WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:07.000 This session of the 2013 Adelaide Festival of Ideas was recorded by Radio Adelaide, 2 00:00:07.020 --> 00:00:10.500 through the support of the Bar Smith Library, University of Adelaide, 3 00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:14.480 the University of South Australia Library and Flinders University Library. 4 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:18.140 Good morning everyone, my name's Bernard Keane. 5 00:00:18.840 --> 00:00:21.980 Welcome to the Adelaide Festival of Ideas and today's session, 6 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:24.520 Using and Abusing Our Technology. 7 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:28.180 First of all, I acknowledge that today we're gathered on the traditional country 8 00:00:28.180 --> 00:00:30.320 of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. 9 00:00:30.380 --> 00:00:34.560 We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationships with the land 10 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:38.360 and we acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today 11 00:00:38.360 --> 00:00:41.320 and we respect their elders, past and present. 12 00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:48.020 Now, you may have been expecting Sophie Black, the lovely Sophie Black, to be hosting today. 13 00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:55.420 Unfortunately, she's had to bow out, so you're stuck with me as the MC slash coordinator. 14 00:00:55.480 --> 00:00:57.000 It's a bit like the captain coach role. 15 00:00:57.060 --> 00:00:58.160 I don't know if AFL has captain. 16 00:00:58.180 --> 00:00:59.700 I don't know if they have captain coaches or whether they have those anymore, 17 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:02.200 but it's a bit of a rugby league thing. 18 00:01:03.460 --> 00:01:04.560 A little bit of housekeeping. 19 00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:10.380 Those of you who've already been to some sessions will be able to sort of rehearse this off by heart. 20 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:13.000 Please switch your mobile phone to silent. 21 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:15.280 You are welcome, of course, to tweet. 22 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:20.040 The handle and the hashtag is ADLFOI, 23 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:25.360 so feel free to tweet up a storm or even Instagram up a storm if that's your thing. 24 00:01:25.460 --> 00:01:27.300 And no unauthorised recording. 25 00:01:28.420 --> 00:01:34.280 The session is being recorded by Radio Adelaide for broadcast and future podcasts. 26 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:37.160 Okay. 27 00:01:37.240 --> 00:01:41.140 Well, to discuss the ever greater surveillance that technology is enabling, 28 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:44.840 I'm joined by two quite remarkable people. 29 00:01:45.220 --> 00:01:48.840 And have a look at the conference website if you want to see the full list of their achievements. 30 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.380 It's way too long to read out to you, 31 00:01:51.440 --> 00:01:55.940 but many of you, of course, will know Paul Davies from his time here in Adelaide in the 1990s. 32 00:01:56.160 --> 00:01:58.160 He's a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, 33 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:01.380 astrobiologist and, most importantly of all, best-selling author. 34 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:07.120 He is currently Regents Professor and Director at the Beyond Centre for Fundamental Concepts in Science 35 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:11.680 at Arizona State University, where he also directs a major cancer research program. 36 00:02:12.700 --> 00:02:18.580 Ryan Schmidt is a Laureate Fellow at the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory, 37 00:02:18.700 --> 00:02:19.980 which I can see from my house. 38 00:02:20.540 --> 00:02:27.500 He's been at the ANU since 1995, which means he's been a Canberran for exactly 12 months less than me. 39 00:02:28.100 --> 00:02:34.580 Among a long list of global awards, medals, prizes and fellowships that he's got is the, just inter alia, 40 00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:40.220 the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, which he won jointly with Adam Rees and Saul Perlmutter. 41 00:02:42.600 --> 00:02:47.840 Now, I want to start with a summary of what we've learnt in the last four months, 42 00:02:47.920 --> 00:02:50.340 courtesy of the revelations of the whistleblower, 43 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:55.660 Edward Snowden, and the debate that his revelations have prompted. 44 00:02:55.760 --> 00:02:56.260 So this is 45 00:02:56.260 --> 00:03:03.400 just a not necessarily comprehensive list of what we've found out in the last four months. 