PassWord – 6th January 2016

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Password on Resonance FM with me, Peter Warren, the show that brings you the latest twists and turns in our ever more technology-dominated world. In today’s show, the government is about to launch an online digital ID that will allow you to access all local and national services is online and lets the government know that you are who you say you are. Will it take off? There are signs of disaffection with technology emerging, and the latest research into Generation Z, those under 20 who are considered to be the most digitally aware of any of us, shows that they are going underground. As we know, Daesh, the organisation that likes to call itself the Islamic State, has been operating underground for a while using a network of recruiting websites and a sophisticated operation on social media. Last month, the US took out what they are calling the head of Daesh’s cyber operations in a drone strike. Many hailed this as the emergence of cyber terrorism.

Speaker B: Is it?

Speaker A: And finally, 2016 has been hailed as the year of the smart house and the smart city, but apparently it is all going to hinge around what was arguably the first symbol of technology and civilisation: the lamppost. Let there be light.

Speaker C: Light.

Speaker A: But first, it’s been a long time coming and there have been many incarnations, but with as many twists as a hunting weasel, the voluntary— and I stress voluntary— digital ID is about to be upon us. It’s been developed so that we can authenticate ourselves to the government online, so we can do tax returns, apply for road tax, etc. But if you don’t want to participate, you can still fill out the old forms in the old way down at the Post Office. Many are seeing it as a start of a slippery slope to an ID card based on your mobile phone, and we’ll be looking more into that later on in the year. But for now, here’s Paul Nadret, UK Managing Director of Morpho, one of the companies who will be offering to provide you with a digital ID via the government websites. So why is the government launching an online ID system?

Speaker D: It’s part of their digital program. So effectively, the government’s looking to bring more and more of their services online. But I guess the, the other side of that is being able to prove actually who we are before interacting with those services. So I think the, the whole point of Verify really is to provide assured identities so that the government know who they’re dealing with. And equally, I guess from our own point of view, that we can be assured that nobody is mimicking ourselves.

Speaker C: So how on earth are they going to do that? That sounds like an incredible job.

Speaker E: It is.

Speaker D: It’s been quite a challenge. So I guess on the one side, GDS are encouraging a very wide array of government services to use this sort of authentication process. That’s the service side of it. But in terms of identifying or assuring the identities, they basically contracted with 9 independent companies who each will provide this type of service and go through some very careful checking and processes which are stipulated by, by the government.

Speaker C: Sounds wonderful, but the first question everybody will say is, so how are you going to protect that? Because if somebody gets hold of that information, they could cause mayhem.

Speaker D: Yeah, so in our own instance, we’re using something called two-factor authentication. So typically, if you’re logging onto a website, you’ll have a username and a password. In addition to that, we are linking your digital identity to a mobile device, so either a tablet, smartphone, etc. Physically have to have that device with you to kind of make sure that it is only you who is physically logging onto that service. Clearly behind all of that we’ve got all the IT security that’s required. We’re getting audited by an organization called T-Scheme, and also we’ve got to prove that we have ISO 27001 capabilities as well. To kind of make sure that this information is secure.

Speaker C: I know a lot of people will say, hang on a minute, I mean, particularly given the fact that recent research shows that people of 20 and below are extremely suspicious now of anybody collecting information on them. Isn’t that going to be a bit of a deterrent if you’ve got people who say, hang on a minute, I don’t want to participate in a system in which information about me is somehow stored, or you may be able to get information about my behavior or my movements.

Speaker D: It’s a very valid point. This is not obligatory. So whilst I think it will be by far the most efficient and easy way for people to interact with government services, you’re not forced to do it. There will be other ways to interact with the government. So it’s not a case of you have to do this, otherwise you can’t get access to services. That’s not the case. And I think also, certainly from our own point of view, we’re providing a digital identity. We have no idea at all how you’re using that within the government services. So we as a company don’t know which services you’re accessing. From our own point of view as well, we’re not looking to market additional services to you based on, you know, your profile or anything like that. So, you know, we’re an organization that just has one goal, and that’s to provide a digital identity for you and to keep you secure.

