1 00:00:00,161 --> 00:00:01,960 So I thought I'd talk about identity. 2 00:00:01,960 --> 00:00:04,599 That's sort of an interesting enough topic to me. 3 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:07,778 And the reason was, because when I was asked to do this, 4 00:00:07,778 --> 00:00:11,351 I'd just read, in one of the papers, I can't remember, 5 00:00:11,351 --> 00:00:14,414 something from someone at Facebook saying, well, 6 00:00:14,414 --> 00:00:16,574 we need to make everybody use their real names 7 00:00:16,574 --> 00:00:19,025 and then that's basically all the problems solved. 8 00:00:19,025 --> 00:00:20,837 And that's so wrong, 9 00:00:20,837 --> 00:00:24,300 that's such a fundamentally, reactionary view of identity, 10 00:00:24,300 --> 00:00:26,682 and it's going to get us into all sorts of trouble. 11 00:00:26,682 --> 00:00:28,043 And so what I thought I'd do 12 00:00:28,043 --> 00:00:31,688 is I'll explain four sort of problems about it, 13 00:00:31,688 --> 00:00:34,391 and then I'll suggest a solution, 14 00:00:34,391 --> 00:00:36,471 which hopefully you might find interesting. 15 00:00:36,471 --> 00:00:38,154 So just to frame the problem, 16 00:00:38,154 --> 00:00:40,194 what does authenticity mean? 17 00:00:40,194 --> 00:00:44,604 That's me, that's a camera phone picture of me 18 00:00:44,604 --> 00:00:45,664 looking at a painting. 19 00:00:45,664 --> 00:00:46,729 [What's the Problem?] 20 00:00:46,769 --> 00:00:48,591 That's a painting that was painted 21 00:00:48,591 --> 00:00:50,273 by a very famous forger, 22 00:00:50,273 --> 00:00:52,546 and because I'm not very good at presentations, 23 00:00:52,546 --> 00:00:55,267 I already can't remember the name that I wrote on my card. 24 00:00:55,267 --> 00:00:58,923 And he was incarcerated in, I think, Wakefield Prison 25 00:00:58,923 --> 00:01:02,439 for forging masterpieces by, I think, French Impressionists. 26 00:01:02,439 --> 00:01:05,098 And he's so good at it, that when he was in prison, 27 00:01:05,098 --> 00:01:07,774 everybody in prison, the governor and whatever, 28 00:01:07,774 --> 00:01:10,281 wanted him to paint masterpieces to put on the walls, 29 00:01:10,281 --> 00:01:11,833 because they were so good. 30 00:01:11,833 --> 00:01:13,377 And so that's a masterpiece, 31 00:01:13,377 --> 00:01:14,966 which is a fake of a masterpiece, 32 00:01:14,966 --> 00:01:20,939 and bonded into the canvas is a chip which identifies that as a real fake, 33 00:01:20,939 --> 00:01:22,471 if you see what I mean. 34 00:01:22,471 --> 00:01:23,713 (Laughter) 35 00:01:23,713 --> 00:01:26,376 So when we're talking about authenticity, 36 00:01:26,376 --> 00:01:30,158 it's a little more fractal than it appears and that's a good example to show it. 37 00:01:30,158 --> 00:01:35,349 I tried to pick four problems that will frame the issue properly. 38 00:01:35,349 --> 00:01:36,908 So the first problem, I thought, 39 00:01:36,908 --> 00:01:37,859 Chip and PIN, right? 40 00:01:37,859 --> 00:01:40,433 [Banking legacies Bringing down the system from within] 41 00:01:40,433 --> 00:01:42,215 [Offline solutions do not work online] 42 00:01:42,225 --> 00:01:44,801 I'm guessing everyone's got a chip and PIN card, right? 43 00:01:44,801 --> 00:01:46,237 So why is that a good example? 44 00:01:46,237 --> 00:01:49,162 That's the example of how legacy thinking about identity 45 00:01:49,162 --> 00:01:51,610 subverts the security of a well-constructed system. 46 00:01:51,610 --> 00:01:54,631 That chip and PIN card that's in your pocket 47 00:01:54,631 --> 00:01:57,643 has a little chip on it that cost millions of pounds to develop, 48 00:01:57,643 --> 00:01:58,610 is extremely secure, 49 00:01:58,610 --> 00:02:01,385 you can put scanning electron microscopes on it, 50 00:02:01,385 --> 00:02:03,561 you can try and grind it down, blah blah blah. 51 00:02:03,561 --> 00:02:06,708 Those chips have never been broken, whatever you read in the paper. 