PassWord – 8th July 2015

Speaker A: This program is brought to you by Resonance 104.4 FM. If you like what you hear and want to support our work, please make a donation at fundraiser.resonance.fm.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Password on Resonance FM with me, Peter Warren, the technology show that, like Reddit devotees, insists on showing you the warts of technology rather than the flashy face the industry would like you to see. In this week’s show, the frightening regulations that are coming to a computer near you, courtesy of the EU. Why Margaret Thatcher’s market is not working in the case of broadband, and why once again we should go back to the future and the robot opera singer that has been bringing down the curtain in Berlin. Now, in a week that has seen the release of the news that still over half of internet users go to the bank because they do not trust online services, at exactly the same time as banks announce they will launch the Apple Pay service that could actually eradicate the banks themselves, we turn to the new changes to EU data protection rules. And tell you why they will affect just about every one of us. I can hear your eyeballs glazing over already and the sound of fingers reaching for the dial, but hold it right there because the devil is now in the detail. And this might be the answer to the hackers and the super hacking gangs, 12 of which have netted fortunes in excess of £500 million in the last few years. Because the hackers, like Joseph Stalin, are the masters of detail and the mundane. Stalin got onto the most boring committees in Russia, but they also controlled the appointments to the most powerful committees. Hackers hack as many databases as they can so they can sell data to anyone who wants that data. It’s the term beloved of the intelligence agencies: asymmetric. Don’t go in by the front door. Instead, look for the backdoor key that’s hanging up in the shed, which is what the hackers do— break into lots of databases, collect passwords and as much personal information as possible, collate it, and then sell the data. Then if someone wants to break into a computer system to carry on the process, or because that system is of particular value to them, they collect data on the their target so that they can use it to break in. It’s called spear phishing. So the EU’s logic is to make everyone more data aware and the problem will go away. They are also trying to make us prune the data we hold. It can only be stored for a certain amount of time and only ever used for the purpose it was meant for. We found it applies to us here in the studio, and if you’re holding data, it applies to you, and the penalties can run into tens of thousands of pounds. Here’s Philip Rether, a data protection expert from the insurance giant Alliance. Pay attention, this could affect the pound in your pocket. Evening, details of our top story are still breaking. Word coming down late this afternoon of what sources are telling us is a massive Chinese hack of US government computers, perhaps on a scale never seen in this country before.

Speaker C: The target, the agency that handles government records, and warning millions of government employees that they should monitor their bank accounts and will get government help with credit reports, and identity theft insurance.

Speaker B: Officials also tell NBC News the data breach involved a never-before-seen cyber indicator and could potentially affect every federal agency. Philip, the EU is now proposing changes to the data protection law. Are those changes coming in? Are these very— what some people have said— very, very draconian changes going to be upon us soon?

Speaker D: I mean, you’re right in saying that there are changes on the horizon. Currently, we operate on a directive from ’95, which is quite outdated. It doesn’t reflect, you know, social media, you know, cloud computing, and therefore the EU thought of reforming that framework. The new thing is it’s going to be a a regulation, so when it comes into force, it will apply in the UK and other countries directly, so the current framework will go away. And the status is they’re still negotiating, but by end of the year they have a final draft, and then 2 years later it will come into force. Draconian, yes or no? You know, the technology faces many challenges and therefore it’s seen as draconian by some, but on the other hand, you know, it also enforces consumer rights and also makes certain processes easier for the businesses.

Speaker B: So what are those changes that we’re looking at?

Speaker D: Oh, there are quite a few. One is what businesses are really afraid of is new fines. Organizations can be fined up to €100 million. That has to be calculated in pounds obviously. So per violation, that’s very drastic fines. But also businesses need to strengthen their data protection investments, they have to appoint data protection officers. And last but not least, it comes with stronger consumer rights.

Speaker B: So when you say that, what, all businesses have to appoint a data protection officer?