46 00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:12.780 Via the FBI, the National Security Agency of the United States, collects telecommunications metadata direct from phone companies in the United States. 47 00:03:12.860 --> 00:03:20.920 The NSA collects internet usage data from major internet providers like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Skype and Apple, 48 00:03:21.040 --> 00:03:22.520 and pays them for access. 49 00:03:22.600 --> 00:03:25.200 If you've used any of those products, your data has been 50 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:27.540 siphoned off by the NSA. 51 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:36.820 It compiles information from all those sources into a database that can be accessed without any authorization from within the agency. 52 00:03:37.420 --> 00:03:43.240 It compiles, we learnt this week, contact lists from popular email and mobile platforms. 53 00:03:43.620 --> 00:03:48.880 It has corrupted encryption standards and inserted backdoors into encryption products, 54 00:03:49.140 --> 00:03:53.320 including those used for commerce and financial transactions. 55 00:03:53.740 --> 00:03:55.180 It works with, you know, 56 00:03:55.200 --> 00:04:00.360 with anglophone agencies like our own Australian Signals Directorate to collect and distribute data. 57 00:04:01.600 --> 00:04:04.340 Its activities are ostensibly directed at terrorism. 58 00:04:05.300 --> 00:04:09.420 And in fact, it has explicitly denied that it engages in economic espionage. 59 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:15.040 But it spied on the embassies of the EU, India, Mexico, Greece and Turkey, 60 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:19.580 the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, Brazil's Petrobras oil company. 61 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:21.960 It spied on the Brazilian mining companies. 62 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:25.180 It spied on the United Nations media organization, Al Jazeera. 63 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:27.440 As well as India and China. 64 00:04:27.520 --> 00:04:32.820 It's also spied on Kim.com, the flamboyant target of the copyright industry. 65 00:04:34.380 --> 00:04:40.440 And most critically, we know that much of what the NSA has done is illegal, even under United States law. 66 00:04:41.020 --> 00:04:46.120 There have been thousands of breaches of US law in its programs, including according to its own audits. 67 00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:51.760 And the NSA admits its staff have stalked women using its facilities. 68 00:04:52.740 --> 00:04:55.180 The Director of National Intelligence has admitted that the NSA has used its facilities to 69 00:04:55.200 --> 00:04:55.280 to 70 00:04:55.280 --> 00:05:05.060 and I will give you a guess as to whether anyone has been charged in relation to any of that. 71 00:05:07.180 --> 00:05:13.600 And while this has been going on, the Obama administration has been engaged in an unprecedented attack on journalism and whistleblowers. 72 00:05:14.340 --> 00:05:18.720 US journalists have been subpoenaed and spied upon to track down whistleblowers. 73 00:05:18.960 --> 00:05:25.180 The Obama administration has used the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers seven times, which is more than all the 74 00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:27.440 previous US administrations put together. 75 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:29.960 That's going right back to George Washington. 76 00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:34.480 George is obviously a figure of derision, some in the audience. 77 00:05:35.940 --> 00:05:37.080 Quite like him. 78 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:46.560 The partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald was stopped by British authorities under UK anti-terrorism laws, detained and had his possessions taken from him. 79 00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:54.900 Journalist Barrett Brown, whose t-shirt you will see I am wearing, who revealed many links between the US government and the American cybersecurity industry. 80 00:05:54.900 --> 00:06:02.080 Remains in a Texas prison, facing charges totally more than 100 years, including for sharing a link. 81 00:06:02.520 --> 00:06:09.480 And the Guardian was forced to go through the ridiculous theatre of destroying computer devices at the demand of the UK government. 82 00:06:09.700 --> 00:06:11.020 So it all sounds pretty bleak. 83 00:06:11.440 --> 00:06:14.600 There is some good news though, or at least some less bad news. 84 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:21.500 The National Security Agency has expressed frustration that it has not been able to penetrate the Tor network. 