52 00:02:06,708 --> 00:02:09,782 And for a joke, we take that super-secure chip 53 00:02:09,782 --> 00:02:13,896 and we bond it to a trivially counterfeitable magnetic stripe 54 00:02:13,896 --> 00:02:17,228 and for very lazy criminals, we still emboss the card. 55 00:02:17,228 --> 00:02:20,845 So if you're a criminal in a hurry, and you need to copy someone's card, 56 00:02:20,845 --> 00:02:23,926 you can just stick a piece of paper on it and rub a pencil over it 57 00:02:23,926 --> 00:02:25,839 just to sort of speed things up. 58 00:02:25,839 --> 00:02:28,175 And even more amusingly, and on my debit card too, 59 00:02:28,175 --> 00:02:31,646 we print the name and the SALT code and everything else on the front too. 60 00:02:31,646 --> 00:02:32,395 Why? 61 00:02:32,395 --> 00:02:37,954 There is no earthly reason why your name is printed on a chip and PIN card. 62 00:02:37,954 --> 00:02:39,809 And if you think about it, 63 00:02:39,809 --> 00:02:43,177 it's even more insidious and perverse than it seems at first. 64 00:02:43,177 --> 00:02:44,891 Because the only people that benefit 65 00:02:44,891 --> 00:02:47,375 from having the name on the card are criminals. 66 00:02:47,375 --> 00:02:49,306 You know what your name is, right? 67 00:02:49,306 --> 00:02:50,127 (Laughter) 68 00:02:50,127 --> 00:02:52,289 And when you go into a shop and buy something, 69 00:02:52,289 --> 00:02:54,539 It's a PIN, he doesn't care what the name is. 70 00:02:54,539 --> 00:02:57,598 The only place where you ever have to write your name on the back 71 00:02:57,598 --> 00:02:58,938 is in America at the moment. 72 00:02:58,938 --> 00:03:00,329 And whenever I go to America, 73 00:03:00,339 --> 00:03:03,149 and I have to pay with a mag stripe on the back of the card, 74 00:03:03,159 --> 00:03:05,091 I always sign it Carlos Tethers anyway, 75 00:03:05,091 --> 00:03:06,491 just as a security mechanism, 76 00:03:06,499 --> 00:03:08,597 because if a transaction ever gets disputed, 77 00:03:08,597 --> 00:03:10,547 and it comes back and it says Dave Birch, 78 00:03:10,547 --> 00:03:12,288 I know it must have been a criminal, 79 00:03:12,288 --> 00:03:14,258 because I would never sign it Dave Birch. 80 00:03:14,258 --> 00:03:15,498 (Laughter) 81 00:03:15,768 --> 00:03:17,739 So if you drop your card in the street, 82 00:03:17,739 --> 00:03:19,981 it means a criminal can pick it up and read it. 83 00:03:19,981 --> 00:03:20,916 They know the name, 84 00:03:20,916 --> 00:03:22,861 from the name they can find the address, 85 00:03:22,861 --> 00:03:25,066 and then they can go off and buy stuff online. 86 00:03:25,066 --> 00:03:26,772 Why do we put the name on the card? 87 00:03:26,772 --> 00:03:30,491 Because we think identity is something to do with names, 88 00:03:30,491 --> 00:03:34,856 and because we're rooted in the idea of the identity card, 89 00:03:34,856 --> 00:03:36,082 which obsesses us. 90 00:03:36,082 --> 00:03:38,776 And I know it crashed and burned a couple of years ago, 91 00:03:38,776 --> 00:03:42,453 but if you're someone in politics or the home office or whatever, 92 00:03:42,453 --> 00:03:43,981 and you think about identity, 93 00:03:43,981 --> 00:03:47,359 you can only think of identity in terms of cards with names on them. 94 00:03:47,359 --> 00:03:50,659 And that's very subversive in a modern world. 95 00:03:50,659 --> 00:03:52,475 So the second example I thought I'd use 96 00:03:52,475 --> 00:03:54,721 is chatrooms. 97 00:03:54,721 --> 00:03:56,585 [Chatrooms and Children] 98 00:03:56,585 --> 00:03:58,695 I'm very proud of that picture, that's my son 99 00:03:58,695 --> 00:04:01,611 playing in his band with his friends for the first-ever gig, 100 00:04:01,611 --> 00:04:03,580 I believe you call it, where he got paid. 101 00:04:03,580 --> 00:04:04,707 (Laughter) 102 00:04:05,037 --> 00:04:06,245 And I love that picture. 103 00:04:06,245 --> 00:04:09,451 I like the picture of him getting into medical school a lot better, 104 00:04:09,451 --> 00:04:10,221 (Laughter) 105 00:04:10,221 --> 00:04:12,264 I like that picture for the moment. 106 00:04:12,264 --> 00:04:13,529 Why do I use that picture? 107 00:04:13,529 --> 00:04:17,238 Because that was very interesting, watching that experience as an old person. 