Speaker C: A lot of people are saying that this next year, or this year coming, next few years, those are going to be the years when we see passwords dispensed with. That we’re going to see what’s called multi-factor authentication. So using lots and lots of different methods that combined create your identity. So it could be a fingerprint, it could be an iris print, and allied with other bits of information. What are your views on that?

Speaker D: I absolutely agree. I think we’ll start seeing multi-factor authentication coming along as it’s more and more important that we are our identities are secure, I think this ultimately is the only way that we’ll be able to do it. So I absolutely see that things like facial recognition, voice recognition, fingerprint technology will be ultimately part of the solution.

Speaker A: That was Paul Nadaret of Morpho on why our official ID is going digital. As we know, we are all digital now. Or are we? Research into Generation Z, the youngsters that are following on from the odious Generation Y, has found digital disenchantment among the under-20s. While Generation Y, the millennials, were the hipsters who all wanted to be famous and had to tell everyone about themselves online via social media, Generation Z are pulling back from being technology tell-tales, Twitterers and tell-alls. They are discreet, create covert groups among themselves, and according to the Office of National Statistics, are increasingly teetotal, perhaps put off by the scare stories of lives wrecked by imprudent photographs and ill-advised tweets like that of Justine Sacco, a communications director who tweeted that she was leaving on a flight to South Africa and hoped she would not get AIDS, and then added, ‘Just kidding, I’m white.’ By the time she had landed, she’d been sacked due to the Twitter storm she had generated. Here’s Tash Walker, head of the digital research company Mixed London, on the incredible caution of the group that some are dubbing Generation Zzzz.

Speaker F: Certainly what we can start to see from that is they’re not averse to technology, it’s part and parcel of their life, it’s like oxygen to them, but they certainly see the downsides of it. They’re relatively cautious when it comes to how and when they share information. As opposed to Millennials, probably the poster girl of the Millennials would be somebody like Kim Kardashian who famously said, “I’m not a celebrity, I just really like sharing things. For these guys, that would be absolutely abhorrent. They’re much more concerned with keeping information closer to home, having much smaller circles of friends online, sharing information in a way that kind of puts them less on display. So much less is going on in terms of their own opinions being broadcast. Pictures of them being taken out on raucous nights out just doesn’t happen anymore, because often as a result of that, you might get tagged. Somebody online might post something bad about you. You yourself might say something bad, and you can’t take any of that back. So controlling the information that goes on around them is super important. So if you’ve been ridiculed— I don’t know if you’re familiar with the site womenwhoeatontubes.com— this stuff can happen at any moment in your life, and you might not even be aware of some of the information that’s been posted about you. So they’re very cautious as a result of that, and they really try and mitigate some of that behaviour outside of their control.

Speaker C: So how do they do that? I mean, what are their preferred technological, I don’t know, sort of things? Is it something like Snapchat?

Speaker F: Yeah, Snapchat’s a really good example. WhatsApp probably is the most predominant platform that these guys are also using. There’s a whole host really, but the things that you notice about it is that predominantly text is not something they’re using a great deal of. So many more photos are being shared, many more videos, because again, words can be really easily pinned down and replicated, whereas pictures, it’s slightly less easy to really surmise what you were trying to say with that picture. So it’s a little bit vaguer. You can’t be— it says less about you essentially. So your photo and your face rarely appears. In those pictures. And what we start to see with the content is that the content is driven much less about their own opinions and much really more about sharing other people’s opinions. So if it’s another person’s photo, another person’s joke, pictures of your own food and drink, but predominantly it’s not your opinion and it’s not your face.

Speaker C: Okay, so you’re pulling back out of giving very much identification to the information except to people who understand it. So you’re talking to a very sort of esoteric group.

Speaker F: Yeah, absolutely. They’re people who are concerned about their image, but not probably in the same way that Millennials were. So again, Millennials tended to be far more egocentric, classically the ‘I want to be famous’ generation. For this group, Gen Z are far more the ‘I just want to fit in’ generation.