85 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:24.880 A routing network that is not a good one. 86 00:06:24.880 --> 00:06:29.560 It enables anonymisation, even though it closely monitors traffic that comes out of Tor nodes. 87 00:06:30.280 --> 00:06:35.540 If it hasn't succeeded in convincing companies to give it a backdoor, it can't penetrate high-level encryption products. 88 00:06:36.460 --> 00:06:49.720 The author of the Patriot Act, under which nearly all of the NSA surveillance is now conducted, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, has introduced, or says he will soon introduce, a USA Freedom Act. 89 00:06:49.860 --> 00:06:52.540 And that USA Freedom, it's all one word as an acronym. 90 00:06:52.860 --> 00:06:54.860 You know how American congressmen, women like me, like to call it. 91 00:06:54.860 --> 00:06:55.720 We like to have acronyms. 92 00:06:55.880 --> 00:06:59.760 Well, he's cobbled together words to make up USA Freedom Act. 93 00:07:01.840 --> 00:07:05.380 That will dramatically curtail NSA surveillance on Americans. 94 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:07.920 Though not, of course, for the rest of us. 95 00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:17.560 The British Parliament's Intelligence Committee has now decided to conduct a semi-public hearing into mass surveillance by British agencies. 96 00:07:18.100 --> 00:07:23.120 And here in Australia, a push by the Gillard government to introduce mandatory data retention 97 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:24.840 was derailed by the government's 98 00:07:24.860 --> 00:07:42.480 own Parliamentary Intelligence Committee, which resisted pressure from intelligence agencies and refused to back a data retention regime under which every Australian's telephone and internet usage data would have been kept for two years so that a wide variety of agencies could go back and look at it. 99 00:07:43.900 --> 00:07:49.140 So, gentlemen, to open up the discussion, I mean, it seems to me that there are two factors at work here. 100 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:53.600 Most of us, whether we want to or not now, live a lot of our lives online. 101 00:07:53.740 --> 00:07:54.840 It doesn't matter if you have a computer. 102 00:07:54.860 --> 00:07:55.720 You haven't got a Facebook account. 103 00:07:55.860 --> 00:07:56.940 It doesn't matter if you're not on Twitter. 104 00:07:57.880 --> 00:07:59.340 You might do your banking online. 105 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:00.500 You might order products online. 106 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:03.560 We work online via email. 107 00:08:03.580 --> 00:08:10.080 Whether you want to or not, a lot more information about you is out there beyond your immediate control than in the pre-internet era. 108 00:08:10.660 --> 00:08:21.120 And the other aspect that's more recent, I guess, is that governments, the US government in particular, but other governments as well, have dedicated enough resources and enough technology and software 109 00:08:22.300 --> 00:08:24.840 so that the sheer volume of data on internet is not limited to the Internet. 110 00:08:24.840 --> 00:08:28.680 So, the Internet, the Internet itself, is no longer an impediment to surveillance. 111 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:36.480 They've got the capacity in terms of storage, in terms of computing power and software to find what they want in the ocean of data that's available. 112 00:08:37.680 --> 00:08:40.520 How does that sort of framing strike you both? 113 00:08:40.880 --> 00:08:42.900 A very fair summary, I think. 114 00:08:44.500 --> 00:08:45.020 Yes. 115 00:08:45.040 --> 00:08:51.880 So, I mean, we live in a new era where we have so much information out there. 116 00:08:51.880 --> 00:08:58.000 And I think we have concentrated, thanks to Snowden, on what the governments are doing with it. 117 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:14.920 But I think the problem is more pervasive than that because you don't actually have to have classified information or classified access to information with lots of computing power to figure out more than you might think about people. 118 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:20.780 Because we leave our little digital fingerprints everywhere we go in many open senses. 119 00:09:20.780 --> 00:09:30.580 And that means that governments can go at them, but individuals can go through and learn huge amounts of things about people now. 120 00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:33.580 And organized companies certainly will be able to do that. 121 00:09:33.800 --> 00:09:41.460 And in some sense, I think governments, we have the best chance of controlling because they ultimately are beholden to us. 122 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:50.220 But I think the problem we have is that that information, you know, normally we take refuge and solace in individual bits of information. 123 00:09:50.220 --> 00:09:50.760 Right. 124 00:09:50.780 --> 00:09:52.520 That are not connectable. 