Data and Deception The Internet of Things

i’m a 90s kid

and we were really the first generation

to grow up with ian and as we know it

today

things were a little different grant is

we used to have to make sure our phone

was off to be able to get online

rather than using our phone and we used

to ask jeeves for help

not google and then social media came

and it was a completely different ball

game

we could connect on a totally new level

but while we were decking out our bebop

pages

making friends with tom on myspace

watching videos on youtube and liking

photos on facebook

there’s a revolution happening in a

certain silicon valley

the people there were figuring out how

to turn other users into cold odd cash

for the longest time all of these

enormous customers enormous

companies with these huge customer bases

had no idea how to make money from their

products

but then the eureka moment they realized

we’d given them

what and where we like to eat our

political views our career aspirations

and all they had to do with that data

was collect it and store it

so they could model it and sell it and

create the most personalized

advertisement experience ever

it took years for the masses to realize

we were the product

and by the time we did social media that

had a major hand

in creating the world’s largest refugee

camp told millions of people they

weren’t good enough just so they could

buy their way to happiness

and all almost every democratic

collection

the subtlety and efficiency of how you

can be controlled by social media is

incredible

but we are here to talk about social

media we’re here to talk about the

internet things

so the internet of things terrible name

don’t look at me someone probably got

paid to come up with that

i’ll just use the acronym from now on

the iot

the iot one of the most common ones

is your smartphone it’s all the things

and devices that are interconnected by

the internet

you’ve got smart meters smart watches

smart speakers smart tvs you get the

picture this

industry loves being smart now

this is the second time i’ve written

this talk the first time i used all this

complicated terminology and i got super

techy

because that’s what i thought i needed

to do to explain the concepts

and every time i’d practice it people

would do this thing it’s kind of like

what you do when someone cooks a bad

meal and asks if you like it or

if someone shows you an ugly baby and

ask if you think it’s cute

kind of tilt your head and go yeah

so i’d practice my talk and ask people

if they like it and they’d go

yeah i just didn’t really understand it

and that’s when it hit me a lot of

people

really really don’t understand how this

affects them

and it’s in the interest of these huge

companies to make sure it stays that way

you see with all the recent events

regarding social media that have come to

light

people have become far more wary of

their online presence

so big tech needed alternative ways to

gain information

and they started using internet of

things

so it can be really dangerous and

normally when i tell people that

they say how can a thing be dangerous

well

things have been used to control us for

way longer than people realize

take bridges in new york city in the

early 1900s

if you were in the white predominantly

rich upper class

you could afford a private vehicle which

could drive underneath a bridge

but if you’re in the poor ethnic

minority you had to take the bus

and these bridges were specifically

designed so that buses couldn’t fit

underneath

effectively controlling who could enter

an area

that belief that self-perceived

knowledge that you

understand the purpose of an object that

what you perceive as its function

is its only purpose that is a truly

powerful deception

and it’s one we create in our own psyche

and we do it all the time

people perceive themselves as invaluable

to technology companies

to that i say there’s rfid chips in

trees in paris

and they make sure that the council

doesn’t waste water saves about

two to three litres of water a day

that’s about one pence

a modeled internet user here in europe

makes big tech about 30 pence a minute

about a dollar a minute in america do

you really

think you’re being ignored don’t allow

that naivety

to be used to control you in internet

technology

there’s a saying if you are paying for

the product

then you are the product and that

sentence is nice and catchy

and it used to work for social media but

it doesn’t really apply

when you go out and buy a 100 smart

speaker is that where the transaction’s

meant to end

because that’s really only the beginning

how many times have you said something

around a smart speaker

and then all of a sudden you get 100

adverts for it

how is that any different to social

media well you see

it used to be if you wanted to escape

the trap of the internet

you sold your phone three laps about the

window and actually went out and got

hobby or a social life

and that’s become much much harder

because the iot has superseded the realm

it was birthed from

no longer are the ai and the algorithms

that controllers online

purely a digital entity they’ve joined

us in the real world

and what this has meant is that these

devices can really transcend the

boundaries that we as consumers

initially set

and that’s never been more prevalent

than when the first reported cases

of data collection and their hacking

from iot baby monitors were reported

all of a sudden something very private

has been intruded on

it’s no surprise that so many of these

devices are suddenly finding themselves

in our possessions

as free gifts or a thank you to loyal

customers

because it allows access to so many new

areas for companies

how many of you right now watching and

listening or wearing a smartwatch

think about what that contains a gps

tracker a heart rate monitor a

microphone

one of the more advanced ways of

collecting data is to show you an advert

and see if it raises your heart rate

think of how precise

that information is how much value is

there

another example life insurance companies

will

give you a smart watch as part of a free

gift when you join

to make sure you stay healthy what they

can actually look at is if you’re

staying healthy enough for them to

ensure

that’s completely against your personal

interest but it’s data you are providing

when supermarket giants needed to be

more secure they turned to facial

recognition

but now facial recognition only shows

you the similarity between two things

a face on a camera and a face in the

database

for the longest time government

databases were used such as

passports and driving license photos

but they’re 2d images and for most

people they’re quite

old and outdated i’ve even got hair in

mind

so let’s think about it how many people

have a doorbell

with a camera all of a sudden your face

has now been scanned numerous times a

day

fed into some of the most powerful

artificial intelligence systems

on earth and being used to control you

it’s cross-referenced with all your data

and it’s effectively

giving up any chance you had of

anonymity

there are thousands of other examples of

where the iot is collected there by

unconventional means

far too many to read out here but know

this as the iot

fully emerges and becomes more

widespread it enters an arena

where governments across the world now

class the cyber realm and digital

entities

as the fifth theatre of war if our

governments are scared of what some of

the implications could be

why aren’t we but really the goal here

is

not to scare monger because the iot has

some brilliant applications that are

advancing our societies

you want to plan rapid response to

crisis situations like floods or fires

just look for where smart meters have

suddenly cut off

iot enabled vehicles can be made so

efficient and useful

that we never feel the need to own a car

and the iot is currently helping

revolutionize something close to my

heart

the fight against climate change no

the real goal here is to break the

deception we have in our minds

about the purpose of our devices because

as consumers we so blindly and

consistently enter into these

transactions

and as the consumer and the product we

need to ensure the iot agenda

meets our needs rather than us meeting

its needs

because we’ve only just started talking

about the disastrous consequences of

social media

but look how far things had to go to

start that conversation

let’s not make the same mistake with the

internet of things

thank you for listening

you