Speaker D: That is a good question. It’s a bit open in the air. In the beginning of the drafts, they said a certain size, you know, depending on how many on how many data sets you process or depending how big your organization is. So that’s currently in the negotiation and we’ll see by end of the year. But, you know, even if the Data Protection Officer should not be mandatory, it’s always a good idea for an organization to appoint these to ensure data protection compliance.

Speaker B: And so what is data protection compliance? I mean, people are actually talking about what a lot of businesses would see as very, very onerous rules and regulations about the way that they control their data. Could you give us a few examples?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. That’s a good question. I mean, you know, as most areas of the law, it’s fairly complex. But, you know, what it boils down to is giving people a choice. What’s happening with their data. So clearly one understands that if you’re fulfilling a contract, you know, the businesses will process the data. But when it goes over and beyond that, you know, extended marketing use, profiling, automated decision-making, and so on, then the view of the new regulation is that can only happen with consent of the consumers. So as I say, much more choice, and at the same time, the businesses are expected to do a privacy by design. So whenever they have new products or do outsourcing and offshoring, they should build in a privacy assessment and making sure that, you know, the data protection rights of the individual consumers are respected.

Speaker B: So, I mean, basically what’s being said then is that if somebody collects my data, then they should tell me why they’re collecting that data, and they can only use that data for the purpose that I’ve said it is to be collected for, and after that it has to be destroyed.

Speaker D: That is right, yeah, and they’re telling about what’s happening. The regulator calls it transparency. So you have to have the right privacy policies, you know, inform people what you’re doing. And then you’re right in saying, you know, when the purpose is fulfilled, you know, the data should be deleted. However, in practice, you know, we may talk about long retention periods. If you think about an ongoing customer relationship, you know, so the data may be there with the businesses for a while. But if you think of other scenarios, you know, I apply for a job, I’m unsuccessful, you know, then there is no justification for the business to keep that data for a very long time. And as you rightly say, it has to be deleted.

Speaker B: But I mean, why are, why are the EU doing this? This is the sort of bureaucracy that many people in the UK have been complaining about from the EU. And it’s possibly one of the reasons why people are now pushing for a referendum. Surely it doesn’t make any difference at all if we hold all of these great big piles of data.

Speaker D: I mean, you know, this is really a right which goes down to civil rights, that you should really, you know, have the power to say what’s happening to your information. And I think the threat is now what we are seeing is really coming from technology and also from jurisdictions who have not that level of privacy. And I just want to remind you of the NSA affair, but then also, you know, many, you know, West Coast, US West Coast technology companies, you know, their business model is to keep as much information on us as possible. And, you know, just recently also Now, before the new regulations come into force, Google lost the case against a Spaniard and his name, he was a lawyer who went bankrupt 10 years ago, always came up when one Googled his name and that was actually very bad for the business and he said, for his business, he said, I’m now doing well but I don’t want to have my name associated with bankruptcy. And then the European Court has said, yes, it’s 10 years ago, your privacy rights really mean that Google has to delete that data. And therefore, I think it’s not really bureaucratic, it’s good information governance and also boils down to our own human rights, what’s happening with our private information as citizens.

Speaker B: Well, that was Dr. Philipp Räther of the German insurance company Allianz talking about the life of data and why it concerns us. Also highlighting one of the biggest issues of the high-tech world, that the language used needs to be brought into the mainstream. Now, Hillary Clinton tells us that the Chinese have given up betting on anything that moves, and that’s a Chinese joke before anyone writes in, and that they are now hacking anything that moves. Something they might find more difficult if more people got involved with the language of the future, and that’s code, not Chinese. There is now a widespread agreement among the people involved in the area that the language of computing is itself stopping people from becoming involved. We’re offering a prize for the worst example of computer speak with a witty translation, so send in your entries to pwontheradio@gmail.com. This is Password with Peter Warren on Resonance FM, and after us you can hear Kitchen Magic time. And if you are listening to the repeat, then it’s the Organ Presents the Other Rock Show. Now, we had a nightmare today trying to get the audio for Password to the studio because of connectivity issues, and that was in the middle of London. It’s a problem that we did not have in the good old days of regulated industries, according to Maury Rumney of Keysight, an expert on the communication systems that have become the bedrock of our modern lives. All eyes are on the Postmaster General, Major Tryon, as he prepares to inaugurate the latest development, the post office on wheels.

