1
00:00:11,861 --> 00:00:15,587
So this is a hotel room,
kind of like the one I'm staying in.

2
00:00:15,587 --> 00:00:17,731
I get bored sometimes.

3
00:00:17,731 --> 00:00:21,158
A room like this has not a lot
to offer for entertainment.

4
00:00:21,158 --> 00:00:25,687
But for a hacker, it gets a little
interesting because that television

5
00:00:25,687 --> 00:00:28,136
is not like the television in your home,

6
00:00:28,136 --> 00:00:31,058
it's a node on a network. Right?

7
00:00:31,058 --> 00:00:33,442
That means I can mess with it.

8
00:00:33,442 --> 00:00:37,694
If I plug a little device
like this into my computer,

9
00:00:37,694 --> 00:00:40,499
it's an infrared transceiver,
I can send the codes that

10
00:00:40,499 --> 00:00:43,524
the TV remote might send
and some other codes.

11
00:00:43,524 --> 00:00:47,128
So what?
Well, I can watch movies for free.

12
00:00:47,277 --> 00:00:49,275
(Laughter)

13
00:00:49,275 --> 00:00:53,681
That doesn't matter to me so much,
but I can play video games too.

14
00:00:54,749 --> 00:00:57,734
Hey, but what's this?

15
00:00:57,935 --> 00:01:01,010
I can not only do this
for my TV in my hotel room,

16
00:01:01,010 --> 00:01:03,822
I can control your TV in your hotel room.

17
00:01:03,822 --> 00:01:05,006
(Laughter)

18
00:01:05,006 --> 00:01:07,906
So I can watch you
if you're checking out with one of these,

19
00:01:07,906 --> 00:01:10,892
you know, TV based registration things,

20
00:01:10,892 --> 00:01:13,512
if you're surfing
the web on your hotel TV,

21
00:01:13,512 --> 00:01:16,224
I can watch you do it.

22
00:01:17,182 --> 00:01:19,983
Sometimes it's interesting stuff.

23
00:01:19,983 --> 00:01:22,374
Funds transfer.

24
00:01:22,712 --> 00:01:25,830
Really big funds transfers.

25
00:01:25,830 --> 00:01:28,041
You never know what people
might want to do

26
00:01:28,041 --> 00:01:31,528
while they're surfing the web
from their hotel room.

27
00:01:31,892 --> 00:01:34,633
(Laughter)

28
00:01:34,633 --> 00:01:38,122
The point is I get to decide
if you're watching Disney or porn tonight.

29
00:01:38,122 --> 00:01:40,141
Anybody else staying 
at the Affinia hotel?

30
00:01:40,141 --> 00:01:42,614
(Laughter)

31
00:01:42,614 --> 00:01:46,722
This is a project I worked on
when we were trying to figure out

32
00:01:46,722 --> 00:01:50,196
the security properties of wireless
networks; it's called the "Hackerbot".

33
00:01:50,196 --> 00:01:54,007
This is a robot we've built that can
drive around and find Wi-Fi users,

34
00:01:54,007 --> 00:01:57,358
drive up to them and show them
their passwords on the screen.

35
00:01:57,358 --> 00:02:00,621
(Laughter)

36
00:02:00,621 --> 00:02:02,572
We just wanted to build a robot,

37
00:02:02,572 --> 00:02:05,143
but we didn't know
what to make it do, so -

38
00:02:05,143 --> 00:02:07,338
We made the pistol
version of the same thing.

39
00:02:07,338 --> 00:02:09,131
This is called the "Sniper Yagi".

40
00:02:09,131 --> 00:02:12,010
It's for your long-range
password sniffing action,

41
00:02:12,010 --> 00:02:14,669
about a mile away I can watch
your wireless network.

42
00:02:14,669 --> 00:02:18,648
This is a project I worked on with
Ben Laurie to show passive surveillance.

43
00:02:18,648 --> 00:02:22,171
So what it is, is a map
of the conference called

44
00:02:22,171 --> 00:02:23,837
"Computers, Freedom and Privacy".