125 00:09:52.900 --> 00:09:54.160 But that's no longer true. 126 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:56.020 We can connect up all the little bits now. 127 00:09:56.840 --> 00:10:01.300 And in that sense, we lose our anonymity that we're used to having. 128 00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:03.240 And that's changed. 129 00:10:05.540 --> 00:10:09.940 Well, you neglected to say that this is also being recorded by the National Security Agency. 130 00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:14.040 Welcome to our ASIO and NSA friends. 131 00:10:16.180 --> 00:10:20.760 Everything I have learned about this subject since I started following it to a certain extent. 132 00:10:20.760 --> 00:10:22.920 Two or three years ago has alarmed me more. 133 00:10:23.180 --> 00:10:33.800 And the reason that I thought it was a good idea that we had a session like this is because Brown and I were at Google just after the Snowden news broke. 134 00:10:33.980 --> 00:10:40.540 And it was clear that Google were implicated very deeply in cooperating with the NSA. 135 00:10:41.100 --> 00:10:50.740 And they arranged a session like this with rather more people involved, including people at the sharp end of working with the National Security Agency. 136 00:10:50.740 --> 00:10:54.180 And that was very disturbing. 137 00:10:54.380 --> 00:11:04.100 But since then, I've been to a number of discussions involving people working for intelligence agencies or working on the technology that intelligence agencies use. 138 00:11:04.380 --> 00:11:08.060 And every time I ask a question, I get more and more alarmed. 139 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:10.460 In other words, that everybody is aware there's a problem. 140 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:13.900 The problem, I think, is far worse than you might imagine. 141 00:11:14.260 --> 00:11:20.720 And one whole area that you left out that people are going to be familiar with, it's particularly bad in the UK, is surveillance cameras. 142 00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:22.240 Offline surveillance. 143 00:11:22.680 --> 00:11:22.820 Right. 144 00:11:22.940 --> 00:11:30.700 And so you walk down a street in London and you're on 30 different surveillance records. 145 00:11:33.300 --> 00:11:37.200 And, of course, a lot of these things are driven by technology. 146 00:11:37.380 --> 00:11:43.860 But as cameras become smaller and smaller, they'll be less and less obtrusive. 147 00:11:44.340 --> 00:11:45.700 They'll be all around us. 148 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:49.800 Our whole environment will be and probably is to a certain extent already monitored. 149 00:11:50.180 --> 00:11:50.700 Right. 150 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:57.480 And you see this little gizmo you've got here, that little tiny little thing at the top, you haven't put tape over it. 151 00:11:57.680 --> 00:11:57.900 No. 152 00:11:58.180 --> 00:11:58.500 Right. 153 00:11:59.460 --> 00:12:02.800 Anybody can hack into that and look at you at any time. 154 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:04.540 I always have tape over mine. 155 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:06.520 I was at... 156 00:12:07.140 --> 00:12:08.920 I do too, by the way. 157 00:12:09.040 --> 00:12:12.160 Put a post-it note over your camera on your laptop. 158 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:13.980 It's good advice. 159 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:20.500 And at the Google meeting, the person who was working with the NSA, this was pointed out to him. 160 00:12:20.500 --> 00:12:22.100 As a joke. 161 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:23.960 And he said, well, I do that too. 162 00:12:25.880 --> 00:12:26.760 So that's... 163 00:12:26.760 --> 00:12:42.620 The point is that we can foresee a time in the not too distant future when there'll be so much embedded surveillance, a lot of it for our own convenience, that it will make Big Brother in 1984 seem like a Vickers tea party. 164 00:12:43.620 --> 00:12:50.480 And I think the point we probably both want to make is that we can worry about governments and regulations and reigning powers. 165 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:52.900 And we can worry about the 166 00:12:52.900 --> 00:13:19.880 And as you know, in the United States, it's given a pseudo legitimacy. 167 00:13:19.900 --> 00:13:20.460 And it's given a pseudo legitimacy. 168 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:27.680 Because if you're breaking the law, well, you change the law using a secret court that you don't tell anybody about. 169 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:29.700 And then they've got carte blanche. 170 00:13:30.540 --> 00:13:41.320 Because it is so easy to suck up information about people and to analyze it, to look at the metadata, to look for patterns, and to store it forever and ever. 171 00:13:41.380 --> 00:13:42.140 You can't delete. 