PassWord – 13th January 2016

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Password on Resonance 104.4 FM with me, Peter Warren. The program all about the disruption that technology is causing in our modern world. In today’s show, a leading cyber war expert argues that the next conflicts will not involve hacking outrages, but instead will be sophisticated information wars that will spread doubt and uncertainty. Why the millennials of Generation Y are are starting working and living together, and how the creeping doubts of Generation Z, the under-20-somethings, could be provoking changes in the social media that we both love and hate. How the latest cancer treatments from Russia involve programmable nanoparticles that aim to correct malignant cells, and the strangely anonymous virtual private network technology that allows you to port to any country in the world without anyone dogging your tracks. But first, Hollywood famously likes a film that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax, and so has fallen in love with the hackers who it’s claimed can crash power grids and bring down countries. But according to Professor Kenneth Gear, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an ambassador for the NATO Cyber Centre in Estonia, and the author of Strategic Cyber Security, The conflicts of the future are more likely to be fought out with social media. According to Professor Gear, the battles are already going on in the database and Twitter.

Speaker B: I cannot imagine that there haven’t been numerous cases that have gone unreported of manipulating databases to allow spies to travel.

Speaker C: But that’s—

Speaker B: so what I’m saying is maybe tactical successes, you know, that again, they may not appear anywhere near like how Hollywood would imagine a cyber attack, but digital sort of operations would play a role in day-to-day operations. I would think that human intelligence would be doing signals intelligence, even political dialogue, let’s say, as with the Ukraine-Russia operation. As I was saying, one of our chapters, they’ve got examples of, you know, Facebook and other social media of fake accounts basically just pushing a pro-Putin, for example, agenda in Odessa. And I’m not saying that it doesn’t look anything like a Hollywood-style cyberattack. But in fact, if you think about it and you analyze it, it’s probably the case that it’s an intelligence agency that has been tasked with manipulating the information space of another country. It’s probably the best explanation.

Speaker D: Okay, so if you’re going to do that, what you’re saying is this is a conflict, a cyber conflict is going to be an information war. So how do you manipulate public opinion using social media? What sort of things do you do?

Speaker B: Well, I think you’d be creative. So I did one paper with a really smart guy, you know, to the US Census database. So he wrote this program that did things like this. It would go and it would pull down names and then it would just, it would slice off the ones that were too rare or too common and just look, be looking for this middle portion of common names but that are hard to, you know, something like John Smith. And then certain kinds of images, certain kinds of jobs and hobbies and favorite movies and books, and then it would create a little profile for this person, and then it would try and create social media accounts for them automatically. So the program was basically trying to build a really quick social media botnet army. And then he was looking at how would you use it to manipulate an election, and when would you do it to manipulate an election. You know, we did this for a research paper, just trying to figure out, you know, how you could write a program Even if you were just like one guy with the idea to influence an election one way or another, how many bots would you need or social media accounts? What kinds of things would you say in support of your candidate and how long before the election? The idea in the paper, we were saying, well, if it’s a really tight election, too close to call, perhaps you could influence it through your program that would create thousands of these fake personalities online, but that are just arguing on your behalf and sort of also denigrating the, uh, the adversary candidate. Basically, I think people are vulnerable to information and bring up salacious details of a supposed affair in the United States or something, you know, where that’s viewed negatively. You’d have to know the context, know a lot about the culture in which you’re trying to affect as well. These tools are really powerful. So if you master them, even if you’re Obama, you know, when Obama, I guess, won the first election, it was suggested that his team was really much better at using the web than whoever was the Republican candidate at the time.

Speaker D: I mean, one of the things that you’ve said is that every domain has a cyber dimension.

Speaker A: What did you mean by that?