45
00:02:23,837 --> 00:02:28,774
And this conference was
in a hotel, and what we did is we,

46
00:02:28,774 --> 00:02:31,346
you know, put a computer
in each room of the conference

47
00:02:31,346 --> 00:02:33,284
that logged all the Bluetooth traffic.

48
00:02:33,284 --> 00:02:36,376
So as everybody came and went
with their phones and laptops

49
00:02:36,376 --> 00:02:38,667
we were able to just log that,
correlate it,

50
00:02:38,667 --> 00:02:42,088
and then I can print out a map like this
for everybody at the conference.

51
00:02:42,088 --> 00:02:45,541
This is Kim Cameron,
the Chief Privacy Architect at Microsoft.

52
00:02:45,541 --> 00:02:46,468
(Laughter)

53
00:02:46,468 --> 00:02:49,139
Unbeknownst to him,

54
00:02:49,139 --> 00:02:52,880
I got to see everywhere he went.

55
00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:56,023
And I can correlate this
and show who he hangs out with

56
00:02:56,023 --> 00:02:58,007
(phone dialing)
when he got bored,

57
00:02:58,007 --> 00:03:00,521
(phone dialing)
hangs out in the lobby with somebody.

58
00:03:00,521 --> 00:03:02,964
Anybody here use cellphones?

59
00:03:02,964 --> 00:03:04,616
(Laughter)

60
00:03:04,616 --> 00:03:08,488
(Phone ringing)

61
00:03:08,488 --> 00:03:12,459
So my phone is calling -

62
00:03:12,459 --> 00:03:15,711
(Ringing)

63
00:03:17,260 --> 00:03:19,429
calling -

64
00:03:23,593 --> 00:03:25,769
Voice mail: You have 100 messages.

65
00:03:25,769 --> 00:03:27,586
Palbos Holman: Uh oh!

66
00:03:27,586 --> 00:03:29,744
VM: First unheard message -

67
00:03:29,744 --> 00:03:31,086
PH: Where do I press -

68
00:03:31,086 --> 00:03:33,367
VM: Message skipped.
First skipped message.

69
00:03:33,367 --> 00:03:34,603
PH: Uh oh!

70
00:03:34,603 --> 00:03:38,133
VM: Main menu. To listen to your -
You have pressed an incorrect key -

71
00:03:38,133 --> 00:03:40,933
You have two skipped messages.
Three saved messages.

72
00:03:40,933 --> 00:03:42,583
Goodbye.

73
00:03:42,583 --> 00:03:46,264
PH: Uh oh!
So we're in Brad's voice mail.

74
00:03:46,543 --> 00:03:47,994
(Laughter)

75
00:03:47,994 --> 00:03:50,240
And I was going to record him
a new message,

76
00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:52,673
but I seem to have pressed an invalid key,

77
00:03:52,673 --> 00:03:54,323
so we're going to move on.

78
00:03:54,323 --> 00:03:57,963
And I'll explain how that works some
other day because we're short on time.

79
00:03:57,963 --> 00:04:00,114
Anybody here used MySpace?

80
00:04:00,114 --> 00:04:01,745
MySpace users? Oh!

81
00:04:01,745 --> 00:04:05,111
Used to be popular.
It's kind of like Facebook.

82
00:04:05,111 --> 00:04:08,663
This guy, a buddy of ours Samy,
was trying to meet chicks on MySpace

83
00:04:08,663 --> 00:04:10,824
which I think is what
it used to be good for.

84
00:04:10,824 --> 00:04:15,514
And what he did is he had
a page on MySpace about him.

85
00:04:16,641 --> 00:04:19,075
It lists all your friends,
and that's how you know

86
00:04:19,075 --> 00:04:22,031
somebody's cool is that they have
a lot of friends on MySpace.

87
00:04:22,031 --> 00:04:23,852
Well, Samy didn't have any friends.

88
00:04:23,852 --> 00:04:27,743
He wrote a little bit of Javascript code
that he put in his page,

89
00:04:27,743 --> 00:04:29,585
so that whenever you look at his page

90
00:04:29,585 --> 00:04:32,028
it would just automagically
add you as his friend.