Speaker C: Okay, so what does that mean? I mean, one of the things that your research says is that traditional brands are going to be very popular. What does that mean?

Speaker F: Well, we’ve worked in brands for a long time, and I think one of the things that we’ve noticed for brands is that predominantly there’s been, over the last probably 2 to 3 years, a little bit of hysteria amongst brands that young independent niche brands— craft beer probably being a great example of that— are really going to come and take over the world, and that big brands are kind of the really bad guys in the world. Now, Actually, that’s probably reasonably true for millennials, that they have some probably good, well-founded reasons to be a little bit afraid. But for Gen Z, buying an independent craft beer is actually quite a risky exercise because you’ve got to have an opinion, you’ve got to go into a bar and ask for something that you’re not familiar with, and that makes you stand out. So anything that they can do to avoid that risk is really important to them, which is really where big brands fit in. So I think for us, the really interesting exercise here has been to understand that potentially Gen Z are a very attractive generation to big brands in a way that perhaps millennials just herald absolute fear for most traditional marketers.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker E: So, but does this then—

Speaker C: I mean, these are the people who rate Heinz as highly as they rate Google.

Speaker F: Yeah, absolutely. So these are people who in the top 100 youth brand index are absolutely rating things like Heinz baked beans. You really think about it, in a world where pretty much everything is terrifying to them, wouldn’t it be nice to come home and have Heinz baked beans and be reminded of your childhood and have that kind of comfort and nostalgia? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to take a break from that big bad world and simply be able to enjoy something which is relatively simple and you haven’t really had to think about too hard? I think it makes a lot of sense when you think about it in those terms.

Speaker C: There’s a mixture of stability or a search for stability and caution because they’re scared of this world.

Speaker F: A little bit, yeah. I think the world feels like a very big scary place to them. So despite the fact that the internet technology promotes this idea of opportunity for all, actually the flip side is that you can also see all of the downsides to it, I guess. So your ability to own a home has never been less secure. The age of people leaving home now has skyrocketed to something like 27 or 28 in this country. So that is a very real problem for them. The idea of how to get on in life has become much more challenging to them. So they’re much more realistic as a generation generation, their aspirations, probably in comparison to most youth generations, feels quite modest. But actually, I think if you talk to them in more depth, then you can see that they think they’re just being more realistic.

Speaker C: But I mean, a lot of people listening to this would say, well, they sound quite boring.

Speaker D: Is it—

Speaker C: I mean, is it— are they boring rather than cautious?

Speaker F: I think that’s an interesting question. I think often when you talk about Generation Z, some people call them Generation ZZZ, as in, yes, they are very boring. Potentially. I think probably you’re not going to see quite so much rebellion. And I think the interesting thing, if you look at youth culture around the world and rebellious youth culture groups around the world, the one that really stands out to me is Anonymous, and they don’t even use their own name. So that would be really indicative of this generation’s behavior to me. So I think for these guys, they don’t feel as though they’re being boring. I think they genuinely think that their aspirations are exciting and great. But I think probably in comparison to previous generations, we’re going to see less remarkable behavior and probably more conformist.

Speaker A: On slightly cheery digital disengagement of Generation Z, something that is beginning to worry the technology industry itself, as we pointed out on Password around 5 months ago when we reported that even that most august of organisations, the British Computer Society, had been warning the government about it. Now, something else that there has been much talk about is the emergence of the cyber terrorist. The UK Chancellor George Osborne said he was doubling the cybersecurity budget to $2 billion to protect against possible Daesh attacks on the critical national infrastructure—things like phone companies, utilities, hospitals, and the power grid. On December 10th last year, Siful Haqq Sujan was killed in a drone strike, a death the US hailed as the end of Daesh’s head of cyber operations, with many calling him a cyberterrorist. All quite worrying, but what is the reality? We asked Professor Andrew Jones, a military and cyber expert and author of Global Information Warfare.