Speaker B: Yeah, there’s been no spectacular cyberattack in Ukraine. There were examples of a little bit of everything. And so unlike in Estonia, perhaps, where it was just this large distributed denial of service attack in 2007. I think you could see probably in politics, in diplomacy, in economics, and in military, in civilian or social media discussion, there’s just a huge cyber element. But even if you look at that, the fact that information technology and social media allows for this information sharing and analysis or peer review or whatever you want to call it of real-time events. It’s amazing to think that what’s happening today, and one of the cases was in the Russo-Chechen War in the ’90s or the Kosovo conflict, you could already see that one of the huge differences between the internet and everything else before it, you can actually talk back. So somebody on the ground in Kosovo or Belgrade or something could immediately contradict what the authorities were saying, whether it was their own authorities or somebody, say, another world leader. With digital media, you know, a digital camera, digital images, these can be copied a million times over at virtually no cost. And if you look at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, it’s a digital camera plus the World Wide Web. Probably did more damage to US foreign policy than every hack in history. Just the images of the Abu Ghraib prison. But it’s information technology, it’s how you use it, how you employ it, is so critical. And maybe there’s no hack at all involved.

Speaker A: Professor Gear on the battle for hearts and minds in the internet. And in news just in, one of the hacking groups attacking databases by locking businesses out of them by encrypting them DD4BC has been taken down by Europol. Now, in our wonderfully distributed world, we have all got used to living remotely, but the new trend to hit London for the digitalati is co-living and co-working. A number of companies are already offering hip hot-desking environments for the high-tech startups that UK Prime Minister David Cameron says will be the future of our economy. Now, in a bid to cope with London’s high house prices, the techpreneurs will all be living together. It’s the ultimate expression of the Google generation. Beanbags, table tennis, table football, art, and computer camaraderie, where the bright come together to share everything from ideas to the gym. All very Silicon Valley. Here’s James Scott, the Chief Operating Officer of The Collective, to tell us why he thinks a glorified university dormitory is the future.

Speaker E: Yeah, so there are a few different models of coworking. There’s sort of a hot— is a drop-in membership where, you know, it’s essentially trying to put structure around the fact that a lot of people will go into Starbucks, grab a coffee, and work out of there. It’s giving them a more focused environment in which to work, a better community of people, and a more defined community of people. That’s sort of the entry level to coworking. But then there are sort of people that are going to be spending more time there, or a fixed desk model where they have a dedicated space within a larger coworking environment. And also, working spaces also have smaller private offices on that same flexible model with access to that community for, you know, a team of 3, 4, 5 people.

Speaker C: So what are the benefits then of working with all of these different businesses?

Speaker E: I think there’s quite a few benefits, which is why it’s been so successful, I think. Firstly, it’s going to help you be more successful in growing your business, whether that’s because you’re surrounded by other like-minded individuals who are doing similar things to you. If you are surrounded by other people who are entrepreneurial, who are creative, who are starting their business, they’re going to be far more supportive in the trials and tribulations and the issues that you have when you’re growing your business. I also think a lot of coworking space give access to information and equipment that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to get. Imagine if you were a freelance creative person and you want to, say, use a 3D printer. You may not be able to afford that for yourself, but you may well choose to go into a coworking space where there’s this equipment shared and you have access to that. So the principle of the shared economy being applied to a workspace is facilitating people and giving people access to things that they wouldn’t have otherwise had.

Speaker C: Okay, so what sort of people are doing this? Is this essentially Shoreditch comes to King’s Cross and Acton? Where I think you’re about to be launching a shared living space. Is it, is it all of those people with beards who are involved in technology and startups?

Speaker E: I think traditionally it was, but I think the coworking space has matured significantly. Of course, you get that type of person, you get the fixie bike riding, beard wearing, coffee drinking, Shoreditch guy. But I think actually what we’re seeing is there are incredibly broad demographics.

Speaker C: How much does it cost?

Speaker E: I mean, we’ve got a space in Russell Square where access to a desk is £195 a month. So, yes, it’s affordable.

Speaker C: Okay. BT came out with a paper in 2000 where it was talking about a concept which it had called Smart City, which wasn’t a city run on sensors and lampposts and off your mobile phone. They were talking about there being great advantages to having groups of intelligent people together in one in one place that they could all spark off each other, generate ideas, generate new businesses, et cetera, et cetera. They were listing places like Martlesham Heath where there’s lots of people at their research center, Cambridge, Oxford, and Edinburgh and other places around the UK and saying that there was real value in that just because not only were they places of scientific endeavor, but they were also places where you had lots of artistic activity. Is this the sort of world that you’re looking to build?