91
00:04:32,028 --> 00:04:35,369
And it would skip the whole
acknowledgement response protocol

92
00:04:35,369 --> 00:04:37,703
saying "Is Samy really your friend?"

93
00:04:37,703 --> 00:04:40,939
But then it would copy
that code onto your page,

94
00:04:40,939 --> 00:04:43,045
so that whenever anybody
looked at your page

95
00:04:43,045 --> 00:04:45,856
it would automatically add them
as Samy's friend too.

96
00:04:45,856 --> 00:04:46,925
(Laughter)

97
00:04:46,925 --> 00:04:50,514
And it would change your page
to say that "Samy is your hero."

98
00:04:50,514 --> 00:04:52,023
(Laughter)

99
00:04:52,023 --> 00:04:56,442
So in under 24 hours, Samy had
over a million friends on MySpace.

100
00:04:56,442 --> 00:04:58,615
(Laughter)

101
00:04:58,615 --> 00:05:03,415
Hey, he just finished serving
3-years probation for that.

102
00:05:03,553 --> 00:05:05,656
(Laughter)

103
00:05:05,656 --> 00:05:09,819
Even better, Christopher Abad,
this guy, another hacker,

104
00:05:09,819 --> 00:05:13,492
also trying to meet chicks
on MySpace but having spotty results.

105
00:05:13,492 --> 00:05:15,653
Some of these dates
didn't work out so well,

106
00:05:15,653 --> 00:05:19,678
so what Abad did
is he wrote a little bit of code

107
00:05:19,678 --> 00:05:25,602
to connect MySpace to Spam Assassin,
which is an open source spam filter.

108
00:05:25,602 --> 00:05:28,045
It works just like
the spam filter in your email.

109
00:05:28,045 --> 00:05:30,280
You train it by giving it some spam

110
00:05:30,280 --> 00:05:32,862
train it by giving it a little
bit of legitimate email,

111
00:05:32,862 --> 00:05:34,869
and it tries to use
artificial intelligence

112
00:05:34,869 --> 00:05:37,270
to work out the difference. Right?

113
00:05:37,270 --> 00:05:41,262
Well, he just trained it on profiles
from girls he dated and liked

114
00:05:41,262 --> 00:05:43,088
as legitimate email.

115
00:05:43,088 --> 00:05:46,745
Profiles from girls he dated
and not liked, as spam,

116
00:05:46,745 --> 00:05:50,347
and then ran it against
every profile on MySpace.

117
00:05:50,347 --> 00:05:52,923
(Laughter)

118
00:05:52,923 --> 00:05:56,088
Out spits girls you might like to date.

119
00:05:56,088 --> 00:05:59,326
What I say about Abad is, I think,
there's like three startups here.

120
00:05:59,326 --> 00:06:02,531
I don't know why we need Match.com,
when we can have Spam dating?

121
00:06:02,531 --> 00:06:05,105
You know this is innovation.

122
00:06:05,105 --> 00:06:07,461
He's got a problem, he found a solution.

123
00:06:07,461 --> 00:06:12,053
Does anybody use these - bleep -
keys for opening your car remotely?

124
00:06:12,053 --> 00:06:16,421
They're popular in, well,
maybe not Chicago, OK.

125
00:06:16,779 --> 00:06:19,929
So kids these days will drive
through a Wal-Mart parking lot

126
00:06:19,929 --> 00:06:22,493
clicking open, open, open, bloop.

127
00:06:22,493 --> 00:06:25,570
Eventually you find another
Jetta or whatever just like yours,

128
00:06:25,570 --> 00:06:29,555
maybe a different color,
that uses the same key code.

129
00:06:29,714 --> 00:06:31,931
Kids will just loot it, lock it up and go.

130
00:06:31,931 --> 00:06:34,102
Your insurance company
will roll over on you

131
00:06:34,102 --> 00:06:36,184
because there's not
evidence of a break-in.

