1 00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:07,920 Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name 2 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:11,280 Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:13,240 Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault. We're going into the 4 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:17,639 Speaker 1: vault for an episode from June one that was about 5 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:21,400 Speaker 1: the concept of neuro security. What happens when you have 6 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:24,479 Speaker 1: to take the concepts of cybersecurity and apply them to 7 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:27,120 Speaker 1: your brain and your nervous system. Yeah, there's a nice 8 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:31,159 Speaker 1: anxiety inducing episode about protecting your brain. And is this 9 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:33,440 Speaker 1: the one that we uh we did a scanner skit 10 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:35,600 Speaker 1: at the stop the top of I don't think. I 11 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:37,839 Speaker 1: think that was a different episode. All right, Well, I 12 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:39,920 Speaker 1: don't want get everybody's hopes up about, but I'm sure 13 00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:43,400 Speaker 1: there's some scanners references in this episode. I mean, this 14 00:00:43,479 --> 00:00:45,880 Speaker 1: is a very creepy concept, and it's not as far 15 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:48,000 Speaker 1: fetched as you might think. In fact, I would say 16 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,160 Speaker 1: that we're we're creeping there every day. It's we're getting 17 00:00:52,159 --> 00:00:55,040 Speaker 1: closer and closer. I'd say, the connections between our brains 18 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,760 Speaker 1: and the devices and the contents displayed on those devices 19 00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:01,040 Speaker 1: are becoming ever more seamless. The tentacles are reaching into 20 00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:03,880 Speaker 1: our skulls. It's it's only a matter of time before 21 00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:07,479 Speaker 1: you've got full on security protocols for protecting your nervous 22 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:09,960 Speaker 1: system from hackers. All right, well, let's go ahead and 23 00:01:09,959 --> 00:01:17,560 Speaker 1: throw up those neural firewalls and jump right into this episode. 24 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:20,759 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 25 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:31,400 Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 26 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:33,920 Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And 27 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,280 Speaker 1: Robert I got a question for you, Jimmy, have you 28 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:40,080 Speaker 1: ever wondered if it's possible to create a piece of 29 00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:44,000 Speaker 1: digital information, like a computer file, a bit of computer code, 30 00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:49,320 Speaker 1: a computer virus that could literally kill or injure somebody. Oh, 31 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:53,600 Speaker 1: of course I have. I mean having watched and enjoyed 32 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:56,680 Speaker 1: such films as The Ring, as Video Drone, like just 33 00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: the idea of there being some sort of in these 34 00:01:58,800 --> 00:02:02,480 Speaker 1: cases media. But we can easily extrapolate that to to 35 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: digital media or just digital information. Yeah, you can't help, 36 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:07,400 Speaker 1: but think, is there is there something like that that 37 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,680 Speaker 1: could exist that would have a devastating or even lethal 38 00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:13,919 Speaker 1: effect on anyone who interacted with it. Yeah, video file, 39 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:17,760 Speaker 1: audio file, computer programs, something that comes out of the 40 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:22,560 Speaker 1: digital interface and actually harms you. Yeah, well, it's not 41 00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:27,520 Speaker 1: hard to see how you could harm somebody indirectly with 42 00:02:27,639 --> 00:02:30,360 Speaker 1: something like that. One example would be a computer virus 43 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:33,480 Speaker 1: that takes down a lot of systems or causes widespread 44 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:36,680 Speaker 1: economic damage. That's been happening since the eighties as well 45 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:40,320 Speaker 1: discuss Yeah, certainly, so, widespread economic damage means people lose 46 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:44,040 Speaker 1: their jobs, and statistically we know that that will indirectly 47 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:47,840 Speaker 1: lead to some number of deaths above the mean mortality rate. 48 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:50,680 Speaker 1: But I mean something more direct obviously, you know, I'm 49 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:53,000 Speaker 1: talking about the cyborg ninja kind of stuff, but take 50 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:56,400 Speaker 1: away the cyborg ninja. I'm not talking about robot assassins 51 00:02:56,480 --> 00:02:58,960 Speaker 1: or leak personal data like there's been another big one too. 52 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:01,800 Speaker 1: I've seen it counts where people have said this individual 53 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:08,080 Speaker 1: is potentially suicidal over the leakage of images, video, or 54 00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:13,120 Speaker 1: personal information. Sure, that's the devastating effect of digital gossip. 55 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:17,960 Speaker 1: But could a malicious hacker injured or assassinate somebody just 56 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:23,640 Speaker 1: with a digital file directly a piece of computer code video? Yeah, 57 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:27,280 Speaker 1: I mean, this is of course an increasingly important consideration, 58 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:29,520 Speaker 1: you know, because we just look at all the things 59 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,000 Speaker 1: around us that are becoming connected to the Internet that 60 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:34,760 Speaker 1: you know, years ago, I would have thought, why would 61 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:38,200 Speaker 1: I need my uh let's say, my thermostat to be 62 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:40,480 Speaker 1: connected to the internet. It seems crazy, and yet here 63 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:44,480 Speaker 1: I am in the future. Especially during the cold months, 64 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:47,920 Speaker 1: I enjoyed waking up, grabbing my phone and adjusting the thermostat, 65 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,800 Speaker 1: warming up the house. And at the same time I'm thinking, 66 00:03:50,920 --> 00:03:54,920 Speaker 1: is this a little crazy that this electric you know, 67 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:59,520 Speaker 1: gas powered fire in my home is now controlled by 68 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,880 Speaker 1: a divide that is connected to the internet and all 69 00:04:02,920 --> 00:04:05,880 Speaker 1: the horrors of the Internet. I end up just having 70 00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:07,640 Speaker 1: to like stick, you know, push that out of my 71 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:09,960 Speaker 1: brain and just focus on the fact, oh I can 72 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:11,640 Speaker 1: before I get out of bed, I can, I can 73 00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,080 Speaker 1: make it a little warmer now. Fortunately, there are limits 74 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:16,720 Speaker 1: to what your thermostat can do. Right, You're not worried 75 00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:19,760 Speaker 1: about some crazy kid on four Chan deciding that he 76 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,760 Speaker 1: wants to cook you alive and turning your house thermostat 77 00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:25,800 Speaker 1: up to five degrees. But the more we think about 78 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,320 Speaker 1: a smart house, like there was some horrible sci fi 79 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:31,800 Speaker 1: movie that came out years and years ago, and it 80 00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:34,120 Speaker 1: had a smart house that with a robot, you know, 81 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:37,560 Speaker 1: goes completely how on everybody, and it had like a 82 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:40,560 Speaker 1: terminator arm that hangs from the ceiling and like travels 83 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:43,760 Speaker 1: around the house. Uh. I always I keep thinking back 84 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:47,039 Speaker 1: to that the more interconnected our homes become. Now that 85 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:49,640 Speaker 1: you know, the whole idea of like your house becoming 86 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:51,960 Speaker 1: self aware and killing you is one thing. But yeah, 87 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:55,120 Speaker 1: just the idea that all these things are connected, at 88 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:59,320 Speaker 1: least in a small way to everyone else in the world. 89 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:01,960 Speaker 1: It can be a little much. This was explored to 90 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:07,080 Speaker 1: great effect in the wonderful Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive. No, 91 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:09,800 Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, not not such a great movie, but 92 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:12,680 Speaker 1: the premises all our machines turn against us, right, our 93 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:16,800 Speaker 1: consumer technology, from trucks to household appliances start trying to 94 00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:19,560 Speaker 1: kill us. I think in the movie it's aliens, right, 95 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:22,160 Speaker 1: I can't remember in the movie. In the book, I 96 00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:25,480 Speaker 1: mean the short story rather, it was delightfully vague. Um. 97 00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:29,040 Speaker 1: And then of course Maximum Overdrive the film as its 98 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:32,000 Speaker 1: own experience. But I guarantee you there's got to be 99 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,720 Speaker 1: a script out there where someone has taken Maximum Overdrive, 100 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,760 Speaker 1: or at least Trucks the original story and upgraded it 101 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:41,640 Speaker 1: to the you know, the so called Internet of things. Yeah, 102 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,240 Speaker 1: and the most obvious analogy from the movie is going 103 00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:48,720 Speaker 1: to be autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles if have if they 104 00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:52,160 Speaker 1: have the wrong security exploits, if people can manipulate them 105 00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:54,479 Speaker 1: in the wrong ways, it's not hard at all to 106 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:56,800 Speaker 1: see how they can be deadly. But I want to 107 00:05:56,839 --> 00:06:01,320 Speaker 1: get even more insidious about devices that we personally hold 108 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:05,120 Speaker 1: in our hands and used to mediate our relationship with 109 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:10,400 Speaker 1: regular information like text and video and you know ideas. 