172 00:13:42.380 --> 00:13:48.880 Anyone who thinks they can delete in the cloud or anything that's gone out into the Internet cannot be retrieved. 173 00:13:48.920 --> 00:13:49.600 It's there forever. 174 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:50.460 Search it. 175 00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:50.620 It's there forever. 176 00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:51.140 It's there forever. 177 00:13:51.140 --> 00:13:54.680 And the usual defense is, well, we live in a liberal democracy. 178 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:55.660 What are we worried about? 179 00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.900 We may not always live in a liberal democracy. 180 00:13:59.520 --> 00:14:07.140 And so the only hope I foresee, we may come onto that, is a fix at the level of the fundamental science. 181 00:14:07.300 --> 00:14:08.140 We can talk about that. 182 00:14:08.940 --> 00:14:15.880 This is bad for, you talked about meeting with Google, this is bad for Google and other American companies. 183 00:14:15.980 --> 00:14:20.460 My trust in Google and in Apple and all those companies that are in the cloud, I think, is very, very low. 184 00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:23.420 I think the trust that was listed has been seriously eroded. 185 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:25.720 I imagine the trust of most of their customers has been eroded. 186 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:29.440 They didn't have a choice about complying with those laws. 187 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:35.060 It's all very well for people to sit in Australia and say, well, you know, I'm not happy that Google has cooperated with the U.S. government. 188 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:35.680 Bad luck. 189 00:14:35.780 --> 00:14:37.740 They were required to and required to keep it secret. 190 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:41.180 But nonetheless, I think Edward Snowden has made this point quite correctly. 191 00:14:41.280 --> 00:14:50.000 This is highly erosive of the business models of these companies because if customers don't trust you with their data, they're not going to use your product. 192 00:14:50.000 --> 00:15:00.560 We saw this briefly with a sudden switch to DuckDuckGo, which is another search engine which doesn't store your records after the Snowden revelations. 193 00:15:00.580 --> 00:15:11.400 It's a tiny example of the erosion of trust, which is ultimately highly dangerous for a company like Google that relies on their customers trusting them to keep their information safe. 194 00:15:11.780 --> 00:15:12.360 Absolutely. 195 00:15:12.680 --> 00:15:19.980 So when we visited Google, it became very clear that Google considers this to be probably among the biggest problems. 196 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:22.440 It's one of the biggest threats to their business that they have. 197 00:15:22.800 --> 00:15:25.780 And they are already thinking about how to deal with it. 198 00:15:25.880 --> 00:15:37.440 And it's pretty clear, and I would be surprised if this didn't happen, that Google would not start essentially breaking off fully independent subsidiaries in countries like Australia, 199 00:15:37.660 --> 00:15:49.720 which would then be subject to Australian law or to Dutch law or to English law so that they can guarantee to Australians that, you know, you are at least protected by your own laws, not by our own. 200 00:15:49.740 --> 00:15:49.980 Because they're not going to be able to do that. 201 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:50.180 And that's a big problem. 202 00:15:50.180 --> 00:15:56.380 And that's a big problem because as we talk about, Google, most of the business that Google does now is not the U.S. 203 00:15:56.540 --> 00:15:57.880 It's everyone in the world. 204 00:15:58.100 --> 00:16:05.160 And so while the U.S. is trying to get some transparency for U.S. citizens, the transparency for you is zero. 205 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.680 There is pretty much no place they cannot go right now. 206 00:16:08.880 --> 00:16:11.060 And that hasn't even been discussed within the U.S. 207 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:19.980 And I think the problem Google has is they realize that that will allow competitors to come in and essentially take over the business. 208 00:16:21.180 --> 00:16:25.320 And so they will deal with this. 209 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:31.300 It doesn't mean we still don't have a problem because the information will still be siphoned up by various agencies. 210 00:16:31.480 --> 00:16:33.700 But that's how I see Google will deal with it. 211 00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:40.540 And Google truly believes that they need to have your trust to operate. 