132
00:06:36,184 --> 00:06:39,626
For one manufacturer we figured
out how to manipulate that key

133
00:06:39,626 --> 00:06:43,373
so that it will open every car
from that manufacturer.

134
00:06:43,373 --> 00:06:44,659
(Laughter)

135
00:06:44,659 --> 00:06:47,930
There is a point to be made about this
which I barely have time for,

136
00:06:47,930 --> 00:06:52,184
but it's that your car is now a PC,
your phone is also a PC,

137
00:06:52,184 --> 00:06:55,723
your toaster, if it is not a PC,
soon will be. Right?

138
00:06:55,723 --> 00:06:57,757
And I'm not joking about that.

139
00:06:57,757 --> 00:07:00,192
And the point of that is
that when that happens

140
00:07:00,192 --> 00:07:04,342
you inherit all the security
properties and problems of PC's.

141
00:07:04,342 --> 00:07:06,462
And we have a lot of them.

142
00:07:06,462 --> 00:07:09,262
So keep that in mind,
we can talk more about that later.

143
00:07:09,262 --> 00:07:12,575
Anybody use a lock like this
on your front door?

144
00:07:12,575 --> 00:07:14,528
OK, good.

145
00:07:14,528 --> 00:07:15,895
I do too.

146
00:07:15,895 --> 00:07:17,205
This is a Schlage lock.

147
00:07:17,205 --> 00:07:19,800
It's on half of the front doors
in America.

148
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:23,240
I brought one to show you.

149
00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:25,437
So this is my Schlage lock.

150
00:07:25,437 --> 00:07:30,413
This is a key that fits the lock,
but isn't cut right, so it won't turn it.

151
00:07:30,413 --> 00:07:34,702
Anybody here ever tried
to pick locks with tools like this?

152
00:07:34,702 --> 00:07:39,207
All right, got a few,
few nefarious lock pickers.

153
00:07:39,893 --> 00:07:41,994
Well, it's for kids with OCD.

154
00:07:41,994 --> 00:07:44,615
You've got to put them in there,
and finick with them,

155
00:07:44,615 --> 00:07:47,613
spend hours getting the finesse
down to manipulate the pins.

156
00:07:47,613 --> 00:07:51,457
You know, for the ADD kids in the house
there's an easier way.

157
00:07:51,457 --> 00:07:53,226
I put my little magic key in here,

158
00:07:53,226 --> 00:07:55,917
I put a little pressure on there
to turn it, (Tapping)

159
00:07:55,917 --> 00:07:59,253
smack it a few times
with this special mallet

160
00:07:59,253 --> 00:08:02,322
and I just picked the lock. We're in.

161
00:08:03,312 --> 00:08:05,094
It's easy.

162
00:08:05,094 --> 00:08:08,309
And in fact, I don't really know
much more about this than you do.

163
00:08:08,309 --> 00:08:09,897
It's really, really easy.

164
00:08:09,897 --> 00:08:12,328
I have a keychain I made
of the same kind of key

165
00:08:12,328 --> 00:08:14,508
for every other lock in America.

166
00:08:14,508 --> 00:08:19,442
And if you're interested,
I bought a key machine

167
00:08:19,442 --> 00:08:22,510
so that I can cut these keys
and I made some for all of you guys.

168
00:08:22,510 --> 00:08:23,710
(Laughter)

169
00:08:23,710 --> 00:08:25,604
(Applause)

170
00:08:25,604 --> 00:08:28,256
So my gift to you,
come afterwards and I will show you

171
00:08:28,256 --> 00:08:30,609
how to pick a lock
and give you one of these keys

172
00:08:30,609 --> 00:08:32,628
you can take home and try it on your door.

173
00:08:32,628 --> 00:08:35,663
Anybody used these USB thumb drives?

174
00:08:35,663 --> 00:08:39,378
Yeah, print my Word document, yeah!

175
00:08:39,378 --> 00:08:42,574
They're very popular.

176
00:08:42,574 --> 00:08:46,489
Mine works kind of like yours.
You can print my Word document for me.

