problem, I thought, 00:01:36.728 --> 00:01:38.449 Chip and PIN, right? 00:01:38.449 --> 00:01:39.963 [Banks and legacies bringing down the system from within] 00:01:39.963 --> 00:01:40.835 [Offline solutions do not work online] 00:01:40.835 --> 00:01:43.451 I'm guessing everyone's got a chip and PIN card, right? 00:01:43.451 --> 00:01:45.217 So why is that a good example? 00:01:45.217 --> 00:01:48.692 That's the example of how legacy thinking about identity 00:01:48.692 --> 00:01:51.610 subverts the security of a well-constructed system. 00:01:51.610 --> 00:01:54.401 That chip and PIN card that's in your pocket 00:01:54.401 --> 00:01:57.643 has a little chip on it that cost millions of pounds to develop, 00:01:57.643 --> 00:01:59.220 is extremely secure, 00:01:59.220 --> 00:02:01.385 you can put scanning electron microscopes on it, 00:02:01.385 --> 00:02:03.561 you can try and grind it down, blah blah blah. 00:02:03.561 --> 00:02:07.148 Those chips have never been broken, whatever you read in the paper. 00:02:07.148 --> 00:02:10.382 And for a joke, we take that super-secure chip 00:02:10.382 --> 00:02:13.896 and we bond it to a trivially counterfeitable magnetic stripe 00:02:13.896 --> 00:02:17.518 and for very lazy criminals, we still emboss the card. 00:02:17.518 --> 00:02:21.025 So if you're a criminal in a hurry and you need to copy someone's card, 00:02:21.025 --> 00:02:23.226 you can just stick a piece of paper on it and rub a pencil over it 00:02:23.226 --> 00:02:25.109 just to sort of speed things up. 00:02:25.109 --> 00:02:28.205 And even more amusingly, and on my debit card too, 00:02:28.205 --> 00:02:30.596 we print the name and the SALT code and everything else on the front too. 00:02:30.596 --> 00:02:33.935 Why? 00:02:33.935 --> 00:02:38.044 There is no earthly reason why your name is printed on a chip and PIN card. 00:02:38.044 --> 00:02:39.679 And if you think about it, 00:02:39.679 --> 00:02:42.797 it's even more insidious and perverse than it seems at first. 00:02:42.797 --> 00:02:44.611 Because the only people that benefit 00:02:44.611 --> 00:02:47.185 from having the name on the card are criminals. 00:02:47.185 --> 00:02:48.826 You know what your name is, right? 00:02:48.826 --> 00:02:49.727 (Laughter) 00:02:49.727 --> 00:02:51.979 And when you go into a shop and buy something, 00:02:51.979 --> 00:02:54.939 it's a PIN, he doesn't care what the name is. 00:02:54.939 --> 00:02:57.598 The only place where you ever have to write your name on the back 00:02:57.598 --> 00:02:58.768 is in America at the moment. 00:02:58.768 --> 00:02:59.979 And whenever I go to America, 00:02:59.979 --> 00:03:01.779 and I have to pay with a mag stripe on the back of the card, 00:03:01.779 --> 00:03:03.581 I always sign it Carlos Tethers anyway, 00:03:03.581 --> 00:03:05.469 just as a security mechanism, 00:03:05.469 --> 00:03:07.707 because if a transaction ever gets disputed, 00:03:07.707 --> 00:03:09.627 and it comes back and it says Dave Birch, 00:03:09.627 --> 00:03:10.798 I know it must have been a criminal, 00:03:10.798 --> 00:03:14.258 because I would never sign it Dave Birch. 00:03:14.258 --> 00:03:15.948 (Laughter) 00:03:15.948 --> 00:03:17.739 So if you drop your card in the street, 00:03:17.739 --> 00:03:19.511 it means a criminal can pick it up and read it. 00:03:19.511 --> 00:03:20.216 They know the name, 00:03:20.216 --> 00:03:21.801 from the name they can find the address, 00:03:21.801 --> 00:03:24.216 and then they can go off and buy stuff online. 