108 00:04:18,538 --> 00:04:20,051 So him and his friends, 109 00:04:20,051 --> 00:04:22,799 they get together, they booked a room, like a church hall, 110 00:04:22,799 --> 00:04:24,909 and they got all their friends who had bands, 111 00:04:24,909 --> 00:04:26,200 and they got them together, 112 00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:27,737 and they do it all on Facebook, 113 00:04:27,737 --> 00:04:30,338 and then they sell tickets, and the first band on the - 114 00:04:30,338 --> 00:04:31,633 I was going to say "menu," 115 00:04:31,633 --> 00:04:33,932 that's probably the wrong word for it, isn't it? 116 00:04:33,932 --> 00:04:36,293 The first band on the list of bands 117 00:04:36,293 --> 00:04:40,350 that appears at some public music performance of some kind 118 00:04:40,350 --> 00:04:42,759 gets the sales from the first 20 tickets, 119 00:04:42,759 --> 00:04:44,609 then the next band gets the next 20, 120 00:04:44,609 --> 00:04:45,325 and so on. 121 00:04:45,325 --> 00:04:47,081 They were at the bottom of the menu, 122 00:04:47,081 --> 00:04:49,459 they were like fifth, I thought they had no chance. 123 00:04:49,459 --> 00:04:51,431 He actually got 20 quid. Fantastic, right? 124 00:04:51,431 --> 00:04:53,478 But my point is, that all worked perfectly 125 00:04:53,478 --> 00:04:56,559 except on the web. 126 00:04:56,559 --> 00:04:58,382 So they're sitting on Facebook, 127 00:04:58,382 --> 00:05:00,978 and they're sending these messages and arranging things 128 00:05:00,978 --> 00:05:03,297 and they don't know who anybody is. 129 00:05:03,297 --> 00:05:05,528 That's the big problem we're trying to solve. 130 00:05:05,528 --> 00:05:07,425 If only they were using the real names, 131 00:05:07,425 --> 00:05:10,106 Then you wouldn't be worried about them on the internet. 132 00:05:10,106 --> 00:05:11,481 And so when he says to me, 133 00:05:11,481 --> 00:05:14,617 oh, I want to go to a chatroom to talk about guitars or something, 134 00:05:14,617 --> 00:05:18,446 I'm like, oh, well, I don't want you to go into a chatroom 135 00:05:18,446 --> 00:05:21,804 to talk about guitars, because they might not all be your friends, 136 00:05:21,804 --> 00:05:24,157 and some of the people that are in the chatroom 137 00:05:24,157 --> 00:05:27,624 might be perverts and teachers and vicars. 138 00:05:27,624 --> 00:05:28,649 (Laughter) 139 00:05:28,649 --> 00:05:32,441 I mean, they generally are, when you look in the paper, right? 140 00:05:32,441 --> 00:05:35,294 So I want to know who all the people in the chatroom are. 141 00:05:35,294 --> 00:05:37,487 So okay, you can go in the chatroom, 142 00:05:37,487 --> 00:05:40,495 but only if everybody in the chatroom is using their real names, 143 00:05:40,495 --> 00:05:43,042 and they submit full copies of their police report. 144 00:05:43,042 --> 00:05:47,878 But of course, if anybody in the chatroom asked for his real name, 145 00:05:47,878 --> 00:05:49,924 I'd say no. You can't give them your real name. 146 00:05:49,924 --> 00:05:52,624 Because what happens if they turn out to be perverts, 147 00:05:52,624 --> 00:05:54,207 and teachers and whatever, 148 00:05:54,207 --> 00:05:57,068 So you have this odd sort of paradox, 149 00:05:57,068 --> 00:05:59,549 where I'm happy for him to go into this space 150 00:05:59,549 --> 00:06:01,809 if I know who everybody else is, 151 00:06:01,809 --> 00:06:04,052 but I don't want anybody else to know who he is. 152 00:06:04,052 --> 00:06:06,438 And so you get this sort of logjam around identity 153 00:06:06,438 --> 00:06:08,874 where you want full disclosure from everybody else, 154 00:06:08,874 --> 00:06:09,939 but not from yourself. 155 00:06:09,939 --> 00:06:11,756 And there's no progress, we get stuck. 156 00:06:11,756 --> 00:06:14,039 And so the chatroom thing doesn't work properly, 157 00:06:14,039 --> 00:06:16,501 and it's a very bad way of thinking about identity. 158 00:06:16,501 --> 00:06:20,396 So on my RSS feed, I saw this thing about - 159 00:06:20,396 --> 00:06:22,964 I just said something bad about my RSS feed, didn't I? 160 00:06:22,964 --> 00:06:24,593 I should stop saying it like that. 161 00:06:24,937 --> 00:06:26,760 For some random reason I can't imagine, 162 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:29,146 something about cheerleaders turned up in my inbox. 163 00:06:29,146 --> 00:06:31,094 And I read this story about cheerleaders, 164 00:06:31,094 --> 00:06:32,482 and it's a fascinating story. 