177
00:08:46,489 --> 00:08:50,015
But while you're doing that,
invisibly and magically in the background

178
00:08:50,015 --> 00:08:54,056
it's just making a handy backup
of your My Documents folder,

179
00:08:54,056 --> 00:08:58,132
and your browser history and cookies
and your registry and password database,

180
00:08:58,132 --> 00:09:02,076
and all the things that you might need
someday if you have a problem.

181
00:09:02,076 --> 00:09:05,963
So we just like to make these things
and litter them around at conferences.

182
00:09:05,963 --> 00:09:09,758
(Laughter)

183
00:09:09,758 --> 00:09:11,977
Anybody here use credit cards?

184
00:09:11,977 --> 00:09:13,145
(Laughter)

185
00:09:13,145 --> 00:09:14,435
Oh, good!

186
00:09:14,435 --> 00:09:17,956
Yeah, so they're popular
and wildly secure.

187
00:09:17,956 --> 00:09:19,210
(Laughter)

188
00:09:19,210 --> 00:09:22,506
Well, there's new credit cards
that you might have gotten in the mail

189
00:09:22,506 --> 00:09:25,538
with a letter explaining how
it's your new "Secure credit card".

190
00:09:25,538 --> 00:09:27,004
Anybody get one of these?

191
00:09:27,004 --> 00:09:31,593
You know it's secure because
it has a chip in it, an RFID tag,

192
00:09:31,593 --> 00:09:34,792
and you can use these in
Taxicabs and at Starbucks,

193
00:09:34,792 --> 00:09:37,956
I brought one to show you,
by just touching the reader.

194
00:09:37,956 --> 00:09:39,969
Has anybody seen these before?

195
00:09:39,969 --> 00:09:42,451
Okay, who's got one?

196
00:09:44,151 --> 00:09:45,960
Bring it on up here.

197
00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:47,910
(Laughter)

198
00:09:47,910 --> 00:09:50,616
There's a prize in it for you.

199
00:09:50,616 --> 00:09:53,622
I just want to show you
some things we learned about them.

200
00:09:53,622 --> 00:09:55,663
I got this credit card in the mail.

201
00:09:55,663 --> 00:09:58,219
I really do need some volunteers,
in fact, I need

202
00:09:58,219 --> 00:10:01,207
one, two, three, four, five
volunteers because the winners

203
00:10:01,207 --> 00:10:04,221
are going to get these
awesome stainless steel wallets

204
00:10:04,221 --> 00:10:08,270
that protect you against the problem that
you guessed, I'm about to demonstrate.

205
00:10:08,270 --> 00:10:10,570
Bring your credit card up here
and I'll show you.

206
00:10:10,570 --> 00:10:14,158
I want to try it on one of these
awesome new credit cards.

207
00:10:14,158 --> 00:10:15,670
OK.

208
00:10:18,796 --> 00:10:21,258
Do we have a conference organizer,

209
00:10:21,258 --> 00:10:23,872
somebody who can coerce people
into cooperating?

210
00:10:23,872 --> 00:10:24,825
(Laughing)

211
00:10:24,825 --> 00:10:28,583
It's by your own volition because -

212
00:10:29,573 --> 00:10:32,708
This is where the demo gets really awesome

213
00:10:32,708 --> 00:10:34,370
I know you guys have never seen -

214
00:10:34,370 --> 00:10:35,564
(Inaudible question)

215
00:10:35,564 --> 00:10:37,092
What's that?

216
00:10:37,092 --> 00:10:40,626
They're really cool wallets
made of stainless steel.

217
00:10:41,133 --> 00:10:44,867
Anybody else seen code
on screen at TED before?

218
00:10:44,867 --> 00:10:47,001
Yeah, this is pretty awesome.

219
00:10:47,001 --> 00:10:49,808
(Laughter)

220
00:10:51,528 --> 00:10:53,432
OK, great I got volunteers.

221
00:10:53,432 --> 00:10:56,590
So who has one of these
exciting credit cards?

222
00:10:57,790 --> 00:10:59,282
OK, here we go.

