1
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So I thought I'd talk about identity.

2
00:00:03,627 --> 00:00:06,148
That's sort of an interesting
enough topic to me.

3
00:00:06,172 --> 00:00:09,556
And the reason was,
because when I was asked to do this,

4
00:00:09,580 --> 00:00:13,008
I'd just read in one of the papers,
I can't remember,

5
00:00:13,032 --> 00:00:15,904
something from someone at Facebook saying,

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"Well, we need to make everybody
use their real names,

7
00:00:18,537 --> 00:00:20,981
and then that's basically
all the problems solved."

8
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And that's so wrong,

9
00:00:22,484 --> 00:00:26,207
that's such a fundamentally
reactionary view of identity,

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and it's going to get us
into all sorts of trouble.

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And so what I thought I'd do is,

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I'll explain four sort of
problems about it,

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and then I'll suggest a solution,

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which, hopefully,
you might find interesting.

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00:00:38,164 --> 00:00:39,920
So just to frame the problem:

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What does "authenticity" mean?

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That's me,

18
00:00:43,298 --> 00:00:47,918
that's a camera phone picture
of me looking at a painting.

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00:00:47,942 --> 00:00:49,004
[What's the Problem?]

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00:00:49,028 --> 00:00:51,810
That's a painting that was painted
by a very famous forger,

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and because I'm not very good
at presentations,

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I already can't remember the name
that I wrote on my card.

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And he was incarcerated in,
I think, Wakefield Prison,

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for forging masterpieces by,
I think, French Impressionists.

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And he's so good at it
that when he was in prison,

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everybody in prison,
the governor and whatever,

27
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wanted him to paint masterpieces
to put on the walls

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because they were so good.

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And so that's a masterpiece,
which is a fake of a masterpiece,

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and bonded into the canvas is a chip
which identifies that as a real fake,

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if you see what I mean.

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(Laughter)

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So when we're talking about authenticity,

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it's a little more fractal
than it appears,

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and that's a good example to show it.

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I tried to pick four problems
that will frame the issue properly.

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So the first problem, I thought,
chip and PIN, right?

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[Banks and legacies
bringing down the system from within]

39
00:01:42,691 --> 00:01:44,512
[Offline solutions do not work online]

40
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Everyone's got a chip and PIN card, right?

41
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So why is that a good example?

42
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That's the example
of how legacy thinking about identity

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subverts the security
of a well-constructed system.

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That chip-and-PIN card
that's in your pocket

45
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has a little chip on it
that cost millions of pounds to develop,

46
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is extremely secure,

47
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you can put scanning
electron microscopes on it,

48
00:02:03,677 --> 00:02:05,847
you can try and grind it down,
blah blah blah.

49
00:02:05,871 --> 00:02:09,258
Those chips have never been broken,
whatever you read in the paper.

50
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And for a joke,
we take that supersecure chip,

51
00:02:12,565 --> 00:02:16,216
and we bond it to a trivially
counterfeitable magnetic stripe.

52
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And for very lazy criminals,
we still emboss the card.

53
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So if you're a criminal in a hurry
and you need to copy someone's card,

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you can just stick a piece of paper on it
and rub a pencil over it

55
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just to speed things up.

56
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And even more amusingly,
and on my debit card, too,

57
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we print the name and the sort code
and everything else on the front.

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Why?

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There is no earthly reason why your name
is printed on a chip-and-PIN card.

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And if you think about it,

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it's even more insidious and perverse
than it seems at first.

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Because the only people that benefit
from having the name on the card

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are criminals.

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You know what your name is, right?

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(Laughter)

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And when you go into a shop
and buy something,

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it's a PIN -- he doesn't care
what the name is.

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The only place you ever have to write
your name on the back

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is in America.

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Whenever I go to America,

71
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and I have to pay with a magstripe
on the back of the card,

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I always sign it "Carlos Tethers" anyway,
just as a security mechanism,

73
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because if a transaction
ever gets disputed,

74
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and it comes back
and it says "Dave Birch,"

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I know it must have been a criminal,

76
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because I would never
sign it "Dave Birch."

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00:03:16,551 --> 00:03:17,805
(Laughter)

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So if you drop your card in the street,

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it means a criminal
can pick it up and read it.