00:03:24.216 --> 00:03:26.772 Why do we put the name on the card? 00:03:26.772 --> 00:03:30.491 Because we think identity is something to do with names, 00:03:30.491 --> 00:03:34.186 and because we're rooted in the idea of the identity card, 00:03:34.186 --> 00:03:35.302 which obsesses us. 00:03:35.302 --> 00:03:37.856 And I know it crashed and burned a couple of years ago, 00:03:37.856 --> 00:03:42.453 but if you're someone in politics or the home office or whatever, 00:03:42.453 --> 00:03:43.671 and you think about identity, 00:03:43.671 --> 00:03:46.809 you can only think of identity in terms of cards with names on them. 00:03:46.809 --> 00:03:50.219 And that's very subversive in a modern world. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:50.219 --> 00:03:52.475 So the second example I thought I'd use 00:03:52.475 --> 00:03:54.541 is chatrooms. 00:03:54.541 --> 00:03:55.345 [Chatrooms and Children] 00:03:55.345 --> 00:03:57.535 I'm very proud of that picture, that's my son 00:03:57.535 --> 00:04:01.611 playing in his band with his friends for the first-ever gig, 00:04:01.611 --> 00:04:03.580 I believe you call it, where he got paid. 00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:04.367 (Laughter) 00:04:04.367 --> 00:04:06.245 And I love that picture. 00:04:06.245 --> 00:04:09.011 I like the picture of him getting into medical school a lot better, 00:04:09.011 --> 00:04:09.711 (Laughter) 00:04:09.711 --> 00:04:11.824 I like that picture for the moment. 00:04:11.824 --> 00:04:12.799 Why do I use that picture? 00:04:12.799 --> 00:04:17.888 Because that was very interesting, watching that experience as an old person. 00:04:17.888 --> 00:04:19.331 So him and his friends, 00:04:19.331 --> 00:04:22.209 they get together, they booked a room, like a church hall, 00:04:22.209 --> 00:04:24.059 and they got all their friends who had bands, 00:04:24.059 --> 00:04:25.340 and they got them together, 00:04:25.340 --> 00:04:26.777 and they do it all on Facebook, 00:04:26.777 --> 00:04:30.668 and then they sell tickets, and the first band on the - 00:04:30.668 --> 00:04:31.553 I was going to say "menu," 00:04:31.553 --> 00:04:33.312 that's probably the wrong word for it, isn't it? 00:04:33.312 --> 00:04:35.793 The first band on the list of bands 00:04:35.793 --> 00:04:40.350 that appears at some public music performance of some kind 00:04:40.350 --> 00:04:42.519 gets the sales from the first 20 tickets, 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:44.339 then the next band gets the next 20, 00:04:44.339 --> 00:04:45.325 and so on. 00:04:45.325 --> 00:04:46.661 They were at the bottom of the menu, 00:04:46.661 --> 00:04:48.779 they were like fifth, I thought they had no chance. 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:51.041 He actually got 20 quid. Fantastic, right? 00:04:51.041 --> 00:04:53.138 But my point is, that all worked perfectly, 00:04:53.138 --> 00:04:55.919 except on the web. 00:04:55.919 --> 00:04:58.112 So they're sitting on Facebook, 00:04:58.112 --> 00:05:00.978 and they're sending these messages and arranging things 00:05:00.978 --> 00:05:03.297 and they don't know who anybody is, right? 00:05:03.297 --> 00:05:04.928 That's the big problem we're trying to solve. 00:05:04.928 --> 00:05:06.895 If only they were using the real names, 00:05:06.895 --> 00:05:09.096 Then you wouldn't be worried about them on the internet. 00:05:09.096 --> 00:05:10.341 And so when he says to me, 00:05:10.341 --> 00:05:15.197 "oh, I want to go to a chatroom to talk about guitars" or something, 00:05:15.197 --> 00:05:18.446 I'm like, "oh, well, I don't want you to go into a chatroom 00:05:18.446 --> 00:05:21.804 to talk about guitars, because they might not all be your friends, 00:05:21.804 --> 00:05:23.757 and some of the people that are in the chatroom 00:05:23.757 --> 00:05:27.624 might be perverts and teachers and vicars." 00:05:27.624 --> 00:05:29.449 (Laughter) 00:05:29.449 --> 00:05:32.071 I mean, they generally are, when you look in the paper, right? 