165 00:06:32,482 --> 00:06:34,750 This happened a couple of years ago in the U.S. 166 00:06:34,750 --> 00:06:37,452 There were some cheerleaders in a team at a high school 167 00:06:37,452 --> 00:06:39,685 in the U.S., and they said mean things 168 00:06:39,685 --> 00:06:41,451 about their cheerleading coach, 169 00:06:41,451 --> 00:06:43,642 as I'm sure kids do about all of their teachers 170 00:06:43,642 --> 00:06:44,409 all of the time, 171 00:06:44,409 --> 00:06:47,039 and somehow the cheerleading coach found out about this. 172 00:06:47,039 --> 00:06:47,953 She was very upset. 173 00:06:47,953 --> 00:06:50,120 And so she went to one of the girls, and said, 174 00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:52,132 you have to give me your Facebook password. 175 00:06:52,132 --> 00:06:55,929 I read this all the time, where even at some universities, 176 00:06:55,929 --> 00:06:57,089 and places of education, 177 00:06:57,089 --> 00:06:59,668 kids are forced to hand over their Facebook passwords. 178 00:06:59,668 --> 00:07:02,073 So you've got to give them your Facebook password. 179 00:07:02,073 --> 00:07:02,786 She was a kid! 180 00:07:02,786 --> 00:07:04,002 What she should have said 181 00:07:04,002 --> 00:07:05,532 is my lawyer will be calling you 182 00:07:05,542 --> 00:07:06,832 first thing in the morning. 183 00:07:06,832 --> 00:07:08,223 It's an outrageous imposition 184 00:07:08,223 --> 00:07:09,942 on my 4th Amendment right to privacy, 185 00:07:09,942 --> 00:07:11,237 and you're going to be sued 186 00:07:11,237 --> 00:07:12,632 for all the money you've got. 187 00:07:12,632 --> 00:07:14,218 That's what she should have said. 188 00:07:14,218 --> 00:07:15,147 But she's a kid, 189 00:07:15,147 --> 00:07:16,646 so she hands over the password. 190 00:07:16,646 --> 00:07:18,366 The teacher can't log into Facebook, 191 00:07:18,366 --> 00:07:20,758 because the school has blocked access to Facebook. 192 00:07:20,758 --> 00:07:23,531 So the teacher can't log into Facebook until she gets home. 193 00:07:23,531 --> 00:07:24,959 So the girl tells her friends, 194 00:07:24,959 --> 00:07:25,880 guess what happened, 195 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:27,461 the teacher logged in, she knows. 196 00:07:27,461 --> 00:07:30,222 So the girls just all logged into Facebook on their phones, 197 00:07:30,222 --> 00:07:31,514 and deleted their profiles. 198 00:07:31,514 --> 00:07:34,299 And so when the teacher logged in, there was nothing there. 199 00:07:34,299 --> 00:07:37,681 My point is, those identities, they don't think about them the same way. 200 00:07:37,681 --> 00:07:41,800 Identity is, especially when you're a teenager, a fluid thing. 201 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:43,175 You have lots of identities. 202 00:07:43,175 --> 00:07:45,425 And you can have an identity, you don't like it, 203 00:07:45,425 --> 00:07:49,157 because it's subverted in some way, or it's insecure, or it's inappropriate, 204 00:07:49,157 --> 00:07:51,633 you just delete it and get another one. 205 00:07:51,633 --> 00:07:54,737 The idea that you have an identity that's given to you by someone, 206 00:07:54,737 --> 00:07:56,036 the government or whatever, 207 00:07:56,036 --> 00:07:59,125 and you have to stick with that identity and use it in all places, 208 00:07:59,125 --> 00:08:00,293 that's absolutely wrong. 209 00:08:00,293 --> 00:08:03,195 Why would you want to really know who someone was on Facebook, 210 00:08:03,195 --> 00:08:06,055 unless you wanted to abuse them and harass them in some way? 211 00:08:06,055 --> 00:08:07,728 And it just doesn't work properly. 212 00:08:07,728 --> 00:08:09,832 And my fourth example is there are some cases 213 00:08:09,832 --> 00:08:11,275 where you really want to be - 214 00:08:11,275 --> 00:08:14,945 In case you're wondering, that's me at the G20 protest. 215 00:08:14,945 --> 00:08:19,901 I wasn't actually at the G20 protest, but I had a meeting at a bank, 216 00:08:19,901 --> 00:08:23,554 on the day of the G20 protest, and I got an email from the bank 217 00:08:23,554 --> 00:08:27,075 saying please don't wear a suit, because it'll inflame the protestors. 218 00:08:27,075 --> 00:08:29,559 I look pretty good in a suit, frankly, 219 00:08:29,559 --> 00:08:31,429 so you can see why it would drive them 220 00:08:31,429 --> 00:08:33,174 into an anti-capitalist frenzy. 221 00:08:33,174 --> 00:08:33,885 (Laughter) 222 00:08:33,885 --> 00:08:35,094 So I thought, well, look. 223 00:08:35,094 --> 00:08:37,103 If I don't want to inflame the protestors, 224 00:08:37,103 --> 00:08:38,219 the obvious thing to do 225 00:08:38,219 --> 00:08:39,625 is go dressed as a protestor. 