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They know the name,
from the name, they can find the address,

81
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and then they can go off
and buy stuff online.

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Why do we put the name on the card?

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Because we think identity
is something to do with names,

84
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and because we're rooted
in the idea of the identity card,

85
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which obsesses us.

86
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And I know it crashed and burned
a couple of years ago,

87
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but if you're someone in politics
or the Home Office or whatever,

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and you think about identity,

89
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you can only think of identity
in terms of cards with names on.

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And that's very subversive
in a modern world.

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So the second example I thought I'd use

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is chat rooms.

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[Chatrooms and Children]

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I'm very proud of that picture.

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That's my son playing
in his band with his friends

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00:04:01,733 --> 00:04:05,668
for the first-ever gig,
I believe you call it, where he got paid.

97
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(Laughter)

98
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And I love that picture.

99
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I'll like the picture of him
getting into medical school a lot better,

100
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(Laughter)

101
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I like that one for the moment.

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Why do I use that picture?

103
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Because that was very interesting,
watching that experience as an old person.

104
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So him and his friends,

105
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they get together, they booked a room,
like a church hall,

106
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and they got all their friends
who had bands, got them together,

107
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and they do it all on Facebook,

108
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and then they sell tickets,
and the first band on the --

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I was going to say "menu," that's
probably the wrong word for it, isn't it?

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The first band on the list of bands

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that appears at some
public music performance of some kind

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gets the sales from the first 20 tickets,

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then the next band gets the next 20,

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and so on.

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They were at the bottom
of the menu, like, fifth,

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I thought they had no chance.

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He actually got 20 quid. Fantastic, right?

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But my point is,
that all worked perfectly,

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except on the web.

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So they're sitting on Facebook,

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and they're sending these messages
and arranging things,

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and they don't know who anybody is, right?

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That's the problem we're trying to solve.

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If only they were using real names,

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then you wouldn't be worried
about them on the internet.

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So when he says to me,

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"Oh, I want to go to a chat room
to talk about guitars" or something,

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I'm like, "Oh, well,
I don't want you to go into a chat room

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to talk about guitars,

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because they might
not all be your friends,

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and some of the people
that are in the chat room

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might be, you know, perverts
and teachers and vicars --"

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(Laughter)

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I mean, they generally are,
when you look in the paper, right?

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"So I want to know who all the people
in the chat room are.

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So, OK, you can go in the chat room,

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but only if everybody in the chat room
is using their real names,

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and they submit full copies
of their police report."

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(Laughter)

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But of course, if anybody
in the chat room asked for his real name,

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I'd say, "No. You can't
give them your real name,

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because what happens
if they turn out to be perverts

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and teachers and whatever?"

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So you have this odd sort of paradox

145
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where I'm happy for him
to go into this space

146
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if I know who everybody else is,

147
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but I don't want anybody else
to know who he is.

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And so you get this sort of
logjam around identity,

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where you want full disclosure
from everybody else,

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but not from yourself.

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And there's no progress, we get stuck.

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So the chat room thing
doesn't work properly,

153
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and it's a very bad way
of thinking about identity.

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Cheerleading ... so, on my RSS feed,
I saw this thing about --

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I just said something bad
about my RSS feed, didn't I?

156
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I should stop saying it like that.

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For some random reason I can't imagine,

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something about cheerleaders
turned up in my in-box.

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And I read this story about cheerleaders,
and it's a fascinating story.

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This happened a couple
of years ago in the US.

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There were some cheerleaders
in a team at a high school in the US,

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and they said mean things
about their cheerleading coach,

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as I'm sure kids do about
all of their teachers all of the time,

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and somehow, the cheerleading coach
found out about this.

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She was very upset.

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So she went to one of the girls and said,

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"You have to give me
your Facebook password."

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I read this all the time,

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where even at some universities
and places of education,

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kids are forced to hand over
their Facebook passwords.

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So you have to give them
your Facebook password.

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So the kid -- she was a kid! --
what she should have said is,

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"My lawyer will be calling
you first thing in the morning.

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It's an outrageous imposition
on my Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

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You'll be sued
for all the money you've got!"

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That's what she should have said.

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But she's a kid,
so she hands over the password.