Speaker E: Yeah, I think they’re great precedents. I think places like San Francisco are also great precedents. I think if you put like-minded individuals together, you get creativity, you get ideas, and that’s ultimately important to growing your business.

Speaker C: So is one of the points of this though as well that all of these new startup businesses need to be in an environment where they all encourage each other?

Speaker E: Yeah, I think that’s a proven model. I think it also it kind of works both ways. So the startup businesses want to be together because that’s going to help them grow their business, and then that becomes the natural feeding ground of a venture capitalist who’s looking for startup businesses to invest in. So therefore, more businesses want to be surrounded by and in the environments where the money’s looking.

Speaker C: A critic of this would say, this is all very elitist. You’re just building dormitories for universities, and people will never leave the university. They’re going to be in it for life, and they won’t mix with normal people.

Speaker E: I think ultimately what the— whether it’s co-living or co-working, one of the things they do is allow for such great flexibility, and in fact they’re actually empowering people to be able to spend more time doing, you know, getting experiences, getting out there, meeting their consumer, seeing different things, experiencing the world.

Speaker A: James Scott of The Collective on the new lifestyle living choices of the hipsters. But how long will it last? In the new world of permanent disruption, there are signs of internet fatigue. For how long will we stay glued to our phones? According to Professor Nada Kakabadse, Professor of Policy, Government and Ethics at the Henley Business School and Head of the Department of Marketing, the future will see the world of social media begin to break up as the very conservative Generation Z begins to question the amount of information sharing that it does via the web and starts to create discrete protected groups among themselves. All sounds so very human. Here’s Professor Kakabadse to tell us about this oddly familiar new old world.

Speaker F: Some people really don’t want to bother with the other influences because when you’re talking to a person they try to to upsell you or sell you something which you may not want. So that is, you know, they want to be anonymous, then there are a variety of issues, I think.

Speaker D: But is it— I mean, is there a distinction there? Because basically one of the great advantages of the internet is you know that somebody wants to buy something. If somebody walks into a shop and makes an inquiry about a pair of trousers or something like that, then You know, you— they don’t necessarily want to buy something, but they want to make a query about that pair of trousers. Then somebody tries to sell them something. At least you know if somebody’s searching for trousers on the internet that they will probably, well, almost certainly want to buy a pair of trousers.

Speaker F: Yes, yes, yes, that’s true. But don’t forget that even in internet, a number of— they’re collecting your patterns of search and and trying then to send you little messages and, you know, to say, oh, you’ve been looking for this, can you, you know, we found it for you. I mean, I buy books from Amazon because simple, it’s easier than me going to the shop and I can sort of find it and it comes delivered to my office. Okay. And obviously I buy certain books and research and this, but every now and then I get emails from Amazon saying, oh, ‘This is the latest books in this area, you know, do you want these?’ I really don’t want that because I search what I want, but obviously they’re collecting my patterns of search and trying to sell me the books.

Speaker D: But that’s the interesting point, isn’t it? Because the interesting point is, there you are, you’re resistant to being upsold to in a shop, yet you’re inadvertently allowing yourself to be upsold to via the internet.

Speaker F: Well, I’m It doesn’t work with me, but that is their strategy to be absorbed.

Speaker D: And that is why people are wanting to collect that information, isn’t it?

Speaker F: Exactly, so that they can target. So if I’m looking in the search books, you know, they’re trying to say, aha, this is a person who is interested in that, so let’s bombard them with different— this is the latest book, this is the latest book. So they send you every now and then those latest information, and some people like that because it keeps them oppressed. I personally don’t like it because if I need something, I know where to look for.

Speaker D: But then the problem is, if you remove that information exchange from the internet, then the internet’s going to start to break down because people aren’t paying for the technology that they want to use. They’re actually paying for it with an information exchange.

Speaker F: Yes, and I mean also ads, people put ads and they’re selling this information, so there’s a lot of money to be made. So I don’t think so it’s going to break down, it’ll have different form. You know, it’s already 20 years old, it’s already old technology, and I think that internet as it is now is going to change within a few years.