Speaker A: The mobile post office is yet another demonstration of the desire of the post office to render efficient service to the public. The difficulty of the public in getting to the post office will now be met by the post office going to the public. Well, I think the expectations for what 5G could be, which include things like much higher data rates, much higher data densities, more connections per square kilometer, lower energy, lower latency, higher reliability— these are all good things, there’s no doubt about that. The difficulty is How many of these can you have simultaneously? And at what price? And those are the big questions I think the industry has not yet got answers for.

Speaker B: Well, when you say at what price, I mean, we’re being told by the government that there is going to be 4G rolled out to 100% of the country. And that is an expectation that we should have. That doesn’t really seem to be happening.

Speaker A: Happening, is it?

Speaker B: We don’t even seem to be getting high-speed broadband to much of the country at the moment.

Speaker A: Well, I don’t think the government’s ever committed to 100% rollout of cellular. So I think what we see with cellular is very much a commercial-based rollout where the operators will deploy in areas where there’s an economically viable business case for doing so. And that, coupled with the regulatory regime, which at least in theory there is no national roaming between operators, so every operator has to go to every corner of the country in theory, means that the economic viability in rural areas is 3 or 4 times less than it would have been if we’d had even national roaming or single operator. So I think the consequence of that is rural coverage, even in smaller, reasonable-sized towns and cities, is not what it could be, just because of the economics.

Speaker B: But doesn’t that go to the nub of your argument? Your argument would appear to be, if there was regulation and said, this must work, then that economic issue would not be the precept that’s actually pushing who gets Wi-Fi and who doesn’t, or who gets coverage.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that the situation we have today is one that has created an enormous industry in terms of what it’s delivering, but it’s certainly not a ubiquitous industry. And if we look at some of the other technologies and industries that are ubiquitous, that have had government intervention, things like the National Grid, the Post Office, and the Post Office would obviously include the mail service, you know, pillar boxes and the telephone box kind of concept, those were services that were decided by central government were going to be ubiquitous. And the cost of delivery of that in terms of the user was decided as being equal. So it didn’t matter if you posted your letter in, you know, Outer Hebrides or whether you posted it in central London, it was still the same price and it still got there the next day with any luck. So that’s a decision made by government which created infrastructure for things that we think are valuable and increase the quality of life and social cohesion, et cetera. That hasn’t yet happened in telecommunications. It’s starting to happen in some ways with the wired infrastructure. There’s attempts to try and improve the performance of wired infrastructure, but the cellular side, the wireless side, is lagging in that respect. There aren’t yet any government initiatives that are creating the economic conditions that would allow operators to actually deploy in ways that might have been the case if we wind back the clock 50 years for what happened with the wired telephone system, for instance.

Speaker B: Are you basically then arguing against the idea that, you know, if you choose to live out in the middle of nowhere, then one of the prices that you pay for living in the middle of nowhere is not having any connectivity?

Speaker A: Well, there’s arguments for that. I mean, for people that don’t know where the off switch on their phone is, I guess maybe that helps them to make decisions if they want to live somewhere else. But if you think of the economic benefits of having reasonable infrastructure in, you know, mobile broadband, there’s huge gains there because it would allow people to work effectively outside of major centers. So the ability to telecommute with reasonable, you know, high-quality services would transform the way people potentially could live. And it’s an area I think that hasn’t really had a lot of support. There are certain companies that do support telecommuting, but generally speaking, this mentality that we all have to commute into central London in order to have a decent job, that really is not a healthy way to run your society, because the consequences in terms of pressure on services, house prices, etc., is such that it’s really not sustainable, and it’s creating these hotspots of of intense economic activity while other parts of the country are lagging behind. And so if we had some form of mobile broadband, you know, ubiquitous coverage policy, there would be an evening out in the way in which people manage their lives in terms of, you know, work-life balance, telecommuting, etc. And I think that would have an enormous impact on society.