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The teacher can't log in,

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because the school
has blocked access to Facebook.

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So the teacher can't log into Facebook
till she gets home.

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So the girl tells her friends,

182
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"Guess what happened?
The teacher logged in. She knows."

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So the girls all logged into Facebook
and deleted their profiles.

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So when the teacher logged in,
there was nothing there.

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My point is: those identities,
they don't think about them the same way.

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Identity is -- especially when
you're a teenager -- a fluid thing.

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You have lots of identities,
you experiment with them.

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And if you have an identity you don't
like because it's subverted in some way

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or it's insecure or it's inappropriate,

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you just delete it and get another one.

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00:07:53,231 --> 00:07:56,458
The idea that you have an identity
that's given to you by someone,

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the government or whatever,

193
00:07:57,805 --> 00:08:00,869
and you have to stick with that identity
and use it in all places

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is absolutely wrong.

195
00:08:02,070 --> 00:08:04,997
Why would you want to really know
who someone was on Facebook,

196
00:08:05,021 --> 00:08:07,846
unless you wanted to abuse them
and harass them in some way?

197
00:08:07,870 --> 00:08:09,766
It just doesn't work properly.

198
00:08:09,790 --> 00:08:11,240
And my fourth example is,

199
00:08:11,264 --> 00:08:14,470
there are some cases
where you really want to be --

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00:08:14,494 --> 00:08:18,041
in case you're wondering,
that's me at the G20 protest.

201
00:08:18,065 --> 00:08:19,827
I wasn't actually at the G20 protest,

202
00:08:19,851 --> 00:08:23,907
but I had a meeting at a bank
on the day of the G20 protest.

203
00:08:23,931 --> 00:08:25,913
And I got an email from the bank, saying,

204
00:08:25,937 --> 00:08:29,215
"Please don't wear a suit,
because it'll inflame the protesters."

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00:08:29,239 --> 00:08:31,579
I look pretty good in a suit, frankly,

206
00:08:31,603 --> 00:08:34,897
so you can see why it would drive them
into an anticapitalist frenzy.

207
00:08:34,921 --> 00:08:35,929
(Laughter)

208
00:08:35,953 --> 00:08:39,196
So I thought, "Well, if I don't
want to inflame the protesters,

209
00:08:39,220 --> 00:08:41,825
the obvious thing to do
is go dressed as a protester."

210
00:08:41,849 --> 00:08:45,230
So I went dressed completely in black,
you know, black balaclava ...

211
00:08:45,254 --> 00:08:48,416
I had black gloves on but took them off
to sign the visitors' book.

212
00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:49,442
(Laughter)

213
00:08:49,466 --> 00:08:52,764
I'm wearing black trousers and boots,
I'm dressed completely in black.

214
00:08:52,788 --> 00:08:55,378
I go into the bank at 10am
and go, "Hi, I'm Dave Birch,

215
00:08:55,402 --> 00:08:57,172
I've got a 3 o'clock with so-and-so."

216
00:08:57,196 --> 00:08:59,868
"Sure!" And they sign me in.
There's my visitor's badge.

217
00:08:59,892 --> 00:09:00,894
(Laughter)

218
00:09:00,918 --> 00:09:04,766
So this nonsense about "you've got to have
real names on Facebook" and whatever,

219
00:09:04,790 --> 00:09:06,566
that gets you that kind of security.

220
00:09:06,590 --> 00:09:08,691
That gets you "security theater,"

221
00:09:08,715 --> 00:09:10,662
where there's no actual security,

222
00:09:10,686 --> 00:09:13,988
but people are sort of playing parts
in a play about security,

223
00:09:14,012 --> 00:09:16,111
and as long as everybody
learns their lines,

224
00:09:16,135 --> 00:09:17,288
everyone's happy.

225
00:09:17,312 --> 00:09:19,284
But it's not real security, right?

226
00:09:20,036 --> 00:09:23,073
Especially because I hate banks
more than the G20 protesters do,

227
00:09:23,097 --> 00:09:24,258
because I work for them.

228
00:09:24,282 --> 00:09:27,465
I know that things are actually worse
than these guys think.