212 00:16:40.760 --> 00:16:41.780 And I think they want it. 213 00:16:41.920 --> 00:16:45.840 And I think they were not happy about having to comply with the NSA. 214 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:49.960 And, you know, when they say they could have come out, which means that, you know, we're not going to be able to do anything about it. 215 00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:54.680 You know, Larry Wall and Sergey Brin would have been put in jail and probably had treason charges put against them. 216 00:16:54.780 --> 00:16:56.400 That was sort of their opportunity. 217 00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:58.020 They could have done a Snowden. 218 00:16:58.120 --> 00:17:01.200 But, you know, that's sort of their choice not to comply. 219 00:17:02.220 --> 00:17:04.940 Paul mentioned the offline surveillance. 220 00:17:05.220 --> 00:17:06.920 I mean, there's not just CCTV. 221 00:17:07.360 --> 00:17:10.660 There's number plate recognition technology as standard now. 222 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:14.660 There's drone surveillance is an easy option. 223 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:15.760 Face recognition. 224 00:17:16.140 --> 00:17:16.720 Face recognition. 225 00:17:17.060 --> 00:17:19.860 And also the latest is going to be AnyTouch. 226 00:17:19.860 --> 00:17:19.940 AnyTouch. 227 00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:21.420 It's a touchscreen that can take your fingerprint. 228 00:17:23.280 --> 00:17:26.840 So every time you go to the bank, well, there's already surveillance. 229 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:30.880 But touching almost anything, the technology will be there. 230 00:17:31.020 --> 00:17:33.960 And this is where you think you're okay. 231 00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:36.340 Because, you know, face recognition software, it's not brilliant. 232 00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:41.500 But if you walk out here, wherever you're going tonight, you'll be on 50 different screens. 233 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:45.020 And they only have to get it right 10 times out of the 50. 234 00:17:45.320 --> 00:17:47.560 And they know exactly where you've gone and what you've done. 235 00:17:47.560 --> 00:17:50.660 and that's fine if we have a benevolent government 236 00:17:50.660 --> 00:17:52.940 but if it's not benevolent 237 00:17:52.940 --> 00:17:55.900 or if it's not a benevolent agency that's doing it 238 00:17:55.900 --> 00:17:57.420 it can be used to do 239 00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:02.080 well, to completely have control over whatever it wants 240 00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:02.820 that's the danger 241 00:18:02.820 --> 00:18:05.400 Right, the point that was put to me actually at Google 242 00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:08.160 by people as part of this program 243 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:10.940 is that the danger is 244 00:18:10.940 --> 00:18:15.080 if the authorities want to trump up some sort of charge 245 00:18:15.080 --> 00:18:17.620 where you might technically be in breach of the law 246 00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:22.120 but, you know, it would be a relatively minor matter 247 00:18:22.700 --> 00:18:25.180 they've got the ability to do that at any time 248 00:18:25.180 --> 00:18:27.360 and what he was quoting is a very simple example 249 00:18:27.360 --> 00:18:28.420 it wouldn't be that serious 250 00:18:28.420 --> 00:18:30.760 but because you're on all these cameras as you drive 251 00:18:30.760 --> 00:18:32.020 and they've got all the numbers 252 00:18:32.020 --> 00:18:33.200 they can figure out 253 00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.360 well, you must have been speeding between there and there 254 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:38.200 because they've got the times as well 255 00:18:38.980 --> 00:18:41.640 that way of stitching somebody up 256 00:18:42.360 --> 00:18:45.060 is going to become ever more violent 257 00:18:45.080 --> 00:18:46.480 and vulnerable to that possibility 258 00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:49.700 and if you think about what happens 259 00:18:50.360 --> 00:18:51.560 say in the former Soviet Union 260 00:18:51.560 --> 00:18:55.580 or many countries which have shaky democracies 261 00:18:55.580 --> 00:18:57.820 if they want to get somebody who's a political opponent 262 00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:01.480 they're usually charged with tax fraud or something like that 263 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.840 everybody is a tax cheat in some technical sense 264 00:19:06.420 --> 00:19:07.980 there's just no possibility of complying 265 00:19:07.980 --> 00:19:09.040 with all of the tax laws 266 00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:10.260 they want to get you 267 00:19:10.260 --> 00:19:12.600 they've got all that sort of