00:05:32.071 --> 00:05:35.434 So I want to know who all the people in the chatroom are. 00:05:35.434 --> 00:05:36.987 So okay, you can go in the chatroom, 00:05:36.987 --> 00:05:39.435 but only if everybody in the chatroom is using their real names, 00:05:39.435 --> 00:05:44.562 and they submit full copies of their police report. 00:05:44.562 --> 00:05:47.498 But of course, if anybody in the chatroom asked for his real name, 00:05:47.498 --> 00:05:49.924 I'd say no. You can't give them your real name. 00:05:49.924 --> 00:05:52.624 Because what happens if they turn out to be perverts, 00:05:52.624 --> 00:05:55.297 and teachers and whatever. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:55.297 --> 00:05:56.708 So you have this odd sort of paradox 00:05:56.708 --> 00:05:59.039 where I'm happy for him to go into this space 00:05:59.039 --> 00:06:01.309 if I know who everybody else is, 00:06:01.309 --> 00:06:03.672 but I don't want anybody else to know who he is. 00:06:03.672 --> 00:06:05.848 And so you get this sort of logjam around identity 00:06:05.848 --> 00:06:07.484 where you want full disclosure from everybody else, 00:06:07.484 --> 00:06:08.779 but not from yourself. 00:06:08.779 --> 00:06:10.786 And there's no progress, we get stuck. 00:06:10.786 --> 00:06:12.669 And so the chatroom thing doesn't work properly, 00:06:12.669 --> 00:06:17.461 and it's a very bad way of thinking about identity. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:17.461 --> 00:06:20.396 So on my RSS feed, I saw this thing about - 00:06:20.396 --> 00:06:22.964 I just said something bad about my RSS feed, didn't I? 00:06:22.964 --> 00:06:24.747 I should stop saying it like that. 00:06:24.747 --> 00:06:26.280 For some random reason, I can't imagine, 00:06:26.280 --> 00:06:28.436 something about cheerleaders turned up in my inbox. 00:06:28.436 --> 00:06:30.134 And I read this story about cheerleaders, 00:06:30.134 --> 00:06:31.862 and it's a fascinating story. 00:06:31.862 --> 00:06:33.800 This happened a couple of years ago in the U.S. 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:36.802 There were some cheerleaders in a team at a high school 00:06:36.802 --> 00:06:39.685 in the U.S., and they said mean things 00:06:39.685 --> 00:06:40.871 about their cheerleading coach, 00:06:40.871 --> 00:06:43.082 as I'm sure kids do about all of their teachers 00:06:43.082 --> 00:06:44.409 all of the time, 00:06:44.409 --> 00:06:46.489 and somehow the cheerleading coach found out about this. 00:06:46.489 --> 00:06:47.953 She was very upset. 00:06:47.953 --> 00:06:50.120 And so she went to one of the girls, and said, 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:52.132 "you have to give me your Facebook password." 00:06:52.132 --> 00:06:55.929 I read this all the time, where even at some universities 00:06:55.929 --> 00:06:56.829 and places of education, 00:06:56.829 --> 00:06:58.558 kids are forced to hand over their Facebook passwords. 00:06:58.558 --> 00:07:01.313 So you've got to give them your Facebook password. 00:07:01.313 --> 00:07:02.186 She was a kid! 00:07:02.186 --> 00:07:03.372 What she should have said 00:07:03.372 --> 00:07:04.602 is, "my lawyer will be calling you 00:07:04.602 --> 00:07:05.392 first thing in the morning. 00:07:05.392 --> 00:07:07.513 It's an outrageous imposition 00:07:07.513 --> 00:07:09.372 on my 4th Amendment right to privacy, 00:07:09.372 --> 00:07:10.157 and you're going to be sued 00:07:10.157 --> 00:07:10.752 for all the money you've got." 00:07:10.752 --> 00:07:11.808 That's what she should have said. 00:07:11.808 --> 00:07:12.787 But she's a kid, 00:07:12.787 --> 00:07:14.606 so she hands over the password. 00:07:14.606 --> 00:07:16.656 The teacher can't log into Facebook, 00:07:16.656 --> 00:07:19.828 because the school has blocked access to Facebook. 