229
00:09:27,489 --> 00:09:29,532
(Laughter)

230
00:09:30,472 --> 00:09:35,353
But suppose I worked
next to somebody in a bank

231
00:09:35,377 --> 00:09:36,764
who was doing something --

232
00:09:36,788 --> 00:09:41,487
you know, they were like people who take
the money from banks and don't ...

233
00:09:41,511 --> 00:09:43,095
you know, they take the money ...

234
00:09:43,119 --> 00:09:45,505
Oh -- "traders."
That's the word I was thinking of.

235
00:09:45,529 --> 00:09:47,633
Suppose I was sitting
next to a rogue trader,

236
00:09:47,657 --> 00:09:49,917
and I want to report it
to the boss of the bank.

237
00:09:49,941 --> 00:09:51,947
So I log on to do a little whistleblowing.

238
00:09:51,971 --> 00:09:54,128
I send a message,
"This guy's a rogue trader."

239
00:09:54,152 --> 00:09:55,484
That message is meaningless

240
00:09:55,508 --> 00:09:58,076
if you don't know
that I'm a trader at the bank.

241
00:09:58,100 --> 00:10:00,037
If that message just comes from anybody,

242
00:10:00,061 --> 00:10:02,695
it has zero information value.

243
00:10:02,719 --> 00:10:04,750
There's no point in sending that message.

244
00:10:04,774 --> 00:10:06,841
You have to know that I'm ...

245
00:10:06,865 --> 00:10:09,283
But if I have to prove who I am,

246
00:10:09,307 --> 00:10:11,052
I'll never send that message.

247
00:10:11,076 --> 00:10:14,665
It's just like the nurse in the hospital
reporting the drunk surgeon.

248
00:10:14,689 --> 00:10:17,770
That message will only happen
if I'm anonymous.

249
00:10:17,794 --> 00:10:22,218
So the system has to have ways
of providing anonymity in it,

250
00:10:22,242 --> 00:10:24,520
otherwise, we don't get
where we want to get to.

251
00:10:24,544 --> 00:10:26,628
So, four issues.

252
00:10:26,652 --> 00:10:28,963
So what are we going to do about it?

253
00:10:28,987 --> 00:10:32,087
Well, what we tend to do about it

254
00:10:32,111 --> 00:10:34,681
is we think about Orwell space.

255
00:10:34,705 --> 00:10:38,545
And we try to make electronic versions
of the identity card

256
00:10:38,569 --> 00:10:40,141
that we got rid of in 1953.

257
00:10:40,165 --> 00:10:42,696
So we think if we had a card --

258
00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:44,134
call it a Facebook login --

259
00:10:44,158 --> 00:10:45,354
which proves who you are,

260
00:10:45,378 --> 00:10:47,159
and I make you carry it all the time,

261
00:10:47,183 --> 00:10:48,339
that solves the problem.

262
00:10:48,363 --> 00:10:51,593
And of course, for all those
reasons I've just outlined, it doesn't,

263
00:10:51,617 --> 00:10:53,443
and it might make some problems worse.

264
00:10:53,467 --> 00:10:56,069
The more times you're forced
to use your real identity,

265
00:10:56,093 --> 00:10:57,672
certainly in transactional terms,

266
00:10:57,696 --> 00:11:00,593
the more likely that identity
is to get stolen and subverted.

267
00:11:00,617 --> 00:11:02,770
The goal is to stop people
from using identity

268
00:11:02,794 --> 00:11:04,815
in transactions which don't need identity,

269
00:11:04,839 --> 00:11:07,097
which is actually almost all transactions.

270
00:11:07,121 --> 00:11:11,175
Almost all of the transactions you do
are not "Who are you?"

271
00:11:11,199 --> 00:11:13,269
They're "Are you allowed
to drive the car?"

272
00:11:13,293 --> 00:11:15,807
"Are you allowed in the building?"
"Are you over 18?"

273
00:11:15,831 --> 00:11:17,784
etcetera, etcetera.

274
00:11:17,808 --> 00:11:19,495
So my suggestion -- I, like James,

275
00:11:19,519 --> 00:11:22,540
think that there should be
a resurgence of interest in R and D.

276
00:11:22,564 --> 00:11:24,238
I think this is a solvable problem.