information 268 00:19:12.600 --> 00:19:14.980 and so the more that is gathered 269 00:19:14.980 --> 00:19:15.440 on people 270 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:16.940 the more opportunity there is 271 00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:18.340 maybe in 20 years time 272 00:19:18.340 --> 00:19:19.900 to go back and say 273 00:19:19.900 --> 00:19:22.840 right, well, I don't like what you're saying about the government 274 00:19:22.840 --> 00:19:25.280 we'll lock you up because you broke this, that law 275 00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:26.020 and the other law 276 00:19:26.600 --> 00:19:30.860 and so I see that as another big danger area 277 00:19:30.860 --> 00:19:32.400 and it's not just governments and companies 278 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:33.460 of course it's all of us 279 00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:35.240 because we've all got smartphones 280 00:19:35.240 --> 00:19:36.340 that have cameras on them 281 00:19:36.780 --> 00:19:39.180 so we're all, in a sense, we're part of the panopticon 282 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:40.900 we see something happening 283 00:19:40.900 --> 00:19:42.440 it might be good that it's filmed 284 00:19:42.440 --> 00:19:44.320 we might see a policeman assaulting someone 285 00:19:44.320 --> 00:19:44.960 and we're all in a sense 286 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:45.920 we're all standing there filming it 287 00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:48.820 and the police, at least in Australia 288 00:19:48.820 --> 00:19:50.340 have now started to work out 289 00:19:50.340 --> 00:19:53.140 that they may well be filmed 290 00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:54.720 they do not have the right to go and ask people 291 00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:56.000 to stop filming 292 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:56.980 although some may try 293 00:19:56.980 --> 00:19:58.360 it's quite different in the United States of course 294 00:19:58.360 --> 00:19:59.420 where the police still routinely 295 00:19:59.420 --> 00:20:00.780 right across different jurisdictions 296 00:20:00.780 --> 00:20:03.060 will try and stop people from filming them 297 00:20:03.060 --> 00:20:04.020 but in Australia at least 298 00:20:04.020 --> 00:20:05.520 police forces have worked out 299 00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:07.460 that they are in the panopticon themselves 300 00:20:08.540 --> 00:20:11.200 but it's not just smartphone technology of course 301 00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:14.440 Google is busily working on Google Glass 302 00:20:14.440 --> 00:20:14.880 right? 303 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:16.020 I think Google Glass is now 304 00:20:16.020 --> 00:20:18.920 is the first stage 305 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:20.340 they're now moving on to the next stage 306 00:20:20.340 --> 00:20:22.220 there were people wearing those things 307 00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:24.520 I had someone show it to me 308 00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:26.200 and I had to walk off to a session 309 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:27.440 it turned out to be Sergey Brin 310 00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:28.860 who was trying to show me Google Glass 311 00:20:28.860 --> 00:20:30.420 I walked away from him 312 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:32.020 I was like, that may have been a mistake 313 00:20:32.020 --> 00:20:34.500 nice to meet you Sergey 314 00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:37.640 well once 315 00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:38.540 so 316 00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:42.700 Google Glass and then wearable 317 00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:44.080 computers with 318 00:20:44.080 --> 00:20:45.600 with cameras 319 00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:47.640 with suitable software of course 320 00:20:47.640 --> 00:20:50.440 is a perfect surveillance device 321 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:52.520 because you can look at anyone 322 00:20:52.520 --> 00:20:53.980 and identify who they are 323 00:20:53.980 --> 00:20:55.520 and call up all sorts of information 324 00:20:55.520 --> 00:20:57.580 seems to be a wonderful law enforcement tool 325 00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.140 for your average policeman walking the beat 326 00:21:00.820 --> 00:21:02.860 but we recently had a lecturer 327 00:21:02.860 --> 00:21:04.040 at Arizona State University 328 00:21:04.600 --> 00:21:05.380 from David Brin 329 00:21:05.380 --> 00:21:06.480 a science fiction writer 330 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:07.620 who foretold a time 331 00:21:07.620 --> 00:21:08.900 in the not too