110 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:16,320 Speaker 1: I've got an archived Wired magazine article entitled hackers assault 111 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:19,960 Speaker 1: epilepsy patients via computer and this is from March two 112 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:24,880 Speaker 1: eight And what happened in this uh incident is that 113 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:29,719 Speaker 1: somebody attacked an epilepsy support message board hosted by a 114 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:32,280 Speaker 1: group called the Epilepsy Foundation. And just to read a 115 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:36,440 Speaker 1: quote about what happened quote, the incident, possibly the first 116 00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:41,479 Speaker 1: computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, 117 00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:45,440 Speaker 1: March two, when attackers used to script to post hundreds 118 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:50,120 Speaker 1: of messages embedded with flashing, animated gifts. The attackers turned 119 00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:53,839 Speaker 1: to a more effective tactic on Sunday, injecting JavaScript into 120 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:57,359 Speaker 1: some posts that redirected users browsers to a page with 121 00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:01,160 Speaker 1: a more complex image designed to your seizures In both 122 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,800 Speaker 1: photosensitive and pattern sensitive epileptics. And then later in the 123 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:10,000 Speaker 1: article they note, and this is worth noting, epilepsy affects 124 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 1: about fifty million people worldwide, but only about three percent 125 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,280 Speaker 1: of those people are photosensitive, meaning you've often heard, you know, 126 00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:21,400 Speaker 1: the old Pokemon story that flashing lights or flashing images 127 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:24,360 Speaker 1: can cause seizures and people with epilepsy. That is true 128 00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:27,080 Speaker 1: for some people with epilepsy, but not all. So the 129 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:30,680 Speaker 1: risk here is not necessarily like a wide attack where 130 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:32,640 Speaker 1: you just end up hitting that small percentage of people 131 00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:35,440 Speaker 1: who are affected. But what have you targeted it after 132 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:39,640 Speaker 1: a specific individual? And this is apparently happened. Now we 133 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:42,200 Speaker 1: have this story from twenty sixteen where there's an American 134 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:46,040 Speaker 1: journalist named Kurt Aikenwald who was known publicly to have 135 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:51,800 Speaker 1: photosensitive epilepsy and during the election, so he's a political journalist, 136 00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:54,640 Speaker 1: and of course being a political journalist you make enemies, 137 00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:58,160 Speaker 1: and somebody who did not like his political coverage sent 138 00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:01,960 Speaker 1: him a series of tweets with drobing light images, uh, 139 00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:06,520 Speaker 1: and allegedly this caused a seizure. And so he has 140 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:10,200 Speaker 1: now witnessed in a criminal prosecution against these digital attackers 141 00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:14,920 Speaker 1: who attacked his physical body, and we're able to cause 142 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:19,440 Speaker 1: a physical injury with just information through an interface. It's 143 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:21,840 Speaker 1: interesting that it took place on Twitter too, because, i 144 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:25,600 Speaker 1: mean Twitter is known to be this place where, like 145 00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:28,920 Speaker 1: a lot of the Internet, where where people feel like 146 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,640 Speaker 1: they can be just as nasty and awful as they 147 00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:36,400 Speaker 1: possibly can without any repercussions. And and here we see 148 00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:40,319 Speaker 1: a situation where it ends up transcending merely the hurting 149 00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:46,200 Speaker 1: of feelings or or psychological damage, but actual physical attack. Yeah. 150 00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:50,600 Speaker 1: But while almost anybody can be psychologically harmed by information 151 00:08:50,679 --> 00:08:55,760 Speaker 1: received through an interface, it's really difficult in general to 152 00:08:55,960 --> 00:08:59,880 Speaker 1: physically harm somebody with information received through a standard you know, 153 00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:03,560 Speaker 1: digital media interface. It's really rare, Like there is this 154 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:07,360 Speaker 1: one specific exploit in the brains of three percent of 155 00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:11,000 Speaker 1: people or so who have epilepsy. That means that certain 156 00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:14,560 Speaker 1: types of light images projected on a screen can cause 157 00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:19,120 Speaker 1: physical injury or it can trigger a seizure. Not everybody's epileptic, not, 158 00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:21,600 Speaker 1: not all people with epilepsy have this condition, so it's 159 00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:26,280 Speaker 1: it's pretty rare. But this is one neurological vulnerability to 160 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:29,840 Speaker 1: information based weapons built right into some of our brains. 161 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:33,120 Speaker 1: Most of the time, for most people, the brain is 162 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:36,040 Speaker 1: very secure, right. It's it's hard to cause direct injury 163 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:39,560 Speaker 1: to somebody's body, or steal their innermost secrets or do 164 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:44,000 Speaker 1: anything like that with information interfaces alone. But today we 165 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:47,640 Speaker 1: want to talk about how that state of affairs is 166 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:51,520 Speaker 1: very likely changing, and it may be changing very soon, 167 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:54,480 Speaker 1: because we want to talk about the coming age of 168 00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:57,600 Speaker 1: neuro security. And the crazy thing here is that we're 169 00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:00,880 Speaker 1: not talking about something that may come to hass We're 170 00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:03,600 Speaker 1: talking about, as you'll see, as we would discuss this further, 171 00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:06,280 Speaker 1: this is something that is definitely going to happen, that 172 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:09,520 Speaker 1: needs to happen, an inevitable next step. Yeah, and unless 173 00:10:09,559 --> 00:10:13,920 Speaker 1: basically life or technological progress on Earth stops right now. 174 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,959 Speaker 1: This is another singularity issues. This is not this is 175 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:21,200 Speaker 1: a very near future concern, yes, and and very very 176 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:24,960 Speaker 1: plausible based on things that we already have today. So 177 00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:28,000 Speaker 1: there are several different things that you could call neuro security. 178 00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:31,880 Speaker 1: One thing would be using neuroscience principles in the general 179 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:35,160 Speaker 1: field of security, right protecting your borders with f m 180 00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:38,880 Speaker 1: r I brain scanners during border stop interrogations or something 181 00:10:39,160 --> 00:10:41,480 Speaker 1: right picking up say, for instance, if you could use 182 00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:44,600 Speaker 1: this technology to pick up on like extreme levels of 183 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:48,160 Speaker 1: nervousness that might need to be inspected with additional questions, 184 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,040 Speaker 1: or if it was even possible to tell that there 185 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:53,920 Speaker 1: was some sort of malicious intent or stocking up your 186 00:10:54,040 --> 00:10:55,760 Speaker 1: t s A the ranks of your t s A 187 00:10:55,880 --> 00:10:59,680 Speaker 1: agents with scanners, I mean, like from the movie Scanners 188 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,640 Speaker 1: Psychic Psychic t s A. Okay, yes, it's basically scanner 189 00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:07,960 Speaker 1: Cops sequel to Oh my god, you're right, scanner Cops. 190 00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:10,880 Speaker 1: Can you imagine the faces they make while you're standing 191 00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:14,400 Speaker 1: in line? Would that make flying better because it'd make 192 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:18,400 Speaker 1: it funnier or worse because it'd be even creepier. Probably creepy, 193 00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:22,760 Speaker 1: I'm guessing creepy. Sorry, Well, that's an interesting subject, but 194 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:26,120 Speaker 1: a subject for a different day. Today, we're talking about 195 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:32,559 Speaker 1: the security of our biological information systems, essentially applying computer 196 00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:37,800 Speaker 1: cybersecurity principles to your brain and your nervous system. Now 197 00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:42,200 Speaker 1: you might be asking, that sounds ridiculous. Why would you 198 00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:45,200 Speaker 1: ever talk about that. I mean, that's that's just such 199 00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:48,840 Speaker 1: a weird sci fi scenario. Nothing like that's ever gonna happen, 200 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:50,920 Speaker 1: right right, I mean to bring up scanners again, It 201 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:54,040 Speaker 1: just makes me think of the first Scanners movie that 202 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:57,800 Speaker 1: at the time I thought ridiculous moment where that the 203 00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:01,440 Speaker 1: scanners are interfacing with the computer with their brain, and 204 00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:03,560 Speaker 1: that threw me completely out of the movie because I'm 205 00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:06,200 Speaker 1: because I'm like, all right, you, I'm on board with 206 00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:10,400 Speaker 1: brain to brain these psychic connections, but you're throwing me 207 00:12:10,559 --> 00:12:12,920 Speaker 1: off when I'm trying to imagine a brain to machine 208 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:16,640 Speaker 1: connection that's just purely based on psychic power. It does 209 00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:19,280 Speaker 1: seem to violate the magic of the film, right, It 210 00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:21,680 Speaker 1: gets it gets the mythology out of whack because there's 211 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:23,520 Speaker 1: a scene in the movie Scanners where one of the 212 00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:27,520 Speaker 1: Scanners he gets on a telephone and he calls into 213 00:12:27,559 --> 00:12:30,800 Speaker 1: a computer system and he reads the mind of the 214 00:12:30,800 --> 00:12:33,680 Speaker 1: computer system. Yeah, and he wasn't even making facts machine 215 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:36,680 Speaker 1: noises with his mouth that I would have been on 216 00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:39,880 Speaker 1: board with, but yeah, not the way Cronenberg decided to 217 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:43,079 Speaker 1: to display it. Michael Ironside could have sold those facts 218 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:45,040 Speaker 1: machine noises with his mouth, but not in the guy 219 00:12:45,080 --> 00:12:47,839 Speaker 1: they had play in the Here, so we're going to 220 00:12:47,960 --> 00:12:51,240 Speaker 1: talk about a particular study that I'll get to a 221 00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:53,959 Speaker 1: couple different times in this episode. But actually it might 222 00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:55,839 Speaker 1: be wrong to call it a study because it's really 223 00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:59,240 Speaker 1: more an attempt at definitions, right, trying to lay out 224 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:03,320 Speaker 1: what the concept of neuro security would be and what 225 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:05,520 Speaker 1: are some things we need to watch out for. And 226 00:13:05,559 --> 00:13:07,560 Speaker 1: so this was published in two thousand nine in the 227 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:12,719 Speaker 1: journal Neurosurgical Focus. It's called neuro Security, Security and Privacy 228 00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:18,559 Speaker 1: for Neural Devices from Tamara Dinning, Yoki Matsuka, and tada 229 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:23,319 Speaker 1: Yoshi Kono. So the authors of this paper note that 230 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:29,640 Speaker 1: there are three primary goals in computer security. You've got confidentiality, integrity, 231 00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:33,839 Speaker 1: and availability. So confidentiality means what you think it does. 232 00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:36,920 Speaker 1: It means an attacker of your computer system should not 233 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:40,439 Speaker 1: be able to exploit the device to learn or expose 234 00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:44,920 Speaker 1: private information. Standard example would be hacker steals your bank 235 00:13:44,960 --> 00:13:49,760 Speaker 1: account info, or your private emails or your private photos. Yeah, 236 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:53,160 Speaker 1: these are essentially externalizations of my private thoughts, and I 237 00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,640 Speaker 1: don't want anyone to have access to either exactly. Now. 238 00:13:56,760 --> 00:14:00,000 Speaker 1: The next one was integrity. Integrity means that an attack 239 00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:04,000 Speaker 1: cker should not be able to quote change device settings 240 00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:08,640 Speaker 1: or initiate unauthorized operations. In other words, the attackers should 241 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:12,200 Speaker 1: not be able to use this device whatever it is, computer, 242 00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:15,040 Speaker 1: cell phone, anything like that should not be able to 243 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:18,280 Speaker 1: use it for their own purposes or change what the 244 00:14:18,320 --> 00:14:22,160 Speaker 1: device does for the primary user. An example here might 245 00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:25,760 Speaker 1: be that a hacker could take over your computer to 246 00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:28,760 Speaker 1: turn it into a bot that's part of a bot 247 00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:31,600 Speaker 1: net to have a d D O S attack against 248 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:34,400 Speaker 1: some website. Maybe they had a bad meal at Olive Garden. 