277
00:11:24,262 --> 00:11:25,746
It's something we can do about.

278
00:11:25,770 --> 00:11:28,799
Naturally, in these circumstances,
I turn to Doctor Who.

279
00:11:28,823 --> 00:11:29,976
Because in this --

280
00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:31,001
(Laughter)

281
00:11:31,025 --> 00:11:32,690
as in so many other walks of life,

282
00:11:32,714 --> 00:11:35,413
Doctor Who has already
shown us the answer.

283
00:11:35,437 --> 00:11:38,610
So I should say,
for some of our foreign visitors:

284
00:11:38,634 --> 00:11:42,390
Doctor Who is the greatest
living scientist in England --

285
00:11:42,414 --> 00:11:44,079
(Laughter)

286
00:11:44,103 --> 00:11:46,909
and a beacon of truth
and enlightenment to all of us.

287
00:11:46,933 --> 00:11:49,948
And this is Doctor Who
with his "psychic paper."

288
00:11:49,972 --> 00:11:52,919
Come on, you guys must have seen
Doctor Who's "psychic paper."

289
00:11:52,943 --> 00:11:54,886
You're not nerds if you say yes.

290
00:11:54,910 --> 00:11:57,196
Who's seen Doctor Who's psychic paper?

291
00:11:57,220 --> 00:12:00,429
Oh right, you were in the library
the whole time studying, I guess.

292
00:12:00,453 --> 00:12:02,234
Is that what you're going to tell us?

293
00:12:02,258 --> 00:12:03,702
Doctor Who's psychic paper is:

294
00:12:03,726 --> 00:12:05,393
when you hold up the psychic paper,

295
00:12:05,417 --> 00:12:06,764
the person, in their brain,

296
00:12:06,788 --> 00:12:08,915
sees the thing that they need to see.

297
00:12:08,939 --> 00:12:11,341
So I want to show you a British passport,

298
00:12:11,365 --> 00:12:12,717
I hold up the psychic paper,

299
00:12:12,741 --> 00:12:14,056
you see a British passport.

300
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:15,707
I want to get into a party,

301
00:12:15,731 --> 00:12:17,115
I hold up the psychic paper,

302
00:12:17,139 --> 00:12:18,569
I show you a party invitation.

303
00:12:18,593 --> 00:12:20,526
You see what you want to see.

304
00:12:20,550 --> 00:12:23,840
So what I'm saying is, we need
to make an electronic version of that,

305
00:12:23,864 --> 00:12:26,070
but with one tiny, tiny change,

306
00:12:26,094 --> 00:12:28,667
which is that it'll only show you
the British passport

307
00:12:28,691 --> 00:12:29,884
if I've actually got one.

308
00:12:29,908 --> 00:12:32,911
It'll only show you the party invitation
if I actually have one.

309
00:12:32,935 --> 00:12:35,981
It will only show you that I'm over 18
if I actually am over 18.

310
00:12:36,005 --> 00:12:37,237
But nothing else.

311
00:12:37,998 --> 00:12:42,804
So you're the bouncer at the pub,
you need to know that I'm over 18.

312
00:12:42,828 --> 00:12:44,849
Instead of showing you my driving license,

313
00:12:44,873 --> 00:12:46,598
which shows you I know how to drive,

314
00:12:46,622 --> 00:12:49,392
what my name is, my address,
all these kind of things,

315
00:12:49,416 --> 00:12:50,905
I show you my psychic paper,

316
00:12:50,929 --> 00:12:53,362
and all it tells you is,
am I over 18 or not.

317
00:12:54,051 --> 00:12:55,395
Right.

318
00:12:55,419 --> 00:12:56,893
Is that just a pipe dream?

319
00:12:56,917 --> 00:12:59,495
Of course not, otherwise
I wouldn't be here talking.

320
00:12:59,519 --> 00:13:01,575
So, in order to build that
and make it work,

321
00:13:01,599 --> 00:13:04,362
I'm only going to name these things,
I'll not go into them:

322
00:13:04,386 --> 00:13:05,825
we need a plan,

323
00:13:05,849 --> 00:13:08,484
which is, we're going to build
this as an infrastructure

324
00:13:08,508 --> 00:13:10,959
for everybody to use
to solve all of these problems.