226 00:08:39,625 --> 00:08:41,442 So I went dressed completely in black, 227 00:08:41,442 --> 00:08:43,056 You know, with a black balaclava, 228 00:08:43,056 --> 00:08:44,160 I had black gloves on, 229 00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:46,617 but I've taken them off to sign the visitor's book. 230 00:08:46,617 --> 00:08:47,329 (Laughter) 231 00:08:47,329 --> 00:08:49,212 I'm wearing black trousers, black boots, 232 00:08:49,212 --> 00:08:50,768 I'm dressed completely in black. 233 00:08:50,768 --> 00:08:52,352 I go into the bank at 10 o'clock, 234 00:08:52,352 --> 00:08:53,407 go hi, I'm Dave Birch, 235 00:08:53,407 --> 00:08:55,413 I've got a 3 o'clock with so and so there. 236 00:08:55,413 --> 00:08:56,464 Sure. They sign me in. 237 00:08:56,464 --> 00:08:57,765 There's my visitor's badge. 238 00:08:57,765 --> 00:08:58,476 (Laughter) 239 00:08:58,476 --> 00:08:59,794 So this nonsense 240 00:08:59,794 --> 00:09:02,688 about you've got to have real names on Facebook and whatever, 241 00:09:02,688 --> 00:09:05,313 that gets you that kind of security. 242 00:09:05,313 --> 00:09:08,602 That gets you security theater, where there's no actual security, 243 00:09:08,602 --> 00:09:11,940 but people are sort of playing parts in a play about security. 244 00:09:11,940 --> 00:09:14,145 And as long as everybody learns their lines, 245 00:09:14,145 --> 00:09:15,261 everyone's happy. 246 00:09:15,261 --> 00:09:17,015 But it's not real security. 247 00:09:17,015 --> 00:09:21,107 Especially because I hate banks more than the G20 protestors do, 248 00:09:21,107 --> 00:09:22,812 because I work for them. 249 00:09:22,812 --> 00:09:25,649 I know that things are actually worse than these guys think. 250 00:09:25,649 --> 00:09:26,492 (Laughter) 251 00:09:28,732 --> 00:09:32,736 But suppose I worked next to somebody in a bank 252 00:09:32,736 --> 00:09:35,034 who was doing something. 253 00:09:42,564 --> 00:09:45,144 Suppose I was sitting next to a rogue trader, 254 00:09:45,144 --> 00:09:47,447 and I want to report it to the boss of the bank. 255 00:09:47,447 --> 00:09:49,803 So I log on to do a little bit of whistleblowing. 256 00:09:49,803 --> 00:09:51,848 I send a message, this guy's a rogue trader. 257 00:09:51,888 --> 00:09:53,756 That message is meaningless 258 00:09:53,756 --> 00:09:56,074 if you don't know that I'm a trader at the bank. 259 00:09:56,074 --> 00:09:58,364 If that message just comes from anybody, 260 00:09:58,364 --> 00:10:00,660 it has zero information value. 261 00:10:00,660 --> 00:10:02,839 There's no point in sending that message. 262 00:10:04,233 --> 00:10:07,400 But if I have to prove who I am, 263 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:09,001 I'll never send that message. 264 00:10:09,001 --> 00:10:12,238 It's just like the nurse in the hospital reporting the drunk surgeon. 265 00:10:12,238 --> 00:10:16,159 That message will only happen if I'm anonymous. 266 00:10:16,159 --> 00:10:20,410 So the system has to have ways of providing anonymity there, 267 00:10:20,410 --> 00:10:22,771 otherwise we don't get where we want to get to. 268 00:10:22,771 --> 00:10:26,013 So four issues. So what are we going to do about it? 269 00:10:26,013 --> 00:10:29,360 Well, what we tend to do about it 270 00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:32,968 is we think about Orwell space. 271 00:10:32,968 --> 00:10:35,564 And we try to make electronic versions 272 00:10:35,564 --> 00:10:38,534 of the identity card that we got rid of in 1953. 273 00:10:38,601 --> 00:10:40,628 So we think if we had a card, 274 00:10:40,628 --> 00:10:41,967 call it a Facebook login, 275 00:10:41,967 --> 00:10:43,264 which proves who you are, 276 00:10:43,264 --> 00:10:45,155 and I make you carry it all the time, 277 00:10:45,155 --> 00:10:46,333 that solves the problem. 278 00:10:46,333 --> 00:10:48,961 And of course, for all those reasons I've just outlined, 279 00:10:48,961 --> 00:10:50,673 it doesn't, and it might, actually, 280 00:10:50,673 --> 00:10:51,885 make some problems worse. 