223
00:10:59,282 --> 00:11:01,506
I'm about to share
your credit card number

224
00:11:01,506 --> 00:11:03,890
only to 350 close friends.

225
00:11:03,890 --> 00:11:06,194
Hear the beep?

226
00:11:06,194 --> 00:11:08,780
That means someone's hacking
your credit card.

227
00:11:08,780 --> 00:11:10,107
OK, what did we get?

228
00:11:10,107 --> 00:11:14,623
Valued customer and the credit
card number and expiration date.

229
00:11:14,623 --> 00:11:18,916
It turns out your secure new
credit card is not totally secure.

230
00:11:19,332 --> 00:11:21,894
Anybody else want to try yours
while you're here?

231
00:11:21,894 --> 00:11:24,053
Man: Can you install overdraft protection?

232
00:11:24,053 --> 00:11:26,478
PH: Beep, let's see what we got?

233
00:11:26,478 --> 00:11:28,842
So we bitched about
this and AMEX changed it,

234
00:11:28,842 --> 00:11:31,146
so it doesn't show the name anymore.

235
00:11:31,146 --> 00:11:35,483
Which is progress.
You can see mine, if it shows it.

236
00:11:37,043 --> 00:11:40,702
Yeah, it shows my name on it,
that's what my Mom calls me anyway.

237
00:11:40,702 --> 00:11:43,395
Yours doesn't have it.

238
00:11:44,365 --> 00:11:48,530
Anyway, so next time you get
something in the mail

239
00:11:48,530 --> 00:11:51,957
that says it's secure, send it to me.

240
00:11:51,957 --> 00:11:54,582
(Laughter)

241
00:11:55,754 --> 00:11:59,046
Oh wait, one of these is empty, hold on.

242
00:12:00,856 --> 00:12:03,459
I think this is the one, yep, here you go.

243
00:12:03,459 --> 00:12:05,422
You get the one that's disassembled.

244
00:12:05,422 --> 00:12:06,829
All right, cool.

245
00:12:06,829 --> 00:12:10,351
(Applause)

246
00:12:10,351 --> 00:12:14,094
I still have a few minutes yet left,
so I'm going to make a couple of points.

247
00:12:14,094 --> 00:12:15,025
(Laughter)

248
00:12:15,025 --> 00:12:16,512
Oh, shit.

249
00:12:16,512 --> 00:12:21,039
That's my subliminal messaging campaign.
It was supposed to be much faster.

250
00:12:21,039 --> 00:12:25,209
Here's the most exciting slide
ever shown at TED.

251
00:12:25,209 --> 00:12:27,502
This is the protocol diagram for SSL,

252
00:12:27,502 --> 00:12:29,853
which is the encryption
system in your web browser

253
00:12:29,853 --> 00:12:33,324
that protects your credit card when you're
sending it to Amazon and so on.

254
00:12:33,324 --> 00:12:35,341
Very exciting, I know, but the point is

255
00:12:35,341 --> 00:12:39,173
hackers will attack every
point in this protocol, right?

256
00:12:39,173 --> 00:12:42,795
I'm going to send two responses
when the server's expecting one.

257
00:12:42,795 --> 00:12:45,664
I'm going to send a zero
when it's expecting a one.

258
00:12:45,664 --> 00:12:48,506
I'm going to send twice as much
data as it's expecting.

259
00:12:48,506 --> 00:12:51,384
I'm going to take twice as long
answering as it's expecting.

260
00:12:51,384 --> 00:12:54,406
Just try a bunch of stuff.
See where it breaks.

261
00:12:54,406 --> 00:12:56,218
See what falls in my lap.

262
00:12:56,218 --> 00:13:01,282
When I find a hole like that
then I can start looking for an exploit.

263
00:13:01,282 --> 00:13:06,240
This is a little more what SSL looks
like to hackers, that's really boring.

264
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:10,747
This guy kills a million Africans a year.

265
00:13:11,031 --> 00:13:14,791
It's Anopheles stephensi mosquito
carrying malaria.