Speaker B: Cyberterrorism? No. It’s an indication that they have the awareness and capability to use the internet and social networks that they have demonstrated for quite a while.

Speaker A: Okay, so what are we looking at? Who are the individuals? What’s happened?

Speaker B: There are two British nationals: Abu Hussein, who was killed about August last year, I believe. He reputedly headed up their cyber side with hacking and looking after their networks. And the one that’s just been reported is Sujan. Not a national, but a British resident came in from Bangladesh in 2003, I believe. But both of them English educated and with some computer credentials.

Speaker A: So what’s the significance then of this? Does it mean that ISIS are now actively looking for people? Do those people have that sort of competence?

Speaker B: We see lots of experts. Are they actively looking? I don’t know. But they are certainly using them when they find them.

Speaker A: And what are they using them for then?

Speaker B: Their social media sites, promoting their message, also using skills to generate funds for them.

Speaker A: So should we be worried about this? Is this the first signs of not only awareness of technology by— I mean, obviously they’ve been aware for a long time because they’ve got a very sophisticated social media operation. But is this the first dawning signs of a cyber war capability?

Speaker B: No, I don’t think it is. It’s a very big step from where they are to being able to launch attacks. Having said that, anybody can target somewhere, but it’s maintaining it and making it effective.

Speaker A: Okay, now, I mean, George Osborne said that one of the reasons why he was doubling the cybersecurity budget to £1.9 billion was because there were fears that there could be attacks on our critical national infrastructure from groups like ISIS. Is this the first sign of that?

Speaker B: There’s always the potential for an attack on the CNI, but the reality is maintaining that level of attack takes a level of resources and skills and knowledge, and I don’t think they’re there yet.

Speaker A: You say yet. Is it inevitable that this could happen? And if it does happen, then what are the sort of weapons that an ISIS cyberterrorist would be looking to gain?

Speaker B: As you would imagine, things like malicious software, malware, denial-of-service tools. The problem they have is maintaining it at a level where it actually affects things badly. Malware damaging the actual software or the data, possible. But I still come back to, if you want to terrorize, it’s the bullet and the bomb and the acts of brutality we’ve seen ISIS using.

Speaker A: You know, taking down a network does not cause terrorism, but it would do if you could black out an entire area. Well, could you not cause some sort of mayhem in that way, taking down a hospital, that sort of thing?

Speaker B: Hospitals have backup power systems and very well-tested routines. Not so many years back, 50 million people lost power in the US. Did anybody scream terrorism? No, they accepted it as what it was. But Dr.

Speaker A: Patricia Lewis at Chatham House about 5 months ago released a report saying that Chatham House was very, very worried about the potential vulnerability of nuclear power stations to a cyber attack. And should we be worried?

Speaker C: It’s—

Speaker E: I should—

Speaker B: I think we should always be concerned about the security and cybersecurity of nuclear power plants. But to the best of my knowledge, the control systems are still kept separate from the internet, and they have policies and procedures in place to make sure that that stays. However, people still make mistakes. We saw that in the centrifuges in Iran where someone made a mistake.

Speaker A: Professor Andrew Jones, so what’s the cyberattack that brought down the part of the BBC website that delivers iPlayer content? Terrorists? Criminals? Or an irritating 15-year-old showing off? That’s going to be part of the problem for the next few years. Well, we’re all getting a bit carried away with all of this technology. We’ve all become terribly tangled up in it without knowing how we even got there. And this year there is going to be a big push to take that even further as manufacturers aim to roll out driverless vehicles, the smart home, and the smart city. The giant US company General Electric recently launched a competition to see how light will be used in the smart cities. And one of the winners were students from Ravensbourne University who have developed a project to change the colour of driverless cars on the Greenwich Peninsula to show whether they are moving or not. Here’s Jeanette Carlsson, the head of New Media 2.0, a noted futurologist, on why light, the lamppost, and the mobile phone will be at the heart of the smart future.