281 00:10:51,885 --> 00:10:54,468 The more times you're forced to use your real identity, 282 00:10:54,468 --> 00:10:56,048 certainly in transactional terms, 283 00:10:56,048 --> 00:10:58,998 the more likely that identity is to get stolen and subverted. 284 00:10:58,998 --> 00:11:01,244 The goal is to stop people from using identity 285 00:11:01,244 --> 00:11:03,301 in transactions which don't need identity, 286 00:11:03,301 --> 00:11:05,670 which is actually almost all transactions. 287 00:11:05,670 --> 00:11:07,587 Almost all of the transactions you do 288 00:11:07,587 --> 00:11:09,695 are not, who are you? 289 00:11:09,695 --> 00:11:11,729 They're, are you allowed to drive the car, 290 00:11:11,729 --> 00:11:13,284 are you allowed in the building, 291 00:11:13,284 --> 00:11:14,241 are you over 18, 292 00:11:14,241 --> 00:11:15,729 etcetera, etcetera. 293 00:11:15,729 --> 00:11:17,810 So my suggestion- I, like James, 294 00:11:17,810 --> 00:11:20,721 think that there should be a resurgence of interest in R & D. 295 00:11:20,721 --> 00:11:22,396 I think this is a solvable problem. 296 00:11:22,396 --> 00:11:23,876 It's something we can do about. 297 00:11:23,876 --> 00:11:25,514 Naturally, in these circumstances, 298 00:11:25,514 --> 00:11:27,108 I turn to Doctor Who. 299 00:11:27,108 --> 00:11:28,784 Because in this, 300 00:11:28,784 --> 00:11:30,652 as in so many other walks of life, 301 00:11:30,652 --> 00:11:33,381 Doctor Who has already shown us the answer. 302 00:11:33,381 --> 00:11:34,815 So I should say, 303 00:11:34,815 --> 00:11:36,526 for some of our foreign visitors, 304 00:11:36,526 --> 00:11:39,920 Doctor Who is the greatest living scientist in England, 305 00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:41,137 (Laughter) 306 00:11:41,137 --> 00:11:45,177 and a beacon of truth and enlightenment to all of us. 307 00:11:45,197 --> 00:11:47,467 And this is Doctor Who with his psychic paper. 308 00:11:47,467 --> 00:11:50,397 Come on, you guys must have seen Doctor Who's psychic paper. 309 00:11:50,397 --> 00:11:52,997 You're not nerds if you say yes. 310 00:11:52,997 --> 00:11:55,133 Who's seen Doctor Who's psychic paper? 311 00:11:55,133 --> 00:11:58,263 Oh right, you were in the library the whole time studying I guess. 312 00:11:58,263 --> 00:12:00,313 Is that what you're going to tell us? 313 00:12:00,313 --> 00:12:01,575 Doctor Who's psychic paper 314 00:12:01,575 --> 00:12:03,445 is when you hold up the psychic paper, 315 00:12:03,445 --> 00:12:04,883 the person, in their brain, 316 00:12:04,883 --> 00:12:07,132 sees the thing that they need to see. 317 00:12:07,132 --> 00:12:09,441 So I want to show you a British passport, 318 00:12:09,441 --> 00:12:10,807 I hold up the psychic paper, 319 00:12:10,807 --> 00:12:12,207 you see a British passport. 320 00:12:12,207 --> 00:12:13,963 I want to get into a party, 321 00:12:13,963 --> 00:12:15,520 I hold up the psychic paper, 322 00:12:15,520 --> 00:12:16,974 I show you a party invitation. 323 00:12:16,974 --> 00:12:18,688 You see what you want to see. 324 00:12:18,688 --> 00:12:21,947 So what I'm saying is we need to make an electronic version of that, 325 00:12:21,947 --> 00:12:24,110 but with one tiny, tiny change, 326 00:12:24,110 --> 00:12:26,714 which is that it'll only show you the British passport 327 00:12:26,714 --> 00:12:27,922 if I've actually got one. 328 00:12:27,922 --> 00:12:29,861 It'll only show you the party invitation 329 00:12:29,861 --> 00:12:31,008 if I actually have one. 330 00:12:31,008 --> 00:12:34,065 It will only show you that I'm over 18 if I actually am over 18. 331 00:12:34,065 --> 00:12:35,886 But nothing else. 332 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, 333 00:12:40,661 --> 00:12:42,847 instead of showing you my driving license, 334 00:12:42,847 --> 00:12:44,726 which shows you I know how to drive, 335 00:12:44,726 --> 00:12:47,532 what my name is, my address, all these kind of things, 336 00:12:47,532 --> 00:12:49,171 I show you my psychic paper, 337 00:12:49,171 --> 00:12:51,357 and all it tells you is am I over 18 or not. 338 00:12:51,357 --> 00:12:52,803 Right. 339 00:12:52,803 --> 00:12:54,641 Is that just a pipe dream? 