Speaker D: I think it’s inevitable that the internet is going to change because What, we’ve been working with it now since 1995, it’s 20 years old, the— it’s, it’s been in a process of gestation, and in that process of gestation we’ve got to this stage where it’s hoovering up all of this information about us.

Speaker F: Yes, yes.

Speaker D: So what, what do you think the next iteration then of the internet will be? Because one of the things that a lot of people are saying is that we’re going to, uh, start requiring money back for giving that information. We’re beginning to realize that we’ve actually been given very little in return for our information.

Speaker F: Yes, I think that is a sum, but I don’t think so that is going to be the big thing, because yes, some people are going to be open to selling more private information about them for money, but that’s, I think, small minority. I think it’s going to be You know, applications like WhatsApp and that kind, new applications are going to take over, I think. That kind of thing. Messaging systems, we’ll see a lot of exclusive networks, we’ll have it, you know, it’ll be exclusive networks as well.

Speaker A: Professor Nada Kakabadzi from the Henley Business School. Well, is she right? The very discreet and anonymous people behind a new high-tech startup called VPN certainly hope so. They aim to provide highly encrypted communication tunnels—virtual private networks—between countries so that no one knows who you are. Think of Star Wars and think of an intergalactic hyperdrive, and you get something of the idea. They are so keen on anonymity that they won’t even say who they are, apart from letting slip that they are geeks who have run-ins with unnamed authorities over privacy issues. NordVPN’s unique selling point is that being unknown is good for you. Use a VPN, they say, and you can watch the BBC from Tuvalu because no one knows that you are there and your computer is saying that you are in the UK. It’s a system that allows you to get around the restrictions that only allow you to buy something from a particular country if you live there. Use NordVPN and you can get cheap plane tickets and so much more. Here’s Jodie Myers, the spokeswoman for the Panamanian-based company, speaking from Estonia.

Speaker G: So a VPN, first of all, can provide security online. So that’s, I guess, a trending— online security threats are everywhere, but primarily, again, educating yourself of what those are and how those can affect a simple user. Again, we often at our meetings talk about, you know, looking at our parents and, for example, how they would not know, you know, that their activity online is tracked for either advertising reasons or data collection or whatever those might be. Again, just providing people with knowledge of how their activities can get them hacked or tracked, and then a VPN can protect sort of any data that is being transmitted online.

Speaker D: And I mean, there’s another, there’s another very interesting point here, isn’t there? Because one of the points that you want to stress, for example, is that if you VPN into another country, you can book cheaper airline tickets, can’t you? Because it’s cheaper to book airline tickets in a country where that flight is originating than it is outside of that. But I mean, is that because of some irritation with that practice? Is that something that, you know, the founders think is a means that the airlines are using to make money, or is it just an incidental byproduct?

Speaker G: This one in particular, it’s just one of the things Again, it’s not a personal offense to them. It’s just an example of how, you know, the internet freedom to advertisers, like they have the freedom to put the cookies in your computer, track your activity while you’re browsing for the flights. Memorize it and then offer a different price the second time you visit the website. So sort of the antidote to that is being aware that these practices exist and exercising your right to use the tools that are out there to sort of, you know, meet them on the same grounds, just being more educated, having more options.

Speaker D: So, but I mean, one of the things about this is For example, the BBC or Channel 4 here in the UK, they often will prevent people from watching their output from outside of the UK in a country like America, for example, because the people in America haven’t actually paid for the generation of the content. They haven’t paid for the license fee, so they’re not paying for that product. Absolutely.

Speaker G: And we’re seeing the same thing with Netflix. You know, with the great announcement that is now available almost everywhere in the world, with the exception of 4 countries, I believe. But the content restrictions vary drastically.

Speaker D: But, but, but, but, I mean, somebody would say, if I’ve paid for that content, then I should have the content, and why should lots of other people enjoy that content for nothing who aren’t paying for the making of it?

Speaker G: Again, it’s the sort of copyright restriction laws and the way the companies like BBC or Netflix function. You pay for the subscription to the service. Oh, I see.