00:07:19.828 --> 00:07:21.741 So the teacher can't log into Facebook until she gets home. 00:07:21.741 --> 00:07:23.439 So the girl tells her friends, 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:24.000 guess what happened? 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:25.321 The teacher logged in, she knows. 00:07:25.321 --> 00:07:27.162 So the girls just all logged into Facebook on their phones, 00:07:27.162 --> 00:07:29.304 and deleted their profiles. 00:07:29.304 --> 00:07:32.189 And so when the teacher logged in, there was nothing there. 00:07:32.189 --> 00:07:37.841 My point is, those identities, they don't think about them the same way. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:37.841 --> 00:07:41.570 Identity is, especially when you're a teenager, a fluid thing. 00:07:41.570 --> 00:07:43.175 You have lots of identities. 00:07:43.175 --> 00:07:45.425 And you can have an identity, you don't like it, 00:07:45.425 --> 00:07:48.407 because it's subverted in some way, or it's insecure, or it's inappropriate, 00:07:48.407 --> 00:07:51.103 you just delete it and get another one. 00:07:51.103 --> 00:07:54.427 The idea that you have an identity that's given to you by someone, 00:07:54.427 --> 00:07:55.246 the government or whatever, 00:07:55.246 --> 00:07:57.365 and you have to stick with that identity and use it in all places, 00:07:57.365 --> 00:07:59.073 that's absolutely wrong. 00:07:59.073 --> 00:08:02.105 Why would you want to really know who someone was on Facebook, 00:08:02.105 --> 00:08:04.695 unless you wanted to abuse them and harass them in some way? 00:08:04.695 --> 00:08:07.618 And it just doesn't work properly. 00:08:07.618 --> 00:08:09.832 And my fourth example is there are some cases 00:08:09.832 --> 00:08:12.265 where you really want to be - 00:08:12.265 --> 00:08:15.835 In case you're wondering, that's me at the G20 protest. 00:08:15.835 --> 00:08:19.511 I wasn't actually at the G20 protest, but I had a meeting at a bank 00:08:19.511 --> 00:08:22.944 on the day of the G20 protest, and I got an email from the bank 00:08:22.944 --> 00:08:27.505 saying please don't wear a suit, because it'll inflame the protestors. 00:08:27.505 --> 00:08:29.279 I look pretty good in a suit, frankly, 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:30.969 so you can see why it would drive them 00:08:30.969 --> 00:08:32.304 into an anti-capitalist frenzy. 00:08:32.304 --> 00:08:33.005 (Laughter) 00:08:33.005 --> 00:08:33.934 So I thought, well, look. 00:08:33.934 --> 00:08:37.103 If I don't want to inflame the protestors, 00:08:37.103 --> 00:08:38.019 the obvious thing to do 00:08:38.019 --> 00:08:39.345 is go dressed as a protestor. 00:08:39.345 --> 00:08:41.442 So I went dressed completely in black, 00:08:41.442 --> 00:08:43.326 you know, with a black balaclava, 00:08:43.326 --> 00:08:44.160 I had black gloves on, 00:08:44.160 --> 00:08:45.797 but I've taken them off to sign the visitor's book. 00:08:45.797 --> 00:08:46.369 (Laughter) 00:08:46.369 --> 00:08:48.552 I'm wearing black trousers, black boots, 00:08:48.552 --> 00:08:49.958 I'm dressed completely in black. 00:08:49.958 --> 00:08:51.132 I go into the bank at 10 o'clock, 00:08:51.132 --> 00:08:52.097 go, "Hi, I'm Dave Birch, 00:08:52.097 --> 00:08:53.373 I've got a 3 o'clock with so and so there." 00:08:53.373 --> 00:08:54.814 Sure. They sign me in. 00:08:54.814 --> 00:08:57.585 There's my visitor's badge. 00:08:57.585 --> 00:08:58.476 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:58.476 --> 00:08:59.794 So this nonsense 00:08:59.794 --> 00:09:01.848 about you've got to have real names on Facebook and whatever, 00:09:01.848 --> 00:09:04.083 that gets you that kind of security. 