340 00:12:54,641 --> 00:12:57,414 Of course not, otherwise I wouldn't be here talking to you. 341 00:12:57,414 --> 00:12:59,418 So in order to build that and make it work, 342 00:12:59,418 --> 00:13:02,189 I'm only going to name these things, I'll not go into them, 343 00:13:02,189 --> 00:13:03,366 we need a plan, 344 00:13:03,366 --> 00:13:05,025 which is we're going to build this 345 00:13:05,025 --> 00:13:06,991 as an infrastructure for everybody to use, 346 00:13:06,991 --> 00:13:08,993 to solve all of these problems. 347 00:13:08,993 --> 00:13:10,541 We're going to make a utility, 348 00:13:10,541 --> 00:13:12,159 the utility has to be universal, 349 00:13:12,159 --> 00:13:13,422 you can use it everywhere, 350 00:13:13,422 --> 00:13:16,643 I'm just giving you little flashes of the technology as we go along. 351 00:13:16,643 --> 00:13:17,890 That's a Japanese ATM, 352 00:13:17,890 --> 00:13:20,678 the fingerprint template is stored inside the mobile phone. 353 00:13:20,678 --> 00:13:22,355 So when you want to draw money out, 354 00:13:22,355 --> 00:13:24,102 you put the mobile phone on the ATM, 355 00:13:24,102 --> 00:13:25,187 and touch your finger, 356 00:13:25,187 --> 00:13:27,237 your fingerprint goes through to the phone, 357 00:13:27,237 --> 00:13:28,907 the phone says yes, that's whoever, 358 00:13:28,907 --> 00:13:30,834 and the ATM then gives you some money. 359 00:13:31,084 --> 00:13:33,741 It has to be a utility that you can use everywhere. 360 00:13:33,741 --> 00:13:35,707 It has to be absolutely convenient, 361 00:13:35,707 --> 00:13:37,104 that's me going into the pub. 362 00:13:37,104 --> 00:13:41,177 All the device on the door of the pub is allowed is, 363 00:13:41,177 --> 00:13:44,240 is this person over 18 and not barred from the pub? 364 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:48,080 And so the idea is, you touch your ID card to the door, 365 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:50,139 and if I am allowed in, it shows my picture, 366 00:13:50,139 --> 00:13:52,190 if I'm not allowed in, it shows a red cross. 367 00:13:52,190 --> 00:13:54,195 It doesn't disclose any other information. 368 00:13:54,195 --> 00:13:55,827 It has to have no special gadgets. 369 00:13:55,827 --> 00:13:57,212 That can only mean one thing, 370 00:13:57,212 --> 00:13:58,877 following on from Ross's statement, 371 00:13:58,877 --> 00:14:00,311 which I agree with completely. 372 00:14:00,311 --> 00:14:01,803 If it means no special gadgets, 373 00:14:01,803 --> 00:14:03,327 it has to run on a mobile phone. 374 00:14:03,327 --> 00:14:04,800 That's the only choice we have, 375 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:06,889 we have to make it work on mobile phones. 376 00:14:06,889 --> 00:14:07,893 There are 6.6 billion 377 00:14:07,893 --> 00:14:09,177 mobile phone subscriptions. 378 00:14:09,177 --> 00:14:10,793 My favorite statistic of all time, 379 00:14:10,793 --> 00:14:12,742 only 4 billion toothbrushes in the world. 380 00:14:12,742 --> 00:14:13,749 That means something, 381 00:14:13,749 --> 00:14:14,656 I don't know what. 382 00:14:14,656 --> 00:14:15,364 (Laughter) 383 00:14:15,364 --> 00:14:17,427 I rely on our futurologists to tell me. 384 00:14:17,427 --> 00:14:19,827 It has to be a utility which is extensible. 385 00:14:19,827 --> 00:14:21,042 So it has to be something 386 00:14:21,042 --> 00:14:22,392 that anybody could build on. 387 00:14:22,392 --> 00:14:24,800 Anybody should be able to use this infrastructure, 388 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:27,004 you don't need permissions, licenses, whatever, 389 00:14:27,004 --> 00:14:29,521 anyone should be able to write some code to do this. 390 00:14:31,786 --> 00:14:33,091 You know what symmetry is, 391 00:14:33,091 --> 00:14:34,758 so you don't need a picture of it. 392 00:14:34,858 --> 00:14:36,452 This is how we're going to do it. 393 00:14:36,452 --> 00:14:38,086 We're going to do it using phones, 394 00:14:38,086 --> 00:14:39,282 and we're going to do it 395 00:14:39,282 --> 00:14:40,378 using mobile proximity. 396 00:14:40,378 --> 00:14:41,684 I'm going to suggest to you 397 00:14:41,684 --> 00:14:42,990 the technology to implement 398 00:14:42,990 --> 00:14:44,236 Doctor Who's psychic paper 399 00:14:44,236 --> 00:14:45,883 is already here, and if any of you 400 00:14:45,883 --> 00:14:47,999 have got one of the new Barclay's debit cards 401 00:14:47,999 --> 00:14:49,798 with the contactless interface on it, 402 00:14:49,798 --> 00:14:51,478 you've already got that technology. 