325
00:13:10,983 --> 00:13:12,611
We're going to make a utility.

326
00:13:12,635 --> 00:13:15,412
The utility has to be universal,
you can use it everywhere.

327
00:13:15,436 --> 00:13:18,647
I'm just giving you little flashes
of the technology as we go along.

328
00:13:18,671 --> 00:13:19,831
That's a Japanese ATM,

329
00:13:19,855 --> 00:13:22,633
the fingerprint template
is stored inside the mobile phone.

330
00:13:22,657 --> 00:13:24,363
So when you want to draw money out,

331
00:13:24,387 --> 00:13:26,793
you put the phone on the ATM
and touch your finger,

332
00:13:26,817 --> 00:13:28,828
your fingerprint
goes through to the phone,

333
00:13:28,852 --> 00:13:30,662
the phone says, "Yes, that's whoever,"

334
00:13:30,686 --> 00:13:32,508
and the ATM then gives you some money.

335
00:13:32,532 --> 00:13:35,543
It has to be a utility
that you can use everywhere.

336
00:13:35,567 --> 00:13:37,406
It has to be absolutely convenient.

337
00:13:37,430 --> 00:13:40,574
That's me going into the pub.

338
00:13:40,598 --> 00:13:43,487
All the device on the door
of the pub is allowed is:

339
00:13:43,511 --> 00:13:47,161
Is this person over 18
and not barred from the pub?

340
00:13:47,185 --> 00:13:50,339
And so the idea is,
you touch your ID card to the door,

341
00:13:50,363 --> 00:13:52,377
and if I'm allowed in,
it shows my picture,

342
00:13:52,401 --> 00:13:53,974
if I'm not, it shows a red cross.

343
00:13:53,998 --> 00:13:56,001
It doesn't disclose any other information.

344
00:13:56,025 --> 00:13:57,648
It has to have no special gadgets.

345
00:13:57,672 --> 00:14:00,727
That can only mean one thing,
following on from Ross's statement,

346
00:14:00,751 --> 00:14:03,664
which I agree with completely:
if it means no special gadgets,

347
00:14:03,688 --> 00:14:05,214
it has to run on a mobile phone.

348
00:14:05,238 --> 00:14:08,287
That's the only choice we have,
to make it work on mobile phones.

349
00:14:08,311 --> 00:14:10,613
There are 6.6 billion
mobile phone subscriptions.

350
00:14:10,637 --> 00:14:14,231
My favorite statistic of all time:
only 4 billion toothbrushes in the world.

351
00:14:14,255 --> 00:14:16,160
That means something. I don't know what.

352
00:14:16,184 --> 00:14:17,252
(Laughter)

353
00:14:17,276 --> 00:14:19,476
I rely on our futurologists to tell me.

354
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:21,581
It has to be a utility
which is extensible.

355
00:14:21,605 --> 00:14:24,138
So it has to be something
that anybody could build on.

356
00:14:24,162 --> 00:14:26,505
Anybody should be able
to use this infrastructure;

357
00:14:26,529 --> 00:14:28,783
you don't need permissions,
licenses, whatever.

358
00:14:28,807 --> 00:14:32,539
Anyone should be able
to write some code to do this.

359
00:14:33,427 --> 00:14:36,656
Well, you know what symmetry is,
so you don't need a picture of it.

360
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:38,262
This is how we're going to do it.

361
00:14:38,286 --> 00:14:40,872
We're going to do it using phones
and mobile proximity.

362
00:14:40,896 --> 00:14:42,361
I'm going to suggest to you

363
00:14:42,385 --> 00:14:45,857
the technology to implement Doctor Who's
psychic paper is already here,

364
00:14:45,881 --> 00:14:48,846
and if any of you have got
one of the new Barclay's debit cards

365
00:14:48,870 --> 00:14:50,641
with the contactless interface on it,

366
00:14:50,665 --> 00:14:52,865
you've already got that technology.

367
00:14:52,889 --> 00:14:55,825
Have you ever been up to the big city
and used an Oyster card?

368
00:14:55,849 --> 00:14:57,003
Does that ring a bell?

369
00:14:57,027 --> 00:14:58,465
The technology already exists.