249 00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:37,440 Speaker 1: They want to take down the Olive Garden homepage, so 250 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:40,400 Speaker 1: they hijack your computer and make your computer one of 251 00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:44,920 Speaker 1: many computers that bombard Alive Garden with with requests to 252 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,960 Speaker 1: load the page. Okay, and obviously I would not want 253 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,960 Speaker 1: that to happen in my brain either to change the 254 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,440 Speaker 1: settings on my brain and ultimately change my behavior, change 255 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:56,960 Speaker 1: my motivations, like even if it's done in a very 256 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,360 Speaker 1: slap dash awkward way, you know, hands out of my 257 00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:06,080 Speaker 1: brains exactly. So the last one is availability. Availability means 258 00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,600 Speaker 1: that the attacker should not be able to destroy or 259 00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:11,280 Speaker 1: disable the device, or do anything that would render it 260 00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:15,240 Speaker 1: unavailable to the user. Classic example, hacker deletes all your 261 00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:19,120 Speaker 1: files or alters the computer's boot procedures so that it 262 00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:21,960 Speaker 1: won't load your operating system on startup, and it just 263 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,960 Speaker 1: becomes useless. Likewise, I don't want anyone to strategically remove 264 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,920 Speaker 1: memories from my brain, to wipe my memories from my brain, 265 00:15:29,120 --> 00:15:35,360 Speaker 1: or to even temporarily deactivate certain cognitive centers or networks 266 00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:38,440 Speaker 1: in my brain. Yeah. Now, in these examples you're talking about, 267 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:42,720 Speaker 1: you're talking about sort of whole brain functionality, but there 268 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:47,640 Speaker 1: could be dire consequences for much lower stakes questions. Somebody 269 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:50,760 Speaker 1: might not necessarily be able to disable your entire brain. 270 00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:53,000 Speaker 1: But in a minute, we're going to talk about some 271 00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:57,200 Speaker 1: particular types of neurotechnology. And in many of these cases, 272 00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:01,880 Speaker 1: for example, just disabling your neuro technology could have devastating 273 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:04,120 Speaker 1: consequences for you. They wouldn't have to be able to 274 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:06,640 Speaker 1: turn off your brain. They might just be able to 275 00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:09,600 Speaker 1: turn off your neural implant at a time and place 276 00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:12,040 Speaker 1: that would make you very vulnerable or could hurt you. 277 00:16:12,920 --> 00:16:15,960 Speaker 1: I experienced something like this the other weekend. I had 278 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:20,040 Speaker 1: to drive to a major phone service provider's brick and 279 00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:22,440 Speaker 1: mortar store that I'd never been to before, and I 280 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:26,600 Speaker 1: had to do it without a functional phone. So I 281 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:28,400 Speaker 1: had managed it, I ended up printing out the wrong 282 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:32,040 Speaker 1: directions map quest or you know, whatever map program I 283 00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:35,120 Speaker 1: I used It's amazing how dependent would become. Yeah, so 284 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:37,120 Speaker 1: in a way, it was it was like a part 285 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:40,720 Speaker 1: of my brain was not functioning because the phone was 286 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:44,600 Speaker 1: not functioning. You have offloaded part of your traditional capability 287 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:47,080 Speaker 1: something maybe ten or fifteen years ago. You would have 288 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:51,200 Speaker 1: probably had better internal mechanisms for locating a store you 289 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:53,880 Speaker 1: needed to get to. Uh, And now you've said, well, 290 00:16:53,880 --> 00:16:55,880 Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about that anymore. That's in 291 00:16:55,960 --> 00:17:00,400 Speaker 1: this peripheral that I used to supplement my brain. If 292 00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:03,840 Speaker 1: the peripheral breaks, you're you're messed up now. Yeah, and 293 00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:07,000 Speaker 1: that is technology that exists, you know, quite literally, you know, 294 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:10,399 Speaker 1: arms distance away from the brain, right. But the thing is, 295 00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:14,359 Speaker 1: we're seeing the technology creep increasingly closer to the brain. 296 00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:17,800 Speaker 1: And what happens when that stuff goes offline or becomes compromised. 297 00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:20,320 Speaker 1: So to quote the authors of the study I mentioned, 298 00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:23,600 Speaker 1: they say, quote, we define neuro security as the protection 299 00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:30,920 Speaker 1: of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of neural devices from malicious parties, 300 00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:33,440 Speaker 1: with the goal of preserving the safety of a person's 301 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:38,480 Speaker 1: neural mechanisms, neural computation, and free will. Now we're going 302 00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:42,440 Speaker 1: to look directly at some of the neural technologies that 303 00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:46,399 Speaker 1: might be vulnerable to security concerns like this. But before 304 00:17:46,440 --> 00:17:49,240 Speaker 1: we do that, I think we should look more broadly 305 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:53,800 Speaker 1: at the idea of information security, because if you're not 306 00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:56,960 Speaker 1: all that familiar with the history of the Internet, it 307 00:17:57,040 --> 00:17:59,919 Speaker 1: might be kind of puzzling to you, Like, why is 308 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,960 Speaker 1: is the Internet so horrible in terms of security? We 309 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:07,080 Speaker 1: we've got this global thing, what would you even call it? 310 00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:09,640 Speaker 1: Would you call it a technology? We've got this global 311 00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:15,359 Speaker 1: information civilization that is just terrible. It is just terrible 312 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:18,640 Speaker 1: in terms of security. There there is not an overarching 313 00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:22,600 Speaker 1: strategy to keep everything safe. I keep thinking of it 314 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:25,240 Speaker 1: like the cat's cradle that you create with the with 315 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:27,359 Speaker 1: the length of string and your fingers and you, you know, 316 00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:30,280 Speaker 1: you interweave your fingers and you create a pattern so 317 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:32,679 Speaker 1: that the Internet in this case, it's not the string, 318 00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:35,159 Speaker 1: it's not the fingers. It couldn't exist this without the 319 00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:39,080 Speaker 1: string and the fingers, but it's ultimately that shape, you know. Yeah, 320 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:41,040 Speaker 1: that's kind of a loose way I think about it. Well, 321 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:42,840 Speaker 1: maybe we should take a quick break and when we 322 00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:46,120 Speaker 1: get back we can look at how the Internet ended 323 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:55,440 Speaker 1: up becoming so vulnerable to security concerns, all right, we're back. 324 00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:59,719 Speaker 1: So yes, how did the Internet end up becoming so vulnerable? 325 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,720 Speaker 1: Now this is on one can take me on a 326 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,560 Speaker 1: trip on fear and paranoia memory lane, and I'll try 327 00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:08,919 Speaker 1: and keep this this fun too. I guess if you're 328 00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:11,159 Speaker 1: a fan of like Halt and catch Fire, it's kind 329 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:14,840 Speaker 1: of fun to think of it in those terms. But yeah, 330 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:16,760 Speaker 1: I mean, on one hand, it's an easy question to ask, 331 00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:19,880 Speaker 1: because we live in a day where we have ransomware attacks, 332 00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:23,679 Speaker 1: identity theft, docks, sinning, invasion of privacy. But on the 333 00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:27,280 Speaker 1: other hand, so many of us were born into this 334 00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,800 Speaker 1: system of the Internet, or you know, or we if 335 00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:33,280 Speaker 1: you're like me, you entered into it during college, and 336 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:37,560 Speaker 1: it's easy to just assume that the systems that run 337 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:39,879 Speaker 1: the world and the organizations that were in the world 338 00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:42,840 Speaker 1: haven't figured out to some extent. You know, you expect 339 00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:47,440 Speaker 1: the bank to be secure, you expect some security to 340 00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:50,399 Speaker 1: be in place. There's some rather significant security options to 341 00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,080 Speaker 1: be in place, so you would assume that the the 342 00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:55,600 Speaker 1: virtual bank would be much the same. Right if you 343 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:59,000 Speaker 1: were to just find out that there are human sized 344 00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:02,080 Speaker 1: holes in the bank vault that keeps your money, that 345 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:05,159 Speaker 1: would be rather surprising. It's not surprising at all to 346 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,840 Speaker 1: find out that there are hacker sized holes in the 347 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:12,440 Speaker 1: digital systems that protect your private information. I mean, how 348 00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:15,080 Speaker 1: many times now if we had this story about some 349 00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:20,000 Speaker 1: online retailer or maybe even physical retailer that you did 350 00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:23,560 Speaker 1: business with, and they have your credit card number they 351 00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,200 Speaker 1: got hacked and now your information belongs to somebody out 352 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:28,640 Speaker 1: there and you have to get a new credit card 353 00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:30,600 Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, and I think we can 354 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,800 Speaker 1: all relate to that kind of anxiety. Yeah. Now, I 355 00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:36,320 Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that that so many of us were a 356 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:39,600 Speaker 1: number of our listeners here were born into the Internet age. 357 00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:41,560 Speaker 1: So I'm going to try and put this in turn, 358 00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:43,560 Speaker 1: like the origins of the Internet, in terms of something 359 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:45,600 Speaker 1: that maybe more of us could understand, but then not 360 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,720 Speaker 1: maybe not the younger people, but for a number of 361 00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:50,800 Speaker 1: you out there. I bet you can remember the day 362 00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:56,320 Speaker 1: that your mom joined Facebook, so you remember the realization that, oh, crap, 363 00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:59,680 Speaker 1: this this internet thing, this this really is for everyone. 