403 00:14:51,478 --> 00:14:53,343 If you've ever been up to the big city, 404 00:14:53,343 --> 00:14:54,835 and used an Oyster card at all, 405 00:14:54,835 --> 00:14:56,559 does that ring any bells to anybody? 406 00:14:56,559 --> 00:14:58,015 The technology already exists. 407 00:14:58,015 --> 00:14:58,845 The first phones 408 00:14:58,845 --> 00:15:00,465 that have the technology built in, 409 00:15:00,465 --> 00:15:01,674 the Google Nexus, the S2, 410 00:15:01,674 --> 00:15:02,683 the Samsung Wifi 7.9, 411 00:15:02,683 --> 00:15:03,745 the first phones that have 412 00:15:03,745 --> 00:15:05,227 the technology built into them 413 00:15:05,227 --> 00:15:06,461 are already in the shops. 414 00:15:06,461 --> 00:15:07,803 So the idea that the gas man 415 00:15:07,803 --> 00:15:09,165 can turn up at my mom's door 416 00:15:09,165 --> 00:15:10,767 and he can show my mom his phone, 417 00:15:10,767 --> 00:15:12,402 and she can tap it with her phone, 418 00:15:12,402 --> 00:15:15,369 and it will come up with green if he really is from British Gas 419 00:15:15,369 --> 00:15:16,101 and allowed in, 420 00:15:16,101 --> 00:15:18,021 and it'll come up with red if he isn't, 421 00:15:18,021 --> 00:15:18,741 end of story. 422 00:15:18,741 --> 00:15:20,361 We have the technology to do that. 423 00:15:20,361 --> 00:15:21,136 And what's more, 424 00:15:21,136 --> 00:15:24,101 although some of those things sounded a bit counter-intuitive, 425 00:15:24,101 --> 00:15:26,489 like proving I'm over 18 without proving who I am, 426 00:15:26,489 --> 00:15:28,614 the cryptography to do that not only exists, 427 00:15:28,614 --> 00:15:30,813 it's extremely well-known and well-understood. 428 00:15:30,813 --> 00:15:33,618 Digital signatures, the blinding of public key certificates, 429 00:15:33,618 --> 00:15:35,862 these technologies have been around for a while, 430 00:15:35,862 --> 00:15:37,921 we've just had no way of packaging them up. 431 00:15:37,921 --> 00:15:39,511 So the technology already exists. 432 00:15:39,511 --> 00:15:40,359 We know it works, 433 00:15:40,359 --> 00:15:44,827 There are a few examples of the technology being used 434 00:15:44,827 --> 00:15:46,007 in experimental places. 435 00:15:46,007 --> 00:15:47,335 That's London Fashion Week, 436 00:15:47,335 --> 00:15:48,909 where we built a system with O2, 437 00:15:48,909 --> 00:15:51,866 that's for the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, 438 00:15:51,866 --> 00:15:52,999 you can see the persons 439 00:15:52,999 --> 00:15:54,500 walking in with their VIP band, 440 00:15:54,500 --> 00:15:55,644 it's just being checked 441 00:15:55,644 --> 00:15:57,794 by the Nokia phone that's reading the band. 442 00:15:57,794 --> 00:15:59,582 I'm only putting those up to show you 443 00:15:59,582 --> 00:16:00,921 these things are prosaic, 444 00:16:00,921 --> 00:16:02,830 this stuff works in these environments. 445 00:16:02,830 --> 00:16:04,291 They don't need to be special. 446 00:16:04,291 --> 00:16:09,009 So finally, I know that you can do this, 447 00:16:10,579 --> 00:16:13,473 Because if you saw the episode of Doctor Who, 448 00:16:13,473 --> 00:16:15,193 the Easter special of Doctor Who, 449 00:16:15,193 --> 00:16:17,409 where he went to Mars in a bus, 450 00:16:17,409 --> 00:16:19,741 I should say again for our foreign students, 451 00:16:19,741 --> 00:16:21,594 that doesn't happen every episode. 452 00:16:21,594 --> 00:16:23,275 This was a very special case. 453 00:16:23,275 --> 00:16:26,206 So in the episode where he goes to Mars in a London bus, 454 00:16:26,206 --> 00:16:27,799 I can't show you the clip, 455 00:16:27,799 --> 00:16:30,838 due to the outrageous restrictions of Queen Anne-style copyright 456 00:16:30,838 --> 00:16:32,276 by the BBC, 457 00:16:32,276 --> 00:16:35,583 but in the episode where he goes to Mars in a London bus, 458 00:16:35,583 --> 00:16:39,369 Doctor Who is clearly shown getting on to the bus 459 00:16:39,369 --> 00:16:41,529 with the Oyster card reader 460 00:16:41,529 --> 00:16:43,157 using his psychic paper. 461 00:16:43,157 --> 00:16:45,029 Which proves that psychic paper 462 00:16:45,029 --> 00:16:46,804 has an MSE interface. 463 00:16:46,804 --> 00:16:48,274 Thank you very much.