distant future 332 00:21:08.900 --> 00:21:10.440 when you would be walking down the street 333 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:12.300 and literally at the press of a button 334 00:21:12.840 --> 00:21:14.060 you get the full bio data 335 00:21:14.060 --> 00:21:14.580 who ever 336 00:21:14.580 --> 00:21:16.700 the people around you 337 00:21:16.700 --> 00:21:17.820 including you know 338 00:21:17.820 --> 00:21:19.780 you could get even their medical records 339 00:21:19.780 --> 00:21:23.440 because that is one big area of concern 340 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:26.720 is that you think your medical records are safe 341 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:28.200 they're clearly not 342 00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:30.900 because the NSA for example 343 00:21:30.900 --> 00:21:32.080 has broken the encryption 344 00:21:32.080 --> 00:21:34.180 that is normally used for those 345 00:21:34.860 --> 00:21:36.080 and my feeling is that 346 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:41.260 because that if any organization has access 347 00:21:42.060 --> 00:21:43.060 they can always be hacked 348 00:21:44.060 --> 00:21:45.960 and it's not just the NSA 349 00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:47.420 it might be the mafia 350 00:21:47.420 --> 00:21:49.500 or it might be a foreign government 351 00:21:49.500 --> 00:21:51.380 they can get access to that data 352 00:21:51.380 --> 00:21:53.100 get access to medical records 353 00:21:53.100 --> 00:21:55.820 then it opens up the possibility 354 00:21:56.500 --> 00:21:58.820 that people will be denied medical insurance 355 00:21:59.460 --> 00:22:00.620 because of pre-existing conditions 356 00:22:01.260 --> 00:22:02.080 all those sorts of things 357 00:22:02.080 --> 00:22:03.500 if that data isn't confidential 358 00:22:03.500 --> 00:22:06.120 and if you dilute encryption standards 359 00:22:06.800 --> 00:22:07.920 then it affects everyone 360 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:09.340 I mean we all rely on having 361 00:22:09.940 --> 00:22:11.280 you know our financial system 362 00:22:11.280 --> 00:22:14.040 relies on having effective encryption for data 363 00:22:14.040 --> 00:22:14.300 and so if you have a lot of transactions 364 00:22:14.300 --> 00:22:16.720 if the NSA has diluted 365 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:17.200 which it has 366 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:19.060 diluted the quality of encryption standards 367 00:22:19.060 --> 00:22:21.140 then ultimately we all suffer 368 00:22:21.140 --> 00:22:22.200 it makes it easier for criminals 369 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:23.720 yeah so it's certainly 370 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:25.980 you don't want to have diluted encryption standards 371 00:22:25.980 --> 00:22:27.600 because if someone can figure out 372 00:22:27.600 --> 00:22:28.600 everyone can figure out 373 00:22:28.600 --> 00:22:31.100 and so one of the recent claims 374 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:34.060 is that the standard RSA 375 00:22:34.060 --> 00:22:36.020 which is what most of us would use 376 00:22:36.020 --> 00:22:36.900 when we encrypt things 377 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:42.500 has had a very clever backdoor put into it 378 00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:44.020 where it may well be that it's not 379 00:22:44.040 --> 00:22:46.080 it may well be that you can solve 380 00:22:46.080 --> 00:22:48.080 for the encryption faster 381 00:22:48.080 --> 00:22:49.740 than you otherwise would be 382 00:22:49.740 --> 00:22:51.540 through some mathematical technique 383 00:22:51.540 --> 00:22:54.680 which is you know that the NSA knows 384 00:22:54.680 --> 00:22:55.560 I would still say 385 00:22:55.560 --> 00:22:57.480 there's a lot of speculation 386 00:22:57.480 --> 00:22:58.940 because of the lack of transparency 387 00:22:58.940 --> 00:22:59.940 of what's going on 388 00:22:59.940 --> 00:23:02.260 and it's not completely clear to me 389 00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:04.560 you know how deep the crack is 390 00:23:04.560 --> 00:23:07.080 if you read at it in detail 391 00:23:07.080 --> 00:23:09.840 and how you know how pervasive it is 392 00:23:11.040 --> 00:23:12.500 but technology will change that 393 00:23:12.500 --> 00:23:15.280 and you know we can easily do one tiny click 394 00:23:15.280 --> 00:23:18.920 and their ability to hack in 395 00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:20.140 will no longer be there 396 00:23:20.140 --> 00:23:22.880 so we do have the ability to make encryption 397 00:23:23.480 --> 00:23:25.500 very very hard to break 398 00:23:26.360 --> 00:23:28.920 but you cannot guarantee into the future 399 00:23:29.520 --> 00:23:30.820 that some break 400 00:23:30.820 --> 00:23:33.420 some new discovery won't allow it to be broken 401 00:23:33.420 --> 00:23:34.900