00:09:04.083 --> 00:09:08.602 That gets you security theater, where there's no actual security, 00:09:08.602 --> 00:09:11.940 but people are sort of playing parts in a play about security. 00:09:11.940 --> 00:09:13.065 And as long as everybody learns their lines, 00:09:13.065 --> 00:09:14.601 everyone's happy. 00:09:14.601 --> 00:09:17.465 But it's not real security. 00:09:17.465 --> 00:09:20.707 Especially because I hate banks more than the G20 protestors do, 00:09:20.707 --> 00:09:21.892 because I work for them. 00:09:21.892 --> 00:09:24.719 I know that things are actually worse than these guys think. 00:09:24.719 --> 00:09:26.492 (Laughter) 00:09:28.082 --> 00:09:33.176 But suppose I worked next to somebody in a bank 00:09:33.176 --> 00:09:36.184 who was doing something. 00:09:42.954 --> 00:09:45.144 Suppose I was sitting next to a rogue trader, 00:09:45.144 --> 00:09:47.447 and I want to report it to the boss of the bank. 00:09:47.447 --> 00:09:48.863 So I log on to do a little bit of whistleblowing. 00:09:48.863 --> 00:09:51.328 I send a message, this guy's a rogue trader. 00:09:51.328 --> 00:09:53.126 That message is meaningless 00:09:53.126 --> 00:09:56.074 if you don't know that I'm a trader at the bank. 00:09:56.074 --> 00:09:57.754 If that message just comes from anybody, 00:09:57.754 --> 00:10:00.660 it has zero information value. 00:10:00.660 --> 00:10:03.129 There's no point in sending that message. 00:10:04.673 --> 00:10:07.440 But if I have to prove who I am, 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:08.641 I'll never send that message. 00:10:08.641 --> 00:10:12.698 It's just like the nurse in the hospital reporting the drunk surgeon. 00:10:12.698 --> 00:10:15.619 That message will only happen if I'm anonymous. 00:10:15.619 --> 00:10:20.410 So the system has to have ways of providing anonymity there, 00:10:20.410 --> 00:10:22.061 otherwise we don't get where we want to get to. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:22.061 --> 00:10:25.343 So four issues. So what are we going to do about it? 00:10:25.343 --> 00:10:30.030 Well, what we tend to do about it 00:10:30.030 --> 00:10:32.418 is we think about Orwell space. 00:10:32.418 --> 00:10:35.564 And we try to make electronic versions 00:10:35.564 --> 00:10:37.871 of the identity card that we got rid of in 1953. 00:10:37.871 --> 00:10:40.628 So we think if we had a card, 00:10:40.628 --> 00:10:41.967 call it a Facebook login, 00:10:41.967 --> 00:10:43.264 which proves who you are, 00:10:43.264 --> 00:10:45.155 and I make you carry it all the time, 00:10:45.155 --> 00:10:45.973 that solves the problem. 00:10:45.973 --> 00:10:48.131 And of course, for all those reasons I've just outlined, 00:10:48.131 --> 00:10:49.123 it doesn't, and it might, actually, 00:10:49.123 --> 00:10:50.195 make some problems worse. 00:10:50.195 --> 00:10:53.018 The more times you're forced to use your real identity, 00:10:53.018 --> 00:10:55.258 certainly in transactional terms, 00:10:55.258 --> 00:10:57.878 the more likely that identity is to get stolen and subverted. 00:10:57.878 --> 00:11:00.404 The goal is to stop people from using identity 00:11:00.404 --> 00:11:02.581 in transactions which don't need identity, 00:11:02.581 --> 00:11:05.090 which is actually almost all transactions. 00:11:05.090 --> 00:11:07.387 Almost all of the transactions you do 00:11:07.387 --> 00:11:09.075 are not, who are you? 00:11:09.075 --> 00:11:11.209 They're, are you allowed to drive the car, 00:11:11.209 --> 00:11:12.444 are you allowed in the building, 00:11:12.444 --> 00:11:13.301 are you over 18, 00:11:13.301 --> 00:11:15.729 etcetera, etcetera. 00:11:15.729 --> 00:11:17.560 So my suggestion- I, like James, 00:11:17.560 --> 00:11:20.721 think that there should be a resurgence of interest in R & D. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:20.721 --> 00:11:21.506 I think this is a solvable problem. 