266
00:13:15,738 --> 00:13:17,788
Is this the wrong talk?

267
00:13:17,788 --> 00:13:19,403
(Laughter)

268
00:13:19,403 --> 00:13:23,258
This is a protocol diagram for malaria.

269
00:13:23,892 --> 00:13:27,477
So what we're doing in our lab
is attacking this protocol

270
00:13:27,477 --> 00:13:29,681
at every point we can find.

271
00:13:29,681 --> 00:13:32,758
It has a very complex life cycle
that I won't go into now,

272
00:13:32,758 --> 00:13:36,227
but it spends some time in humans,
some time in mosquitos

273
00:13:36,227 --> 00:13:39,467
and what I need are hackers.

274
00:13:39,467 --> 00:13:43,508
Because hackers have a mind
that's optimized for discovery.

275
00:13:43,934 --> 00:13:47,407
They have a mind that's optimized
for figuring out what's possible.

276
00:13:47,407 --> 00:13:49,805
You know, I often illustrate this
by saying,

277
00:13:49,805 --> 00:13:54,676
If you get some random new
gadget and show it to your Mom,

278
00:13:55,455 --> 00:13:59,245
she might say, "Well, what does this do?"
And you'd say "Mom, it's a phone."

279
00:13:59,245 --> 00:14:02,566
And instantly, she'd would know
exactly what it's for.

280
00:14:02,566 --> 00:14:05,085
But with a hacker,
the question is different.

281
00:14:05,085 --> 00:14:08,909
The question is,
"What can I make this do?"

282
00:14:09,102 --> 00:14:12,029
I'm going to take all the screws out,
and take the back off,

283
00:14:12,029 --> 00:14:13,984
and break it into a lot of little pieces.

284
00:14:13,984 --> 00:14:17,343
But then I'm going to figure out
what I can build from the rubble.

285
00:14:17,343 --> 00:14:21,299
That's discovery, and we need to do that
in science and technology

286
00:14:21,299 --> 00:14:23,439
to figure out what's possible.

287
00:14:23,439 --> 00:14:27,118
And so in the lab what I'm trying
to do is apply that mindset

288
00:14:27,118 --> 00:14:29,583
to some of the biggest
problems humans have.

289
00:14:29,583 --> 00:14:34,152
We work on malaria, thanks to
Bill Gates, who asked us to work on it.

290
00:14:34,152 --> 00:14:36,863
This is how we used to solve malaria.

291
00:14:36,863 --> 00:14:39,070
This is a real ad from like the 40's.

292
00:14:39,070 --> 00:14:43,205
We eradicated malaria in the US
by spraying DDT everywhere.

293
00:14:44,455 --> 00:14:48,505
In the lab what we do is a lot of work
to try and understand the problem.

294
00:14:48,505 --> 00:14:53,658
This is a high-speed video,
we have a badass video camera,

295
00:14:53,658 --> 00:14:56,293
trying to learn how mosquitos fly.

296
00:14:56,293 --> 00:14:59,441
And you can see that
they're more like swimming in air.

297
00:14:59,441 --> 00:15:01,299
We actually have no idea how they fly.

298
00:15:01,299 --> 00:15:03,520
But we have a cool video camera so we -

299
00:15:03,520 --> 00:15:05,534
(Laughter)

300
00:15:05,534 --> 00:15:09,245
Yeah, it cost more than a Ferrari.

301
00:15:09,245 --> 00:15:12,395
Anyway we came up with some
ways to take care of mosquitos.

302
00:15:12,395 --> 00:15:14,807
Let's shoot them down with laser beams.

303
00:15:14,807 --> 00:15:19,318
This is what happens when you put
one of every kind of scientist in a room

304
00:15:19,318 --> 00:15:21,318
and a laser junky.

305
00:15:21,318 --> 00:15:25,237
So people thought it was funny at first,

306
00:15:25,237 --> 00:15:30,076
but we figured out, you know, we can
build this out of consumer electronics.