Speaker B: It’s an interesting point, isn’t it? Because one of One of the things that’s actually driving up the cost of living in London is housing, is this unequal demand for housing, and unequal demand for housing in various different places. As you say, if you can work anywhere, then you can live anywhere.

Speaker A: Within reason, yes. There’s always benefits to going into the office, of course, but generally speaking, if you have a different way of thinking about telecommuting and treating it purely as a positive experience, then there’s very little you can’t do. I myself, I pretty much telecommute. I mean, I spend a lot of time traveling around standards committees, conferences, et cetera. I live 15 minutes from my office. I don’t go in very often because most of my time I’m working with people abroad, whatever. And so it’s not been a problem for me for the last, you know, 15, 20 years doing that. And I think that could potentially be the case in in many jobs.

Speaker B: Just as a final point, because I mean it’s interesting, isn’t it? We’re committing ourselves to spending billions on a high-speed train link. It would seem to be a much, much more intelligent thing to do to actually improve the telecommunication infrastructure so that everybody could work from anywhere and go faster than they would on a high-speed train.

Speaker A: Well, that’s an interesting observation, and I think absolutely. Certainly the way we spend money is something that could be thought more radically, and that’s an example, and it’s a very good one, I think. Yeah.

Speaker B: Let’s have a— Well, that was Maury Rumney appropriately speaking from a very echoey Arsenal Emirates Stadium, an institution that more than most has an interest in us having the best possible broadband because of its internet fan base. Next up, opera, but not as we know it. We all know that robots are making inroads into our lives, and there is some talk of them taking over from us. According to Oxford University, they will do a third of our jobs by 2024, while experts in artificial intelligence are predicting that by 2050 the game could be up for us as a superintelligence emerges. The topic for a conference in New York last week. But according to opera lovers, it’s not over until the fat lady sings. Which unfortunately could be soon, because developers from the Neurobotic Lab at Beuth University have built a robot that can learn to be an opera singer. The one-eyed humanoid, codenamed Mayon, has been performing at Berlin’s Comic Opera with the English company GobSquad, based in Nottingham, and they plan to bring it to the UK next. GobSquad’s version of the Greek tragedy Pygmalion is called My Square Lady. It’s played for laughs, although there is a serious technological experiment behind it. Password’s Jane Wyatt spoke to theatre critic Becca Jackson about why the opera didn’t quite work for her.

Speaker C: I mean, obviously it’s drawing on Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. Another opera that I think just ended its run in Berlin, and one that I didn’t see, is based on the creature of the golem from Jewish mythology. And so that’s also a case where this piece of malshapen clay becomes lifelike and starts to develop emotions.

Speaker B: But they also seem to almost throw everything in, you know, from Bizet to Robbie Williams. What did you make of that?

Speaker C: In this particular production, yeah, I mean, it does end up being this artistic aesthetic mishmash of things, but I think that’s also reflective that you have this big opera company with all of this thrust behind it with the sets and the costumes, and then you have Gob Squad, which works in a very different way. So I was game for all of the things they were throwing at us. Exactly how it all adds up, I’m still figuring out.

Speaker B: And probably you might be the wrong person to ask this, but is Muon really real in the sense of not remote controlled, no strings attached, programmed to respond in the way that he did respond, or was he programming himself? I’m calling him a he now.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, gender was an interesting thing. They said that from the beginning they’ve been referring to him as he, and maybe it’s that the word for robot is masculine in German, but I also think it does become the default to call something a he. I thought that one of the most interesting moments was when this kind of Muan double rolled out. And I had a moment of thinking, like, oh, is this Muun who’s been on stage with us, or which one is which? But then nothing happened with that one. So, but it was an image that stuck with me, this doubling. As far as what he was doing, I do think I believe that he had learned to do everything except the singing. That felt like it was fed in, and he was spitting it out. But the walking, they told me that somehow they taught him to walk over the past couple of years. That’s something he’s learned. So, but could this other Muon they brought out, this other Muon look-alike, did he have the same skills? I don’t know.