364 00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:03,520 Speaker 1: It's that horrible moment where something that you and your 365 00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:06,639 Speaker 1: friends do online that you think of as not real 366 00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:12,040 Speaker 1: life comes crashing into real life and you realize, like, oh, 367 00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:16,960 Speaker 1: this is connected to the same universe where I live. Yeah, yeah, 368 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,560 Speaker 1: I remember there was like a sharp contrast certainly between 369 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:22,639 Speaker 1: the my Space aide. Remember what it felt like to 370 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:24,920 Speaker 1: be on my Space was totally different than the early 371 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:29,400 Speaker 1: stages of Facebook, which was which was completely different from 372 00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:32,560 Speaker 1: what Facebook would become in terms of you know, just 373 00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:35,280 Speaker 1: earlier models just felt like, oh, I'm just surrounded by 374 00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:38,960 Speaker 1: like minded people who share my my same sort of 375 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:43,000 Speaker 1: attitude on life and and values about what's important and granted, 376 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,280 Speaker 1: so there was already a certain amount of bubble construction there, 377 00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:49,560 Speaker 1: but but yeah, we we just we we had expectations 378 00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:53,200 Speaker 1: about what this this technology was and who this technology 379 00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:56,720 Speaker 1: was for. And the same situation really applies to the 380 00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:00,600 Speaker 1: Internet as a whole. It's architects did not build it 381 00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:03,119 Speaker 1: from the ground up as a global system for the 382 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:06,439 Speaker 1: masses a cat's cradle weaved around the fingers of so 383 00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,679 Speaker 1: many computers. No, they designed it as an online community 384 00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:13,280 Speaker 1: for a few dozen researchers. It was a research project. 385 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:16,080 Speaker 1: It was like, Hey, we've got these computers at different 386 00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:19,720 Speaker 1: universities and institutions. What if we could link them together 387 00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:23,399 Speaker 1: so they could trade information? Would that be weird? I 388 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,479 Speaker 1: don't think that it maybe some people did, but it 389 00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:31,000 Speaker 1: doesn't seem like generally they predicted that this would become 390 00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:35,880 Speaker 1: a hub of commerce and recreation for everybody on the planet. Yeah, 391 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:38,160 Speaker 1: I mean it's you can you can't help. But compare 392 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:40,720 Speaker 1: it to say empires, right, can you imagine you have 393 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,119 Speaker 1: you know Genghis Khan and he's sitting around and uh, 394 00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,360 Speaker 1: and they're saying, hey, Genghas, what's up? And he said, oh, 395 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:48,320 Speaker 1: not much. I got this idea though, I'm going to 396 00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,040 Speaker 1: call it the Mongol Empire. Huh. And this is how 397 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,840 Speaker 1: it's gonna work. This is how we're gonna incorporate trade 398 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,439 Speaker 1: and the and this is how we're gonna value different religions. 399 00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:59,359 Speaker 1: And there was wall. You haven't even none of this 400 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:01,480 Speaker 1: stuff is even hanker yet, what are you talking about, 401 00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:08,359 Speaker 1: like the people who found these these major movements and organizations, 402 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:12,200 Speaker 1: Like how often is the complete structure baked into the 403 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,560 Speaker 1: original design? Almost never? Each step is improvised. So you've 404 00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:19,679 Speaker 1: got to make decisions about design. You make design decisions 405 00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,960 Speaker 1: on the fly as issues come up. And the Internet 406 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:24,959 Speaker 1: was sort of the same way. Yeah, you gotta leave 407 00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:29,040 Speaker 1: it to Kubla to figure out the rest. So um, 408 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:32,840 Speaker 1: there's a wonderful Washington Post article that that that goes 409 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,679 Speaker 1: into this in depth. It's titled a Flaw in the 410 00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:38,760 Speaker 1: Design and uh and I'll include a link to this 411 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,159 Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode at stuff to 412 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,320 Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. In the article, the author 413 00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,320 Speaker 1: speaks with such Internet forefathers as M. I. T. Scientists 414 00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:51,720 Speaker 1: David D. Clark, David H. Crocker, and Vinton G. Surf. 415 00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,800 Speaker 1: They point out that they thought they could simply exclude 416 00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,560 Speaker 1: untrustworthy people. Is that great, Yeah, We'll just we'll just 417 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:03,280 Speaker 1: keep the security risks off of the Internet. Yeah. So 418 00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:05,240 Speaker 1: when they thought about security, and they did think a 419 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:07,439 Speaker 1: little bit about security, they thought about it mainly in 420 00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:12,440 Speaker 1: terms of protecting the system from outside intruders or military threats. Wow. 421 00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:15,160 Speaker 1: So there's a quanderful quote in this article from Surf, 422 00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:17,679 Speaker 1: and he says, quote, we didn't focus on how you 423 00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,840 Speaker 1: could wreck this system intentionally. You could argue with hindsight 424 00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:24,320 Speaker 1: that we should have, but getting this thing to work 425 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,280 Speaker 1: at all was non trivial. They dealt with problems as 426 00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:31,280 Speaker 1: they arose, and the problems then we're making it work. 427 00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:34,080 Speaker 1: And now this is going to have some very interesting 428 00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:38,080 Speaker 1: parallels once we start talking about neurotechnology again. They also 429 00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:39,959 Speaker 1: point out that at the time, there really wasn't much 430 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,440 Speaker 1: of value in the Internet. Uh. The analogy they make 431 00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:47,280 Speaker 1: again to the bank. People break into banks despite the 432 00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,440 Speaker 1: security because or the attempt to break in because there's 433 00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,200 Speaker 1: money there, because there's something of value. Right, You wouldn't 434 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,800 Speaker 1: break into a bank vault or you know, risk prison 435 00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,920 Speaker 1: time for a bank vault that was full of what 436 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,720 Speaker 1: transcripts of messages back and forth between academics. Yeah, I mean, 437 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:04,959 Speaker 1: unless you're just in it for the pure artistry of it. 438 00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,600 Speaker 1: But that rarely seems to be the case outside of 439 00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:09,720 Speaker 1: like a Hollywood movie. But then, of course, in the 440 00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:14,639 Speaker 1: early days of computers, you did start actually encountering security threats. Yeah. 441 00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,120 Speaker 1: The big one that really changed everything was the Morris 442 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,719 Speaker 1: worm attack and crashed thousands of machines. It caused millions 443 00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,280 Speaker 1: of dollars in damage, and it helped usher in the 444 00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:30,360 Speaker 1: multibillion dollar computer security business. Bless the maker and his water. Yeah, 445 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,760 Speaker 1: I mean at this point that the party was over. Oh, 446 00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,520 Speaker 1: by the way. Interestingly enough, the article also points out 447 00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,480 Speaker 1: that the big idea behind the Internet is at least 448 00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:42,960 Speaker 1: partially attributed to American engineer Paul Barron, who worked for 449 00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:45,439 Speaker 1: the Rand Corporation at the time, and he saw the 450 00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,240 Speaker 1: need for a communication system that would function after a 451 00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,920 Speaker 1: nuclear at strike on the United States, that would help 452 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,600 Speaker 1: us with eight efforts, help us preserve democratic governance, and 453 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:59,480 Speaker 1: even enable a counter strike, all in order to help 454 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:04,000 Speaker 1: quote the survivors of the Holocaust to shuck their ashes 455 00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:09,600 Speaker 1: and reconstruct the economy swiftly. What yeah, um, I mean 456 00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:15,080 Speaker 1: that bringing this Cold War mentality to the Internet. Uh, 457 00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:20,480 Speaker 1: it's so crazy thinking about the way contextual frames completely 458 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:24,280 Speaker 1: shift around the technologies that we create. Yeah. And the 459 00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,320 Speaker 1: crazy thing too, is that every time there's a headline 460 00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:32,040 Speaker 1: about say, meddling in elections with the you know, with 461 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:37,159 Speaker 1: with various online initiatives, or hacking initiatives, or the recent 462 00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,239 Speaker 1: ransomware attack, it makes me realize, well, this is this 463 00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,359 Speaker 1: is what cyber war looks like. This is this is 464 00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:48,240 Speaker 1: the shape of global cyber warfare. And you look back 465 00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,480 Speaker 1: and here's this guy dreaming of the The Internet is 466 00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,720 Speaker 1: this thing outside of war, this thing that's just a 467 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,800 Speaker 1: communication system to help us rebound from assaults by by 468 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,960 Speaker 1: various estates. But it's also this is creating the Internet 469 00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,159 Speaker 1: in the context of thinking about international warfare, but thinking 470 00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:10,080 Speaker 1: about it in terms of overt frontal warfare, missile bombardments 471 00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:13,240 Speaker 1: and troop advancements and all the traditional types of war 472 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,640 Speaker 1: people knew about, not realizing that the Internet would enable 473 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:23,320 Speaker 1: a state of constant covert war between great powers that 474 00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:30,560 Speaker 1: would just be constantly secretly or semi secretly undermining one another. Yeah, 475 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:32,400 Speaker 1: and there would the kind of this gray area about 476 00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,399 Speaker 1: how how you respond? How do you how do you react? 