370
00:14:58,489 --> 00:15:00,973
The first phones that have
the technology built in --

371
00:15:00,997 --> 00:15:03,550
the Google Nexus, the S II,
the [Samsung Wave 578] --

372
00:15:03,574 --> 00:15:07,503
the first phones that have the technology
built into them are already in the shops.

373
00:15:07,527 --> 00:15:10,421
So the idea that the gasman
can turn up at my mum's door,

374
00:15:10,445 --> 00:15:12,376
and he can show my mum his phone,

375
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:14,110
and she can tap it with her phone,

376
00:15:14,134 --> 00:15:17,003
and it'll come up with green
if he really is from British Gas

377
00:15:17,027 --> 00:15:18,183
and allowed in,

378
00:15:18,207 --> 00:15:20,644
and will come up with red
if he isn't, end of story.

379
00:15:20,668 --> 00:15:22,294
We have the technology to do that.

380
00:15:22,318 --> 00:15:23,471
And what's more,

381
00:15:23,495 --> 00:15:26,262
although some of those things
sound a bit counterintuitive,

382
00:15:26,286 --> 00:15:28,631
like proving I'm over 18
without proving who I am,

383
00:15:28,655 --> 00:15:30,711
the cryptography to do that
not only exists,

384
00:15:30,735 --> 00:15:32,889
it's extremely well-known
and well-understood.

385
00:15:32,913 --> 00:15:35,840
Digital signatures, the blinding
of public key certificates --

386
00:15:35,864 --> 00:15:38,118
these technologies
have been around for a while,

387
00:15:38,142 --> 00:15:40,152
we've just had no way
of packaging them up.

388
00:15:40,176 --> 00:15:41,760
So the technology already exists.

389
00:15:41,784 --> 00:15:45,084
We know it works.

390
00:15:45,108 --> 00:15:47,591
There are a few examples
of the technology being used

391
00:15:47,615 --> 00:15:48,850
in experimental places.

392
00:15:48,874 --> 00:15:50,179
That's London Fashion Week,

393
00:15:50,203 --> 00:15:52,054
where we built a system with O2.

394
00:15:52,078 --> 00:15:54,694
That's for the Wireless
Festival in Hyde Park.

395
00:15:54,718 --> 00:15:57,382
You can see the person's
walking in with their VIP band,

396
00:15:57,406 --> 00:16:00,321
it's being checked by the Nokia phone
that's reading the band.

397
00:16:00,345 --> 00:16:03,326
I'm only putting those up to show you
these things are prosaic,

398
00:16:03,350 --> 00:16:05,209
this stuff works in these environments.

399
00:16:05,233 --> 00:16:06,663
They don't need to be special.

400
00:16:06,687 --> 00:16:12,168
So finally, I know that you can do this,

401
00:16:12,192 --> 00:16:16,789
because if you saw
the Easter special of Doctor Who,

402
00:16:16,813 --> 00:16:20,352
where he went to Mars in a bus --

403
00:16:20,376 --> 00:16:22,553
I should say, again,
for our foreign students:

404
00:16:22,577 --> 00:16:24,344
that doesn't happen in every episode.

405
00:16:24,368 --> 00:16:25,782
This was a very special case.

406
00:16:25,806 --> 00:16:28,730
So in the episode where he goes
to Mars in a London bus --

407
00:16:28,754 --> 00:16:30,002
I can't show you the clip,

408
00:16:30,026 --> 00:16:33,104
due to the outrageous restrictions
of Queen Anne-style copyright

409
00:16:33,128 --> 00:16:34,414
by the BBC --

410
00:16:34,438 --> 00:16:37,360
but in the episode where he goes
to Mars in a London bus,

411
00:16:37,384 --> 00:16:41,419
Doctor Who is clearly shown
getting onto the bus

412
00:16:41,443 --> 00:16:42,885
with the Oyster card reader

413
00:16:42,909 --> 00:16:44,471
using his psychic paper.

414
00:16:44,495 --> 00:16:47,947
Which proves that psychic paper
has an NFC interface.

415
00:16:47,971 --> 00:16:49,146
Thank you very much.

416
00:16:49,170 --> 00:16:50,396
(Applause)