Speaker B: I sort of felt like he was the spare, the understudy.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but there was, I mean, there was the bit in the opera when they talked about How many parts can you replace and it’s still the same creature? And yeah, I mean, which pieces are fundamental to our identities and which pieces are peripheral? I suppose it’s a question for us and for robots. But if he’s real, no, I’m not the right person to ask.

Speaker B: What do you think? Oh no, I don’t think he’s real.

Speaker E: I think he’s a piece of theater.

Speaker B: I think he’s about as real as the cardboard robots played by the children. But it doesn’t matter in a way because he stands for something that’s interesting and troubling, isn’t it?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is a sense that a fair amount of it is running on novelty, and there is the question of how far can novelty carry it. But I think at least for an evening-length performance. Yeah, but it’s not— but I think it does go beyond pure novelty, even if that’s a big part of the draw.

Speaker B: Well, that was Jane Wyatt, our Berlin correspondent, at a performance of My Square Lady, in the original Greek tragedy. The sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with one of his statues, which then comes to life. Perhaps something of a portent for us and our obsession over creating life in our own image and then daring to think that we can improve upon ourselves. But it’s something that seems to be at the forefront of our minds at the moment with films like Chappie and Ex Machina, isn’t it, Melissa?

Speaker E: Um, yes, definitely.

Speaker B: So, I mean, there’s this TV series now at the moment called Humans, isn’t there? Have you been watching that?

Speaker E: Yeah, I’ve been watching it. I’m loving it at the moment. I think it’s the British drama that we need. It’s gritty and it’s real and it gives us something to look forward to when we get home.

Speaker B: But what do you, what do you think about the sort of the central, you know, idea behind it, you know, robots in our lives?

Speaker E: It’s really good. It shows the dark side and it shows the good side. So you have robots that help with health problems. So there’s a man with dementia on there. And there’s robots that are helping him with that. And then there’s one, and she’s a domestic robot. She helps with, like, cleaning and, like, looking after the children, which the mum actually gets quite jealous of, which I find quite funny.

Speaker B: It’s retreading an old idea there, though, isn’t it? I mean, the plot seems to be that of The Stepford Wife. She might be taking over.

Speaker E: Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. And she actually did in a way. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I won’t go into too much detail. But yeah, that happens. And then you get to see the dark side, and the daughter is actually a hacker. And she can hack into the robots, and she can get into their systems, and she can find out things.

Speaker B: But do you think that though, that this, I mean, it’s a bit like the piece that we’ve just heard about the opera singing robot, that these are just, you know, vehicles to talk about issues that we have, and that really this is just displacement. We’re talking about the fact that we can’t communicate with each other properly, so we use technology to do it.

Speaker E: Yeah, definitely. Especially texting, social media. You know, you go into the supermarket and you’re not even served by anyone anymore. You have to use like a self-service machine, which is quite ridiculous.

Speaker B: I mean, that’s a good point, isn’t it? Because I mean, it’s always puzzled me that why are we building things to make our lives more efficient when there’s so much unemployment around? What is your line on that?

Speaker E: I mean, in my opinion, I don’t think robots can replace human efficiency, and it shouldn’t have to, and there should be more jobs for people to do.

Speaker B: Well, that was Melissa, our in-house reporter. Well, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got time for. So if you’ve just tuned in, you’re listening to Password, and unfortunately you’ve missed it because that’s all for this week. Password is brought to you by Future Intelligence. You can find out more about the world of technology on our website futureintelligence.co.uk. Password is an Angel Media production. Goodbye.

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