477 00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,840 Speaker 1: How does what are the rules of cyber warfare? And 478 00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,640 Speaker 1: people still haven't figured that out. So that Washington Post 479 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,760 Speaker 1: article is a great exploration of Internet security history. But 480 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,600 Speaker 1: the basic answer to our initial question is this, you know, 481 00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,879 Speaker 1: why is the Internet when of the Internet end up 482 00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,399 Speaker 1: becoming so vulnerable? It's because the Internet wasn't built to 483 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,880 Speaker 1: be secure. All security concerns are an add on an 484 00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,800 Speaker 1: aftermarket edition a patch. Security is always difficult, especially when 485 00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,960 Speaker 1: it wasn't baked into the design and and and with 486 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,919 Speaker 1: these systems that we're talking about, it almost never is. 487 00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,359 Speaker 1: We see the same situation occurring with with some of 488 00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:13,760 Speaker 1: the gadgets and implants and proposed neural technologies we're going 489 00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,720 Speaker 1: to discuss because the primary goal ends up to being 490 00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,080 Speaker 1: what to aid the patient to somehow to achieve the 491 00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,840 Speaker 1: goal of the device or the technology. Right, if you're 492 00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:27,960 Speaker 1: designing neuro technology to help regain some lost functionality and 493 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,159 Speaker 1: somebody with a brain injury or body injury, or to 494 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,840 Speaker 1: cure some kind of neurodegenerative disease or at least offset 495 00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,120 Speaker 1: it's negative effects. Security, I mean, that's just such a 496 00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,760 Speaker 1: far down the road concern. You're you're worried about fixing 497 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,600 Speaker 1: people's problems and helping their lives. That's what you're worried about. 498 00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:48,640 Speaker 1: And it's the same thing you talked about with the 499 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,320 Speaker 1: Internet earlier that you know, people were just wondering if 500 00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,280 Speaker 1: they could make it work. Security is so far down 501 00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,560 Speaker 1: the list of concerns. Yeah again, security becomes this add on. 502 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,640 Speaker 1: It's a thing that you you you end up implementing 503 00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:07,760 Speaker 1: or worrying about once the threat becomes more apparent. Oh yeah, security, 504 00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,120 Speaker 1: not not in the kool aid man sense of oh yeah, 505 00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,800 Speaker 1: but like the oh yeah, oh yeah, this there's a 506 00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:15,920 Speaker 1: man sized hole in the wall. We need to do 507 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,200 Speaker 1: something about this. So I want to go back to 508 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,600 Speaker 1: that paper I mentioned earlier in Neurosurgical Focus from two 509 00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,760 Speaker 1: thousand nine, where they try to lay out a framework 510 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,000 Speaker 1: for approaching the topic of neuro security. And so the 511 00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:33,000 Speaker 1: authors make the point that neurotechnology is becoming more effective, 512 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,480 Speaker 1: and one of the things that we can draw out 513 00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,600 Speaker 1: from this is that as it becomes more effective, it's 514 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,800 Speaker 1: going to become more useful. And as it becomes more useful, 515 00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,560 Speaker 1: it's going to become more widespread. And as it becomes 516 00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,760 Speaker 1: more widespread, it will be more fully integrated into our 517 00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,520 Speaker 1: bodies and our lives. And so there are a lot 518 00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,680 Speaker 1: of current and potential uses of neurotechnology. One thing would 519 00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:01,080 Speaker 1: be treating brain disorders. Another thing might be making paralyzed 520 00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:05,360 Speaker 1: limbs usable again, or allowing users to control robotic limbs 521 00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:09,640 Speaker 1: with thoughts alone. One thing might be remote controlling robots 522 00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,680 Speaker 1: with thoughts. That's a fun one. Another one might be 523 00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:18,440 Speaker 1: enhancing human cognitive capacity. So up until the present, most 524 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:21,920 Speaker 1: research into the safety of neurotechnology is focused on making 525 00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:26,680 Speaker 1: sure the device itself doesn't hurt you when it's functioning 526 00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,440 Speaker 1: the way it's supposed to. Write. Safety concerns are about 527 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,800 Speaker 1: making sure that the intended use of the neuro technology 528 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,360 Speaker 1: is safe, and this makes sense because back in two 529 00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:39,720 Speaker 1: thousand nine, at the time this paper was published, most 530 00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,000 Speaker 1: of these devices were number one, contained in lab environments. 531 00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,040 Speaker 1: You know, they're just not getting out into the wild 532 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,960 Speaker 1: very much. And number two were self contained systems, meaning 533 00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:53,280 Speaker 1: that they had very little limited transaction with the other 534 00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:57,280 Speaker 1: information systems in the outside world. Back when you had 535 00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,640 Speaker 1: an Apple two and no Internet connection, you're probably not 536 00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,560 Speaker 1: going to get a virus, right unless you're one of 537 00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:06,040 Speaker 1: the very few unlucky people to get handed and infected 538 00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,400 Speaker 1: floppy disk and you stick it into your disk drive. 539 00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,720 Speaker 1: Of course, once you start connecting your computers to the Internet, 540 00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:16,840 Speaker 1: your security vulnerability goes way up. Uh. And here's a 541 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:22,040 Speaker 1: cybersecurity mantrad posit for you. The more your device plays outdoors, 542 00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,880 Speaker 1: the more vulnerable it is. Yeah. And this means that 543 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,640 Speaker 1: as a device gets connected to the Internet, interacts with 544 00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:34,200 Speaker 1: a larger number of devices, adds wireless capabilities, all all 545 00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,680 Speaker 1: those things, there are more ways for it to be 546 00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:41,640 Speaker 1: compromised by malicious adversaries. And as devices become more useful 547 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,600 Speaker 1: and more widely adopted, they tend to play outdoors more 548 00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,240 Speaker 1: and more. If and so, what the authors are saying 549 00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,400 Speaker 1: is that if we don't design robust security features in 550 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,000 Speaker 1: them from the get go. We could end up with 551 00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,320 Speaker 1: neurotech that works like the Internet we just talked about, 552 00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,840 Speaker 1: where it's it's an ad hoc system of security fixes 553 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:05,080 Speaker 1: this constant race between security updates and malicious hackers, and 554 00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,440 Speaker 1: every time the bad guys pull ahead, they have the 555 00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:11,240 Speaker 1: ability to bring a little taste of doom with them, 556 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: except this time the target isn't your computer or even 557 00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,720 Speaker 1: your bank account or your Facebook account. It's your nervous system. 558 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,800 Speaker 1: And people probably will not find that acceptable, the victims 559 00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,000 Speaker 1: of such accounts. That is, because inevitably the trend we 560 00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:27,960 Speaker 1: see is that there will be somebody who decides that 561 00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,280 Speaker 1: such an attack on an individual is a good idea 562 00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:33,960 Speaker 1: for whatever kind of whatever reasons they have, or just 563 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:38,760 Speaker 1: sort of the the impersonal nature of online victimization. Oh yeah, 564 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,600 Speaker 1: I mean, of course they're going to be motives. One 565 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,960 Speaker 1: of the things the authors point out is just straightforward cruelty. 566 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,640 Speaker 1: Think of the cruelty both random and targeted, that we've 567 00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:52,080 Speaker 1: talked about of those epilepsy strobe attacks. I mean, that's 568 00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,800 Speaker 1: just sick. But apparently people think that's okay to do. 569 00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,400 Speaker 1: There are people out there who are willing to inflict 570 00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:00,920 Speaker 1: injury on others because they think they can get away 571 00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,840 Speaker 1: with it. But then think about the possible financial and 572 00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,680 Speaker 1: blackmail incentives that would be open to someone who compromised 573 00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:15,040 Speaker 1: your brain itself, and then think about malicious interference that 574 00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,080 Speaker 1: is self directed. One example of this might be UH 575 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:20,600 Speaker 1: In a minute, we're going to talk about the idea 576 00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,880 Speaker 1: of deep brain stimulation or DBS. But there's a possibility, 577 00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:29,520 Speaker 1: for example, of neurotech users to hack their own devices 578 00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,960 Speaker 1: in an act of harmful self medication. So in the 579 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,200 Speaker 1: same way that you might abuse a prescription for painkillers, 580 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:41,760 Speaker 1: you could potentially abuse your neuro technology using it in 581 00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,640 Speaker 1: a way that it's not intended that could be harmful 582 00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,680 Speaker 1: to you in the long run but feels good in 583 00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,239 Speaker 1: the present. Well, or to frame that another way, you 584 00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,120 Speaker 1: could you could have a situation from where people are 585 00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,960 Speaker 1: optimizing their their technology in a way that demand does 586 00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,480 Speaker 1: not approve of. Yeah, you could have that, or you 587 00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,040 Speaker 1: could have One example is overclocking computer rs. Right, people 588 00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,680 Speaker 1: want to over clock their CPUs. Sometimes you see people 589 00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,800 Speaker 1: messing around with their hardware and it means that you know, 590 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,719 Speaker 1: I know I can get more power out of my 591 00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:12,759 Speaker 1: CPU if I if I make some adjustments to what 592 00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,160 Speaker 1: it will allow itself to do. But that comes along 593 00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,160 Speaker 1: with risks, right, you could risk overheating your computer or 594 00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:22,360 Speaker 1: something like that. If people decide they want to do 595 00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,920 Speaker 1: the same thing with their brains, yeah, yeah, then I 596 00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:30,720 Speaker 1: mean basically you could say, I'm going to trade the 597 00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,239 Speaker 1: potential to have more power in my brain with the 598 00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,600 Speaker 1: potential for some risk. Yeah. I mean people do that 599 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,480 Speaker 1: every day when they they look at various pharmaceutical ways 600 00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,600 Speaker 1: to potentially augment their brain for the completion of a 601 00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,520 Speaker 1: task or some sort of creative endeavor. And it reminds me. 602 00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,960 Speaker 1: I believe it was Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, who 603 00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,080 Speaker 1: has been some interviews like look back on past drug 604 00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,879 Speaker 1: use and and said, well, yeah, that