Speaker E: There were two winning designs here, and one of them was, you know, in response to the brief submitted by the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, which was how can we use intelligent lighting or LED technology lighting to introduce driverless cars or autonomous vehicles on the Greenwich Peninsula, being one of 4 UK national test sites for autonomous vehicles. So, that was a really, really interesting design which suggested that cars could be lit up in red, amber, and green depending on whether they were stationary, about to move, or in motion. And then the whole idea of that brief is really to say, you know, we are looking seriously across the UK on how are we going to introduce driverless cars, but, but they in turn will change the dynamics of traffic and how people move and safety and so on, because people are not used to obviously seeing cars without drivers. So it’s going to change the dynamics of the road. Is there a way in which we could use lighting intelligently to help that introduction? And so the students that won that came up with a really interesting way to to light up cars enabled by LED technology to really alert pedestrians and cyclists and others to stationary, moving, or about to move vehicles. So, that was one winning design, very, very interesting. The other was to regenerate the Edgbaston Canal Tunnel area in Birmingham, which the councillor has been looking at to guard traffic away from the main roads, pedestrianised and cycling traffic, and increase the use of that tunnel area, which is a bit dark at the minute. So, the design that— the second winning design came up with some really interesting ways in which you could make the tunnel canal area much friendlier, and using lighting as a key part of that solution. And then there was a special award awarded to a student from the Glasgow School of Art who came up with a really interesting way to redesign the Glasgow Barrowland area. So, street design using lighting to light up benches in the high street, which was very, very interesting, triggered by people sitting on benches. So, again, a very, very novel idea, using lighting to make a little bit of a dreary area much friendlier and much more interesting. Right.

Speaker C: Now, I mean, obviously all very, very interesting ideas. One of the things about some of this though is, you know, there are going to be some security concerns out there. I know people bang on and on and on about this, but I mean, essentially what you’re doing is you’re giving away a lot of information about yourself. Presumably, the way that this will work is that that information isn’t stored anywhere. It’s just saying something is coming along and, you know, you can go here, go there. Yeah.

Speaker E: I mean, I think the whole data privacy issue, you know, is obviously a key one and will quite possibly be a concern to people so that they’re going to get photographed everywhere, you know, at worst through the lampposts and stuff. But I think, you know, if in terms of how the data is used, it has to be— there’s legislation around permission to use and so on and so forth. So I think, you know, that so long as councils that are using these and, you know, mobile phone operators that are sort of moving into that space as well, and mobile analytics companies and so on, you know, are using that on a kind of permission-based basis, then I think, you know, you have to sort of trust that that is not going to frighten people, but be useful to people hopefully in terms of the kinds of services that they are.

Speaker C: Well, yeah, that’s an interesting point, isn’t it, in terms of those permissions? Because if I were a blind person, seeing a car in green wouldn’t make any difference to me. But, so I’d quite like my smartphone to be sending out a signal saying, “Actually, I’m blind. If a driverless car comes near me, please can it make a noise?” Yeah.

Speaker E: Yeah, and absolutely. And that’s within reach, as you can imagine. That could be done in the same ways you’ve done pedestrianised crossings and stuff with the lighting and speech technology and so on. So absolutely, that could be done. But I think you’re right. It’s inevitable, as we see on social media and in other spheres now. I mean, the data privacy issue is very clearly there and is something that has to be thought about. Do you not think that there’s something a little dangerous about some of this though?

Speaker C: Because what we’re doing is we’re introducing this tremendous dependence on technology and what it can do for us. I mean, if I lose my mobile phone, then I might be walking down dark streets.

Speaker E: Indeed, absolutely.

Speaker A: Jeanette Carlsson of New Media 2.0. You’re listening to Password with me, Peter Warren, on Resonance 104.4 FM. And I’m afraid, if you’ve just joined us, you’ve missed it. But to find out more about the stories you’ve been hearing about, log on to our website: www.futureintelligence.co.uk. Password is produced by Tim Slipp.

Speaker C: Thanks for listening. Goodbye.