Speaker D: So what you’re saying is if I’ve paid for Netflix and I’m in, I don’t know, Estonia, Lithuania, if I use a VPN to port into that country and pay for that service, then, then I should watch it. Yes. VPN, let’s knock that one on the head for starters. VPN means virtual private network, and it’s essentially an encrypted tunnel that goes to a particular place. So it might go to London, for example, and then it emerges into the internet in London, and it’s known as being there geographically. Yep. So my computer goes through this tunnel and comes out at London. It’s a bit like a hyperdrive. Correct, yeah.

Speaker G: Wherever the VPN servers are available, you could connect to those servers and your internet address, the IP address, would appear as if you are from that country.

Speaker A: Jodie Myers of NordVPN, we think, on the new discretion of the information age. Now, something that is only too keen to introduce itself —a nanotechnology vehicle that will seek out malignant cancer cells and either cure them or kill them, and as it does so, say where they are. Described by its creator, Dr. Maxim Nikitin of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, as an attempt to put brains on a rock, the nanoparticle is designed as a very simple computer.

Speaker H: We are trying to target the nanoparticles to recognize, for example, cancer cells or any other type of cell we need to do some adjustment to by analyzing molecular cues.

Speaker D: So basically, then, in that case, then what is— what you’re doing, that you’re looking for the presence of certain chemicals, and then when those chemicals are present, your nanoparticle can deliver its payload to that cancer cell and kill it?

Speaker H: Yes, but the main idea is not just analysis of one marker, but The idea is to analyze as many markers as possible. So basically, each nanoparticle is an analytical computer. It actually analyzes simultaneously many markers, and by analyzing a lot of them, it can actually gain much more specificity and accuracy in targeting the diseased cells.

Speaker D: So it’s a bit like one of these computer games, like Tetris, for example, where all of these little long lines fall into place. And at the moment they all fall into place. That then creates a key that unlocks the particle. And then there you go. There goes the delivery system.

Speaker H: Precisely. So when the conditions are strictly met, which we program the particles for, only then the particle will do whatever we want. What it wanted to do with the cell.

Speaker B: So, for example, like kill a cell.

Speaker D: So, I mean, you’ve quite, you know, sort of amusingly called this putting some intelligence on a rock. I mean, but what you’re suggesting is these aren’t rocks that are going looking for cancer cells. These will be rocks that you will flood a particular area of the body with and they will only enable themselves or go off in the presence of, say, a cancer cell.

Speaker H: Yes, exactly. So we are not trying to kind of create some particles which can actively move inside the body and find its way to the tumor or whatever. We inject— we are thinking about injecting those particles systemically into the whole body, but only those particles which came close to cancer cells, for example, would be activated and gain the possibility to attack a cell.

Speaker D: What signs do diseased cells give off? Does a cancer cell, for example, change the way that it uses blood?

Speaker H: Different variety of markers which are already known, so that can be some sort of surface marker which is exposed on the surface of the cell. It can actually also be some metabolic markers which cells, for example, produce to kind of, first of all, to communicate with each other, or for example, the tumor cells, tumor cells need to eat a lot and they grow a lot. So in order to eat and grow, they need to build blood vessels. And for example, the cells produce certain molecules which promote this blood vessel construction within the organism, and those molecules can be looked for when trying to target these tumors.

Speaker D: So in a sense, you can take advantage of the fact that the cell is very greedy because it needs a lot of blood, it wants to grow fast, and then that will also begin to concentrate a lot of the delivery package that you want to put into those cells to cure them. So in terms of this sort of this key that you put together, so how does that work? Is that a series of layers and those layers will only peel away under certain conditions? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker H: So we are trying to program the part of the particle within its architecture. So basically we take different nanoparticles, different molecules and so on, and like a Lego game, the kids play, we construct sophisticatedly the arranged structure which has a sort of layered structure, yes. And when the layer, for example, when we want to construct the AND gate, the logic AND gate, we program the layer to kind of disassemble only in presence of two molecular cues which cause this disassembly.

Speaker B: Dr.

Speaker A: Nitkin on the nanoparticles that he hopes will be changing the lives of cancer victims. You’re listening to Password on Resonance FM, and if you’ve just joined us, I’m afraid you’ve missed it. If you want to find out more, log on to our website at futureintelligence.co.uk. Password is a joint production by Future Intelligence and the Cyber Security Research Institute. Thanks for listening.