was probably too much, 605 00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,360 Speaker 1: but look at what I done. Look look at the 606 00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,520 Speaker 1: work that came out during that time. I'm not sure 607 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:07,239 Speaker 1: if if this is something he said or this was 608 00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:11,200 Speaker 1: commentary on his life, but I mean you could see 609 00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,560 Speaker 1: someone making the argument with technology to say, yeah, I 610 00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:19,080 Speaker 1: overclocked my neural augmentations, but look what I got done. Right, 611 00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:24,160 Speaker 1: Sure did a lot of homework, So you could say, 612 00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,439 Speaker 1: and I think the authors of this two thousand nine 613 00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,719 Speaker 1: articles say that we're at a similar stage in the 614 00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,560 Speaker 1: evolution of neural engineering as we were at the inception 615 00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,040 Speaker 1: of the Internet. Neuro Security is not really much of 616 00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,920 Speaker 1: an issue today, but it could be a huge, massively 617 00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,600 Speaker 1: important concern in the near future, and the consequence of 618 00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:45,920 Speaker 1: a neuro security breach can be a lot worse than 619 00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:49,160 Speaker 1: a breach of Internet security. Instead of protecting the software 620 00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:53,080 Speaker 1: on somebody's computer, you're protecting a humans ability to think 621 00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,960 Speaker 1: and enjoy good health. Right, Yeah, you're getting far because 622 00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,520 Speaker 1: because that's the thing, right, when all these bad things happen, 623 00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,319 Speaker 1: So you for even an identity threat, you can always say, well, hey, 624 00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,440 Speaker 1: at least nobody was hurt. At least I didn't you know, 625 00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:10,040 Speaker 1: nobody physically attacked me. But here we see that line 626 00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:15,400 Speaker 1: somewhat it raced. So a few current trends in neurotechnology 627 00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,520 Speaker 1: that are definitely going to up the stakes and increase 628 00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,239 Speaker 1: the risks. One of these things is wireless connectivity, and 629 00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,240 Speaker 1: the authors in this paper they recognize that security vulnerabilities 630 00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:31,080 Speaker 1: do exist in wireless implanted medical devices, and in past 631 00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,480 Speaker 1: research they demonstrated that a hacker could certainly compromise the 632 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:37,560 Speaker 1: security and privacy of such a device, such as a 633 00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:42,040 Speaker 1: two thousand three model implanted cardiac defibrillator. You see, you 634 00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:46,720 Speaker 1: could they found using homemade, low cost equipment wirelessly change 635 00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:50,880 Speaker 1: a patient's therapies, disabled those therapies, or induce a life 636 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,160 Speaker 1: threatening heart rhythm. And they and this was a two 637 00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,239 Speaker 1: two thousand nine publication, but they things have moved on 638 00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:59,040 Speaker 1: a bit since then, But even then at the time 639 00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,360 Speaker 1: they said, look, the current risk is very low, but 640 00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,000 Speaker 1: such threats have to be taken into account with future designs. Yeah. 641 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:10,080 Speaker 1: So there's increasing wireless connectivity of all types of implanted devices, 642 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:14,279 Speaker 1: including neural fiferals. But the other thing we need to 643 00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:18,080 Speaker 1: take into account for increasing security risks is the increasing 644 00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:23,640 Speaker 1: complexity of these devices. The more a device does, the 645 00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,520 Speaker 1: more there is to worry about from a security concern. Yeah, 646 00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:29,680 Speaker 1: and this is an area where I to make sense 647 00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:31,680 Speaker 1: of this. I keep thinking about a chessboard in a 648 00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,480 Speaker 1: chess game, as many of you might be aware, Like 649 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:40,400 Speaker 1: chess has a set number of pieces, a set playing field, 650 00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:44,080 Speaker 1: and uh in a set rule system. And people have 651 00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,640 Speaker 1: been playing with these limitations for a long time, and 652 00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:49,160 Speaker 1: in doing so they've kind of figured out you know 653 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,480 Speaker 1: all the basic moves that can take place early in 654 00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,279 Speaker 1: the game, and it it's opening the openings. Yeah, and 655 00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:57,160 Speaker 1: you it takes a while to get to that point 656 00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,560 Speaker 1: where you're actually in fresh territory where you're playing a 657 00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,000 Speaker 1: game that has not been played before. So it's Chess 658 00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:06,000 Speaker 1: is not like a modern board game where the bad 659 00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:07,719 Speaker 1: board game comes out and then they might have a 660 00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,359 Speaker 1: new rule, suit supplement, or a new expansion. And each 661 00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,040 Speaker 1: time a new expansion comes out, oh oops, they broke 662 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,600 Speaker 1: the game a little bit, or the rules, this rule 663 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,600 Speaker 1: clashes with this older rule, and we need somebody to 664 00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:21,960 Speaker 1: to weigh in and tell us, uh, you know, how 665 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,560 Speaker 1: we actually play the game. Now, Chess doesn't change. Chess 666 00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:31,160 Speaker 1: remains the same, and our our our world of interconnected 667 00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:35,040 Speaker 1: devices does not stay the same. It changes. It is 668 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,440 Speaker 1: a It is a modern board game that gets gets 669 00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,400 Speaker 1: a larger playing field, gets more pieces, and more complex 670 00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:45,600 Speaker 1: rules pretty much every day. Now, I think we should 671 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:50,879 Speaker 1: zero in on some specific examples of neurotechnologies. One would 672 00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,440 Speaker 1: be robotic limbs. Now, I think this is a great 673 00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:58,200 Speaker 1: example of something that has made enormous strides just in 674 00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,640 Speaker 1: the past couple of decades. Robotic limbs are not the future, 675 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,080 Speaker 1: this is the present. Multiple labs and inter organizational projects 676 00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:10,320 Speaker 1: have already created robotic limbs that can be controlled directly 677 00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,879 Speaker 1: by brain activity, just like the muscles and a natural limb, 678 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,560 Speaker 1: and these things are getting better all the time. That's 679 00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,239 Speaker 1: right now, to go back in time just a little 680 00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,799 Speaker 1: bit back in two thousand thirteen, bertold Meyer wrote an 681 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:27,439 Speaker 1: article for Wired titled ethical questions are Looming for prosthetics. Now. 682 00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,400 Speaker 1: Meyer had a unique insight in this article because he 683 00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,600 Speaker 1: wears a prosthetic arm himself, and as he tried out 684 00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:36,480 Speaker 1: many different models over the years, so he's not you know, 685 00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,160 Speaker 1: he's an insider when it comes to prosthetics and the 686 00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,120 Speaker 1: use of high tech prosthetics. So at the time he 687 00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,000 Speaker 1: was using an eye limb which connected to his iPhone, 688 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,920 Speaker 1: which of course was connected to the internet. He wrote, technically, 689 00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,920 Speaker 1: a part of my body has become hackable and uh, 690 00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,000 Speaker 1: and he pointed to concerns by crime futurist Mark Goodman, 691 00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,879 Speaker 1: also a Wired writer, and Mark Goodman covered the fact 692 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,960 Speaker 1: had previously covered the act that hackers had developed a 693 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:06,359 Speaker 1: bluetooth device that can cause portable insulin pumps used by 694 00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:10,800 Speaker 1: certain diabetics to give their where a lethal dose. Oh yeah, 695 00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,640 Speaker 1: this is another one of the vulnerabilities of hackable implanted 696 00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,320 Speaker 1: devices that don't even necessarily connect to the nervous system 697 00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,560 Speaker 1: or the brain. Right. And if anyone out there is 698 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,600 Speaker 1: a fan of the TV show Homeland, there's actually a 699 00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:27,239 Speaker 1: plot involving in the vice presidential assassination attempt in the 700 00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,880 Speaker 1: show U utilizing just such a strategy. I've never watched 701 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:32,959 Speaker 1: that show is a good I enjoy I only watched 702 00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,879 Speaker 1: the first two seasons, but I enjoyed it. So Meyer 703 00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:39,040 Speaker 1: argues that we we have to recognize and address such 704 00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,800 Speaker 1: hacking sensitivities before the technology is widely adopted and hacking 705 00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:46,640 Speaker 1: becomes a full fledged threat, which just is exactly what 706 00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,239 Speaker 1: we've been we've been saying over again. So myer's on 707 00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,680 Speaker 1: the same page as the authors of this article we 708 00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,160 Speaker 1: were talking about earlier that they're saying. The main thing 709 00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:55,600 Speaker 1: is we've got to get ahead of it. We've got 710 00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:59,239 Speaker 1: to start thinking about neuro security before these threats really 711 00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,920 Speaker 1: become an issue. Now, there are plenty of labs that 712 00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:05,800 Speaker 1: have been working on robotic limbs, thought controlled robotic limbs. 