307
00:15:30,076 --> 00:15:33,390
It's using the CCD from a webcam,

308
00:15:33,390 --> 00:15:36,590
the laser from a Blu-ray burner,

309
00:15:36,590 --> 00:15:40,212
the laser galvo is from a laser printer.

310
00:15:40,212 --> 00:15:43,220
We do motion detection on a GPU processor

311
00:15:43,220 --> 00:15:45,414
like you might find in video game system.

312
00:15:45,414 --> 00:15:47,343
It's all stuff that follows Moore's law.

313
00:15:47,343 --> 00:15:50,228
So it's actually not going to
be that expensive to do it.

314
00:15:50,228 --> 00:15:52,466
The idea is that we would put

315
00:15:52,466 --> 00:15:56,317
a perimeter of these laser systems
around a building or a village

316
00:15:56,317 --> 00:15:59,507
and just shoot all the mosquitos
on their way in to feed on humans.

317
00:15:59,507 --> 00:16:02,800
And we might want to do that
for your backyard.

318
00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:04,763
We could also do it to protect crops.

319
00:16:04,763 --> 00:16:06,629
Our team is right now working on

320
00:16:06,629 --> 00:16:09,285
characterizing what they
need to do the same thing for

321
00:16:09,285 --> 00:16:12,899
the pest that has wiped out
about two thirds

322
00:16:12,899 --> 00:16:16,477
of the Orange groves in Florida.

323
00:16:18,102 --> 00:16:20,719
So people laughed at first.

324
00:16:20,719 --> 00:16:23,441
This is a video of our system working.

325
00:16:23,441 --> 00:16:26,119
We are tracking mosquitos live
as they fly around.

326
00:16:26,119 --> 00:16:28,622
Those crosshairs are put there
by our computer.

327
00:16:28,622 --> 00:16:30,483
It just watches them, finds them moving

328
00:16:30,483 --> 00:16:34,217
and then it aims a laser at them
to sample their wing beat frequency.

329
00:16:34,217 --> 00:16:37,424
Figure out from that, is this a mosquito?

330
00:16:37,424 --> 00:16:40,325
Is it Anopheles Stephensi?
Is it female?

331
00:16:40,325 --> 00:16:44,912
And if all that's true then
we shoot it down with lethal laser.

332
00:16:44,912 --> 00:16:46,981
(Laughter)

333
00:16:46,981 --> 00:16:48,753
So we have this working in a lab.

334
00:16:48,753 --> 00:16:51,879
We're working on taking
that project into the field now.

335
00:16:51,879 --> 00:16:56,425
All this happens at the Intellectual
Ventures Lab in Seattle where I work

336
00:16:56,425 --> 00:17:01,626
and we try and take on some
of the hardest problems that humans have.

337
00:17:01,626 --> 00:17:03,468
This is the money shot.

338
00:17:03,468 --> 00:17:06,731
You can see we just burned
his wing off with a UV laser.

339
00:17:06,731 --> 00:17:08,849
He's not coming back.

340
00:17:08,849 --> 00:17:12,072
(Applause)

341
00:17:12,072 --> 00:17:15,874
Kind of vaporized
his wing right there, yeah.

342
00:17:15,874 --> 00:17:18,636
They love it.
I mean, you know.

343
00:17:18,636 --> 00:17:20,769
Never got called by PETA or anyone else.

344
00:17:20,769 --> 00:17:23,226
I mean, it's the perfect enemy.

345
00:17:23,226 --> 00:17:26,379
There's just no one coming
to the rescue of mosquitos.

346
00:17:26,379 --> 00:17:29,660
Sometimes we overdo it.

347
00:17:29,660 --> 00:17:32,093
So anyway, I'm going to get off stage.

348
00:17:32,093 --> 00:17:35,141
This is the Intellectual Ventures Lab
where I work.

349
00:17:35,141 --> 00:17:37,835
Basically we use every kind of scientist

350
00:17:37,835 --> 00:17:42,185
and one of every tool in the world
to work on crazy invention projects.

351
00:17:42,185 --> 00:17:43,537
Thanks.

352
00:17:43,537 --> 00:17:45,285
(Applause)