00:11:21.506 --> 00:11:23.326 It's something we can do about. 00:11:23.326 --> 00:11:25.274 Naturally, in these circumstances, 00:11:25.274 --> 00:11:26.648 I turn to Doctor Who. 00:11:26.648 --> 00:11:28.784 Because in this, 00:11:28.784 --> 00:11:30.282 as in so many other walks of life, 00:11:30.282 --> 00:11:33.381 Doctor Who has already shown us the answer. 00:11:33.381 --> 00:11:34.195 So I should say, 00:11:34.195 --> 00:11:36.526 for some of our foreign visitors, 00:11:36.526 --> 00:11:40.380 Doctor Who is the greatest living scientist in England, 00:11:40.380 --> 00:11:41.957 (Laughter) 00:11:41.957 --> 00:11:44.757 and a beacon of truth and enlightenment to all of us. 00:11:44.757 --> 00:11:48.827 And this is Doctor Who with his psychic paper. 00:11:48.827 --> 00:11:50.997 Come on, you guys must have seen Doctor Who's psychic paper. 00:11:50.997 --> 00:11:52.997 You're not nerds if you say yes. 00:11:52.997 --> 00:11:55.133 Who's seen Doctor Who's psychic paper? 00:11:55.133 --> 00:11:57.563 Oh right, you were in the library the whole time studying I guess. 00:11:57.563 --> 00:11:59.633 Is that what you're going to tell us? 00:11:59.633 --> 00:12:00.895 Doctor Who's psychic paper 00:12:00.895 --> 00:12:03.015 is when you hold up the psychic paper, 00:12:03.015 --> 00:12:04.553 the person, in their brain, 00:12:04.553 --> 00:12:06.902 sees the thing that they need to see. 00:12:06.902 --> 00:12:09.261 So I want to show you a British passport, 00:12:09.261 --> 00:12:10.287 I hold up the psychic paper, 00:12:10.287 --> 00:12:11.767 you see a British passport. 00:12:11.767 --> 00:12:13.563 I want to get into a party, 00:12:13.563 --> 00:12:15.170 I hold up the psychic paper, 00:12:15.170 --> 00:12:16.534 I show you a party invitation. 00:12:16.534 --> 00:12:18.698 You see what you want to see. 00:12:18.698 --> 00:12:21.527 So what I'm saying is we need to make an electronic version of that, 00:12:21.527 --> 00:12:24.110 but with one tiny, tiny change, 00:12:24.110 --> 00:12:26.224 which is that it'll only show you the British passport 00:12:26.224 --> 00:12:27.922 if I've actually got one. 00:12:27.922 --> 00:12:29.141 It'll only show you the party invitation 00:12:29.141 --> 00:12:30.538 if I actually have one. 00:12:30.538 --> 00:12:33.455 It will only show you that I'm over 18 if I actually am over 18. 00:12:33.455 --> 00:12:35.886 But nothing else. 00:12:35.886 --> 00:12:40.661 So you're the bouncer at the pub, you need to know that I'm over 18, 00:12:40.661 --> 00:12:42.277 instead of showing you my driving license, 00:12:42.277 --> 00:12:44.526 which shows you I know how to drive, 00:12:44.526 --> 00:12:46.982 what my name is, my address, all these kind of things, 00:12:46.982 --> 00:12:48.701 I show you my psychic paper, 00:12:48.701 --> 00:12:51.867 and all it tells you is am I over 18 or not. 00:12:51.867 --> 00:12:53.303 Right. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:53.303 --> 00:12:54.641 Is that just a pipe dream? 00:12:54.641 --> 00:12:56.334 Of course not, otherwise I wouldn't be here talking to you. 00:12:56.334 --> 00:12:59.418 So in order to build that and make it work, 00:12:59.418 --> 00:13:02.189 I'm only going to name these things, I'll not go into them, 00:13:02.189 --> 00:13:03.366 we need a plan, 00:13:03.366 --> 00:13:04.615 which is we're going to build this 00:13:04.615 --> 00:13:06.611 as an infrastructure for everybody to use, 00:13:06.611 --> 00:13:08.493 to solve all of these problems. 00:13:08.493 --> 00:13:10.541 We're going to make a utility, 00:13:10.541 --> 00:13:12.089 the utility has to be universal, 00:13:12.089 --> 00:13:12.972 you can use it everywhere, 00:13:12.972 --> 00:13:15.613 I'm just giving you little flashes of the technology as we go along. 