713 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:07,719 Speaker 1: One more example, I wanted to mention There was a 714 00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:11,120 Speaker 1: good article in the New York Times and Mad about 715 00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:15,359 Speaker 1: the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab where they've got 716 00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,759 Speaker 1: this robotic arm. It's got twenty six joints and it 717 00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,919 Speaker 1: can curl up to forty five pounds. Is that more 718 00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:26,040 Speaker 1: than my biological arm concurl? I wonder get into an 719 00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:29,040 Speaker 1: arm wrestling contest with one of these robot arms. I 720 00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,160 Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like we're getting into the weight 721 00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:35,759 Speaker 1: of human hair scenarios. Well, anyway, this thing is it's 722 00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:38,880 Speaker 1: controlled entirely by the brain, and so it is just 723 00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:43,080 Speaker 1: that you connect this to what your natural neural impulses 724 00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,120 Speaker 1: would be and you can't. You don't have to operate 725 00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,560 Speaker 1: any external controls or machinery. You just control it with 726 00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,680 Speaker 1: your brain. There was also a good article I saw 727 00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,759 Speaker 1: and Wired from last year. I think about President Obama 728 00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,160 Speaker 1: just freaking out when he was watching somebody control ale 729 00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,920 Speaker 1: a prosthetic arm with his brain. Uh. He like couldn't 730 00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:08,279 Speaker 1: contain his glee. Yeah, I mean, it's it's amazing, like 731 00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,560 Speaker 1: and that's the thing that the technology has so many 732 00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:16,080 Speaker 1: wonderful applications um and and all of these additional threats 733 00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:18,480 Speaker 1: kind of come second to that, at least when you're 734 00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:20,600 Speaker 1: you're focusing on the wonder. Yeah, and so there are 735 00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,760 Speaker 1: a couple ways you could say that neural devices would 736 00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,839 Speaker 1: come into limb control. So one of them would be 737 00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,440 Speaker 1: restoring the use of a disabled limb. Like if you 738 00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,959 Speaker 1: have some kind of neurological damage or disease that means 739 00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,239 Speaker 1: you still have an arm or a leg, but that 740 00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,120 Speaker 1: you can't control it with your brain. One thing a 741 00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,440 Speaker 1: neural device could do is give that control back to you. 742 00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,160 Speaker 1: Another thing would be that you've lost the arm or 743 00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,120 Speaker 1: the limb and that you have a robotic replacement that 744 00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,880 Speaker 1: you can control with your brain. Yeah, these are These 745 00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,200 Speaker 1: are two possibilities that that come up time and time 746 00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:57,000 Speaker 1: again in you know, Wired magazine articles and other cool 747 00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:01,960 Speaker 1: uh cool you know, forward phasing technol logical publications. Now 748 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,959 Speaker 1: we've mentioned a couple of arms, but they're prosthetic legs too, right, Yes, 749 00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,880 Speaker 1: I was looking around I came across Blatchford's links prosthetic 750 00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,880 Speaker 1: and this communicates from knee to ankle four times a second. 751 00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,000 Speaker 1: So it's a system in which the foot and knee 752 00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,480 Speaker 1: of the prosthetic limb work to work together to predict 753 00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,279 Speaker 1: how it's where is going to move and respond to 754 00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,800 Speaker 1: the position. And this too features a bluetooth connection to 755 00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:31,920 Speaker 1: a smartphone to help manage this interaction to like adjust 756 00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,560 Speaker 1: settings and things like that. Yeah. So, I mean, I 757 00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,600 Speaker 1: guess that doesn't rely on the smartphone CPU to do 758 00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,640 Speaker 1: its computation. I guess that would be difficult. Um, my 759 00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:44,640 Speaker 1: understanding is that this was about like tweaking performance. Yeah, okay, 760 00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:46,799 Speaker 1: so but it's easy. That's the thing when you can 761 00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,560 Speaker 1: see a lot of these technologies. Perhaps they start with 762 00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:53,120 Speaker 1: using a wireless connection to tweak performance, but then it 763 00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,440 Speaker 1: becomes more right, then it becomes about downlighting new firmware. 764 00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:00,960 Speaker 1: Then it becomes about actually using the computational hour of 765 00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:05,279 Speaker 1: the device or the cloud even to control the prosthetic. 766 00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:07,919 Speaker 1: All right, so maybe it's time to think about what 767 00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,279 Speaker 1: would be the security concerns of a robotic limb or 768 00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:16,239 Speaker 1: a neurotechnologically enabled limb. One thing I got to think 769 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,880 Speaker 1: about is the concept of a ransomware attack. So we've 770 00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,160 Speaker 1: recently seen ransomware attacks all over the world. Right, I 771 00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:26,160 Speaker 1: think they're now saying that the North Korean government might 772 00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,919 Speaker 1: be behind these ransomware attacks that have hit like the 773 00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,280 Speaker 1: British NHS and all these other places as of this recording. 774 00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:35,680 Speaker 1: I believe there is some speculation that that might be 775 00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:40,160 Speaker 1: the case, but I was reading an expert, an expert 776 00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,280 Speaker 1: who was saying, well, we're still looking at it, so okay. 777 00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:46,480 Speaker 1: But the basic concept of ransomware attack is you know, 778 00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:50,280 Speaker 1: I've seen this on relatives computers before, where you boot 779 00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,239 Speaker 1: up Oh yeah, you like you. I mean, this is 780 00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:55,640 Speaker 1: a classic type of attack. You boot up your computer 781 00:44:56,160 --> 00:45:00,400 Speaker 1: and there's a message that says, like from Microsoft Anti 782 00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:04,799 Speaker 1: Virus Protection or something, your system is not secure. You 783 00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,040 Speaker 1: must pay to renew your anti virus license in order 784 00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,680 Speaker 1: to boot up your system, and they ask for your 785 00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:14,640 Speaker 1: credit card number, and so they're they're holding your technology hostage. 786 00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:17,880 Speaker 1: In that case, they're pretending to be somebody legitimate, but 787 00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:19,879 Speaker 1: they could just come right out and say, look, I've 788 00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:21,839 Speaker 1: got all your files. I'm not going to let you 789 00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:24,120 Speaker 1: into your phone unless you give me a hundred bucks. 790 00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,640 Speaker 1: And that was basically how this this recent want to 791 00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:31,839 Speaker 1: cry um ransom bot attack. Right, But imagine if this 792 00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:36,799 Speaker 1: was applied to neurotechnology that re enabled you to move 793 00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:40,120 Speaker 1: your limbs. So let's say you're out hiking with your 794 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,400 Speaker 1: amazing robotic legs. You've lost control of your legs, or 795 00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:45,840 Speaker 1: you lost your legs in an accident. You've got robotic 796 00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:48,279 Speaker 1: legs and you're out walking around in the mountains and 797 00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,600 Speaker 1: suddenly they lock in place and refuse to move. And 798 00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,440 Speaker 1: then you get a text message demanding a ransom payment 799 00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:57,440 Speaker 1: of five hundred dollars worth of bitcoin or your attacker 800 00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:00,760 Speaker 1: will not unlock your legs. You know, what are do you? 801 00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:02,799 Speaker 1: You gotta at least take a chance that they're going 802 00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,279 Speaker 1: to make good on the promise. Yeah, I mean, it's 803 00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:10,000 Speaker 1: amazing how how sci fi things can get so quickly. 804 00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:12,680 Speaker 1: I mean that that's really does not seem all that 805 00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:16,240 Speaker 1: far fetched to me. Another thing might be, how about 806 00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,480 Speaker 1: a confidentiality attack, so that that lass type of remember 807 00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:23,800 Speaker 1: the three categories we mentioned earlier of neuro security categories, 808 00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:27,000 Speaker 1: you want to protect to the availability, the confidentiality, and 809 00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,120 Speaker 1: the integrity. That would be an availability attack, right they 810 00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,480 Speaker 1: say you will not be able to use your device 811 00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:36,520 Speaker 1: unless you pay up. You could have a confidentiality attack. 812 00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:39,120 Speaker 1: That would be a skimming attack on your robotic arms. 813 00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,239 Speaker 1: Say an attacker gains control of your robotic arms then 814 00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,680 Speaker 1: uses motion data to infer what you're typing, whenever you 815 00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,799 Speaker 1: use your fingers to type a message. Or how about 816 00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,200 Speaker 1: an integrity attack the attacker literally makes you punch or 817 00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,640 Speaker 1: choke yourself or punch or choke others by taking control 818 00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:58,680 Speaker 1: of your robotic hands. Well, this reminds me of a 819 00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,080 Speaker 1: video clip that I actually included in the notes here. 820 00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:03,319 Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you've seen this, but it was 821 00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,239 Speaker 1: just it was a gentleman on a believe a French 822 00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:09,680 Speaker 1: news program showing off a prosthetic arm, and he activates 823 00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,719 Speaker 1: and it begins to malfunction, and it just kind of 824 00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,000 Speaker 1: starts pounding on the table and then pounding on the 825 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,360 Speaker 1: man's thigh and he can't get it to turn off. 826 00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,640 Speaker 1: So you can easily imagine where even something it wouldn't 827 00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,320 Speaker 1: have to be is is is as precise as making 828 00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,480 Speaker 1: you go karate chop crazy on people around you. But 829 00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,719 Speaker 1: what have you just started making your arm, you know, 830 00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,879 Speaker 1: go into sort of spasms that that could be bad enough, 831 00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:36,200 Speaker 1: especially I mean if you were driving a car at 832 00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:38,319 Speaker 1: the time, if you were if you were giving a 833 00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:42,759 Speaker 1: public presentation. Uh, there any number of scenarios were just 834 00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,200 Speaker 1: the utter malfunction of the device would be bad enough. Now, 835 00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:47,880 Speaker 1: I know a lot of you out there are probably 836 00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,480 Speaker 1: thinking like, well, I wouldn't I wouldn't get a robotic 837 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,759 Speaker 1: limb like that if there are risks like this, But 838 00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,799 Speaker 1: you're probably not putting yourself really in the frame of 839 00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,239 Speaker 1: mind that that somebody who has lost control of a 840 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,880 Speaker 1: limb or lost a limb would experience. I mean, imagine 841 00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:09,440 Speaker 1: not having that ability and having the technological capability to 842 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,520 Speaker 1: regain it. This is not something that I think people 843 00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:16,640 Speaker 1: can really be faulted for wanting. No, I mean, I 844 00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,160 Speaker 1: mean that's the thing, like is the is the if 845 00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,560 Speaker 1: it improves the technology and makes the technology better able 846 00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:24,520 Speaker 1: to you know, let an in a visual cope with 847 00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:28,000 Speaker 1: a lost limb, and then is that that technology becomes 848 00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,680 Speaker 1: the standard. Of course people are going to adapt it. Yeah, 849 00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,360 Speaker 1: this is the thing people are gonna want for good reason. 