00:13:15.613 --> 00:13:17.570 That's a Japanese ATM, 00:13:17.570 --> 00:13:20.678 the fingerprint template is stored inside the mobile phone. 00:13:20.678 --> 00:13:21.665 So when you want to draw money out, 00:13:21.665 --> 00:13:23.162 you put the mobile phone on the ATM, 00:13:23.162 --> 00:13:24.427 and touch your finger, 00:13:24.427 --> 00:13:26.327 your fingerprint goes through to the phone, 00:13:26.327 --> 00:13:27.947 the phone says yes, that's whoever, 00:13:27.947 --> 00:13:30.394 and the ATM then gives you some money. 00:13:30.394 --> 00:13:33.431 It has to be a utility that you can use everywhere. 00:13:33.431 --> 00:13:35.217 It has to be absolutely convenient, 00:13:35.217 --> 00:13:38.384 that's me going into the pub. 00:13:38.384 --> 00:13:41.177 All the device on the door of the pub is allowed is, 00:13:41.177 --> 00:13:44.850 is this person over 18 and not barred from the pub? 00:13:44.850 --> 00:13:48.180 And so the idea is, you touch your ID card to the door, 00:13:48.180 --> 00:13:50.139 and if I am allowed in, it shows my picture, 00:13:50.139 --> 00:13:51.600 if I'm not allowed in, it shows a red cross. 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:53.215 It doesn't disclose any other information. 00:13:53.215 --> 00:13:55.127 It has to have no special gadgets. 00:13:55.127 --> 00:13:56.762 That can only mean one thing, 00:13:56.762 --> 00:13:58.347 following on from Ross's statement, 00:13:58.347 --> 00:13:59.931 which I agree with completely. 00:13:59.931 --> 00:14:01.043 If it means no special gadgets, 00:14:01.043 --> 00:14:02.417 it has to run on a mobile phone. 00:14:02.417 --> 00:14:03.520 That's the only choice we have, 00:14:03.520 --> 00:14:05.399 we have to make it work on mobile phones. 00:14:05.399 --> 00:14:06.333 There are 6.6 billion 00:14:06.333 --> 00:14:07.257 mobile phone subscriptions. 00:14:07.257 --> 00:14:09.293 My favorite statistic of all time, 00:14:09.293 --> 00:14:11.212 only 4 billion toothbrushes in the world. 00:14:11.212 --> 00:14:12.329 That means something, 00:14:12.329 --> 00:14:13.586 I don't know what. 00:14:13.586 --> 00:14:13.964 (Laughter) 00:14:13.964 --> 00:14:17.427 I rely on our futurologists to tell me. 00:14:17.427 --> 00:14:19.137 It has to be a utility which is extensible. 00:14:19.137 --> 00:14:20.422 So it has to be something 00:14:20.422 --> 00:14:22.012 that anybody could build on. 00:14:22.012 --> 00:14:23.900 Anybody should be able to use this infrastructure, 00:14:23.900 --> 00:14:26.354 you don't need permissions, licenses, whatever, 00:14:26.354 --> 00:14:29.521 anyone should be able to write some code to do this. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:31.386 --> 00:14:32.651 You know what symmetry is, 00:14:32.651 --> 00:14:34.998 so you don't need a picture of it. 00:14:34.998 --> 00:14:36.162 This is how we're going to do it. 00:14:36.162 --> 00:14:37.196 We're going to do it using phones, 00:14:37.196 --> 00:14:37.822 and we're going to do it 00:14:37.822 --> 00:14:38.978 using mobile proximity. 00:14:38.978 --> 00:14:40.114 I'm going to suggest to you 00:14:40.114 --> 00:14:41.450 the technology to implement 00:14:41.450 --> 00:14:42.736 Doctor Who's psychic paper 00:14:42.736 --> 00:14:44.283 is already here, and if any of you 00:14:44.283 --> 00:14:46.859 have got one of the new Barclay's debit cards 00:14:46.859 --> 00:14:48.088 with the contactless interface on it, 00:14:48.088 --> 00:14:49.378 you've already got that technology. 00:14:49.378 --> 00:14:51.703 If you've ever been up to the big city, 00:14:51.703 --> 00:14:53.175 and used an Oyster card at all, 00:14:53.175 --> 00:14:55.299 does that ring any bells to anybody? 00:14:55.299 --> 00:14:56.045 The technology already exists. 00:14:56.045 --> 00:14:57.435 The first phones 00:14:57.435 --> 00:14:58.065 that have the technology built in, 00:14:58.065 --> 00:15:00.364 the Google Nexus, the S2, 00:15:00.364 --> 00:15:01.073 the Samsung Wifi 7.9, 00:15:01.073 --> 00:15:02.565 the first phones that have 00:15:02.565 --> 00:15:03.657 the technology built into them 00:15:03.657 --> 00:15:04.491 are already in the shops. 00:15:04.491 --> 00:15:06.203 So the idea that the gas man 00:15:06.203 --> 00:15:08.395 can turn up at my mom's door 00:15:08.395 --> 00:15:10.597 and he can show my mom his phone, 00:15:10.597 --> 00:15:11.932 and she can tap it with her phone, 00:15:11.932 --> 00:15:14.239 and it will come up with green if he really is from British Gas 00:15:14.239 --> 00:15:15.451 and allowed in, 00:15:15.451 --> 00:15:17.121 and it'll come up with red if he isn't, 00:15:17.121 --> 00:15:17.731 end of story. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:17.731 --> 00:15:19.581 We have the technology to do that. 00:15:19.581 --> 00:15:20.816 And what's more, 00:15:20.816 --> 00:15:22.961 although some of those things sounded a bit counter-intuitive, 00:15:22.961 --> 00:15:25.749 like proving I'm over 18 without proving who I am, 00:15:25.749 --> 00:15:27.974 the cryptography to do that not only exists, 00:15:27.974 --> 00:15:30.203 it's extremely well-known and well-understood. 00:15:30.203 --> 00:15:32.858 Digital signatures, the blinding of public key certificates, 00:15:32.858 --> 00:15:34.602 these technologies have been around for a while, 00:15:34.602 --> 00:15:36.461 we've just had no way of packaging them up. 00:15:36.461 --> 00:15:39.391 So the technology already exists. 00:15:39.391 --> 00:15:43.079 We know it works, 00:15:43.079 --> 00:15:44.827 There are a few examples of the technology being used 00:15:44.827 --> 00:15:46.497 in experimental places. 00:15:46.497 --> 00:15:47.825 That's London Fashion Week, 00:15:47.825 --> 00:15:49.699 where we built a system with O2, 00:15:49.699 --> 00:15:52.466 that's for the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, 00:15:52.466 --> 00:15:53.589 you can see the persons 00:15:53.589 --> 00:15:55.350 walking in with their VIP band, 00:15:55.350 --> 00:15:55.834 it's just being checked 00:15:55.834 --> 00:15:56.934 by the Nokia phone that's reading the band. 00:15:56.934 --> 00:15:58.632 I'm only putting those up to show you 00:15:58.632 --> 00:15:59.861 these things are prosaic, 00:15:59.861 --> 00:16:01.590 this stuff works in these environments. 00:16:01.590 --> 00:16:02.961 They don't need to be special. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:02.961 --> 00:16:09.009 So finally, I know that you can do this, 00:16:09.999 --> 00:16:12.903 because if you saw the episode of Doctor Who, 00:16:12.903 --> 00:16:14.803 the Easter special of Doctor Who, 00:16:14.803 --> 00:16:18.179 where he went to Mars in a bus, 00:16:18.179 --> 00:16:19.741 I should say again for our foreign students, 00:16:19.741 --> 00:16:21.414 that doesn't happen every episode. 00:16:21.414 --> 00:16:22.885 This was a very special case. 00:16:22.885 --> 00:16:26.126 So in the episode where he goes to Mars in a London bus, 00:16:26.126 --> 00:16:27.799 I can't show you the clip, 00:16:27.799 --> 00:16:30.578 due to the outrageous restrictions of Queen Anne-style copyright 00:16:30.578 --> 00:16:32.716 by the BBC, 00:16:32.716 --> 00:16:35.333 but in the episode where he goes to Mars in a London bus, 00:16:35.333 --> 00:16:39.589 Doctor Who is clearly shown getting on to the bus 00:16:39.589 --> 00:16:40.889 with the Oyster card reader 00:16:40.889 --> 00:16:42.457 using his psychic paper. 00:16:42.457 --> 00:16:44.549 Which proves that psychic paper 00:16:44.549 --> 00:16:46.264 has an MSE interface. 00:16:46.264 --> 00:16:48.274 Thank you very much.