850 00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:38,200 Speaker 1: And it's definitely, especially at the beginning, going to seem 851 00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:42,120 Speaker 1: like the risks are very low, and hopefully they will be. Yeah. 852 00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:45,000 Speaker 1: So uh, I do want to say here, you know, 853 00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,600 Speaker 1: when it comes to hackable prosthetic limbs, it isn't all 854 00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:52,080 Speaker 1: black mirror paranoia. There is a lighter side as well, 855 00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,239 Speaker 1: and this is where the lego prosthetic arm comes into play, 856 00:48:55,280 --> 00:49:00,319 Speaker 1: designed by Chicago based Colombian designer Carlos Alturo Torres, and 857 00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:03,799 Speaker 1: it's a modular system that allows children to customize their 858 00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:07,160 Speaker 1: own prosthetics. So this is a lesson in engineering programming 859 00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,520 Speaker 1: and a way to help them overcome the social isolation 860 00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:13,600 Speaker 1: they might feel over their condition. So I just found 861 00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:16,120 Speaker 1: it to be an interesting little side note. Well, yeah, 862 00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,640 Speaker 1: we already mentioned in a perhaps dangerous or detrimental context 863 00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:23,720 Speaker 1: the idea of hacking your own neuro pros theses, which 864 00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:26,240 Speaker 1: that could certainly be the case, But I can also 865 00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:29,120 Speaker 1: see hacking your own neuropros theses to be something that's 866 00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:32,360 Speaker 1: very like fun and adventurous and exciting. I guess it 867 00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,680 Speaker 1: would just depend on what the risks and the dangers were. 868 00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:38,319 Speaker 1: Oh man, what have we reached the point to just 869 00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:39,880 Speaker 1: have a little fun with it? What are they a 870 00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:42,960 Speaker 1: hacked Either you hack it or you know, someone outside 871 00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,440 Speaker 1: hacks your prosthetic arm and it makes a hand puppet 872 00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:49,680 Speaker 1: and then it's able to talk specifically in the void. 873 00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,480 Speaker 1: Who is the famous hand puppeteer? I don't know. It 874 00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:54,400 Speaker 1: would do kind of like a kind of like a 875 00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:58,560 Speaker 1: you know, a cartoony Spanish accent to the to the 876 00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,399 Speaker 1: talking hand. You know, I'm talking. I don't know what 877 00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,080 Speaker 1: you're talking about, Senior Winces. Is that I don't know. No, 878 00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:07,840 Speaker 1: I have no idea anyway, I can't help. But imagine 879 00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:10,880 Speaker 1: like a hacked robotic arm suddenly just becoming this little 880 00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:13,680 Speaker 1: talking fifth. It's like that, it starts screaming at you. 881 00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:19,080 Speaker 1: So add that to the list of near future concerns. Well, 882 00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:21,319 Speaker 1: I can think of a good one is that you'd 883 00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:23,720 Speaker 1: hack your own arm to just make it, at random 884 00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:28,319 Speaker 1: intervals throughout the day throw up the rock horns. Then 885 00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:30,200 Speaker 1: you'd have no warning when it was going to happen. 886 00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,760 Speaker 1: You just say, like, fair warning to all my friends 887 00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:34,759 Speaker 1: and family. Every now and then, I'm going to rock out. 888 00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:37,040 Speaker 1: You've got to get the horns or every now and 889 00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,400 Speaker 1: then I may just flip you off. It's not because 890 00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,320 Speaker 1: I don't like you, it's just I've been hacked. Sorry. 891 00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:46,920 Speaker 1: It becomes a great excuse. So yeah, there are multiple 892 00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:51,200 Speaker 1: sides definitely to having systems that are flexible and can 893 00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:53,880 Speaker 1: be manipulated. I mean, you could see that as a 894 00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,359 Speaker 1: security risk, which it probably is, but you can also 895 00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,880 Speaker 1: see it as an opportunity for people to express themselves 896 00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:04,160 Speaker 1: and try new things with their own bodies. Indeed, well 897 00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:05,480 Speaker 1: and that no, you know, we should take a quick 898 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,440 Speaker 1: break and when we come back we will get into 899 00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:20,000 Speaker 1: some some some other possible areas where neurotechnology could become hacked. Alright, 900 00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,880 Speaker 1: we're back, okay, Robert. One more type of neurotechnology that 901 00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,839 Speaker 1: is highlighted in this original paper on neuro security is 902 00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:31,200 Speaker 1: the concept of deep brain stimulation. Yes, now we I 903 00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,280 Speaker 1: think we've talked about this some of the podcast before, 904 00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:38,640 Speaker 1: but deep brain stimulation is basically putting electrodes deep inside 905 00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:43,319 Speaker 1: the brain to stimulate certain regions with electrical impulses. It 906 00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:46,520 Speaker 1: it's uh in the basic idea is fairly simple. Of course, 907 00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:49,239 Speaker 1: the implementation is very complex. Yeah, we get into this 908 00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,400 Speaker 1: in our brain to brain communication episode which I'll include 909 00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:54,280 Speaker 1: a link to on the landing page for this episode 910 00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,680 Speaker 1: is Stuffable your Mind dot Com. But yeah, essentially you 911 00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:58,920 Speaker 1: have sort of the external version, It's kind of the 912 00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:03,000 Speaker 1: god helmet scenario right where you're doing you know, electromagnetic 913 00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:06,720 Speaker 1: cranial stimulation, and then the idea of of actually putting 914 00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:11,000 Speaker 1: the the the the the the devices inside the head 915 00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:15,080 Speaker 1: actually having implants in the brain that are manipulating cognitive function. Yeah, 916 00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:18,640 Speaker 1: and there's all kinds of uses of putting electrodes in 917 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:22,000 Speaker 1: the brain. Deep brain stimulation specifically is is putting them 918 00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,840 Speaker 1: deep down in there to help with multiple types of 919 00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:28,799 Speaker 1: chronic medical conditions. Specifically, it's been effective at dealing with 920 00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:32,759 Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease and with tremors what you might see called 921 00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:37,759 Speaker 1: essential tremor, but also contains uses that have been tried out, 922 00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,720 Speaker 1: such as for treating major depression or for chronic pain. 923 00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:47,560 Speaker 1: And so obviously, the better we get at correcting problems 924 00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:52,080 Speaker 1: that begin in the brain with with electrical impulses, that 925 00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,440 Speaker 1: that is a great thing for the people who suffer 926 00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:58,840 Speaker 1: from these conditions. But when you're putting the capability to 927 00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:02,520 Speaker 1: send electrical imp holses deep within the brain in the 928 00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:05,919 Speaker 1: hands of a piece of technology, you want to make 929 00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,200 Speaker 1: really sure that that technology is doing what it's supposed 930 00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,880 Speaker 1: to do. As you can guess, there could be a 931 00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:15,560 Speaker 1: lot of problems with unwanted electrical stimulation of the brain. 932 00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,480 Speaker 1: And one thing I just want to quote a paragraph 933 00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,400 Speaker 1: from the two thousand nine paper we mentioned. Quote the 934 00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,120 Speaker 1: hacker strategy does not need to be too sophisticated if 935 00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:29,000 Speaker 1: he or she only wants to cause harm. It is 936 00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:33,080 Speaker 1: possible to cause cell death or the formation of meaningless 937 00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:38,600 Speaker 1: neural pathways by bombarding the brain with random signals. Alternately, 938 00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:43,120 Speaker 1: a hacker might wirelessly prevent the device from operating as intended. 939 00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:47,760 Speaker 1: We must also ensure that the deep brain stimulators protect 940 00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:53,080 Speaker 1: the feelings and emotions of patients from external observation, so 941 00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:55,200 Speaker 1: you can see there are a lot of avenues here. Also, 942 00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:57,920 Speaker 1: deep brain stimulation was one of the things we had 943 00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:00,359 Speaker 1: in mind when we talked about the idea of of 944 00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:03,840 Speaker 1: illicit or dangerous self use, like if you are self 945 00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:08,920 Speaker 1: administering patterns of electrical impulses that may feel pleasurable to 946 00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:10,799 Speaker 1: you at the moment, but could be harmful to you 947 00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,160 Speaker 1: in the long run. And of course this this is 948 00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,560 Speaker 1: another another area where you can imagine it being hacked 949 00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,359 Speaker 1: for you know, on both sides, someone saying, all right, 950 00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:20,560 Speaker 1: I know this device was just about, you know, treating 951 00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:22,480 Speaker 1: a disorder, but I'm I'm going to tinker with it, 952 00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:24,720 Speaker 1: and now it gives me orgasms when I push a button. 953 00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:29,160 Speaker 1: But then the reverse of that, of course, is someone 954 00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:33,759 Speaker 1: actually monkeying with your cognitive performance. Yeah, yeah, and you 955 00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,920 Speaker 1: can only think as things like this become more complex, 956 00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:41,799 Speaker 1: there will be more and more opportunities for dangerous exploits 957 00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:46,120 Speaker 1: as well. You know, basically the possibility for dangerous exploits 958 00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:50,839 Speaker 1: seems to track along with the potential for helping the brain. Right, 959 00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:53,480 Speaker 1: as we as we have more power to heal, we 960 00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:56,640 Speaker 1: have more power to destroy. You see that with any technology, right, 961 00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:59,640 Speaker 1: you see those parallel tracks of the beneficial applications for 962 00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:02,680 Speaker 1: human city and in the negative self destructive ones. Totally, 963 00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,520 Speaker 1: it's a it's a nuclear power at the neural level. Yeah, 964 00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,560 Speaker 1: it's chemistry. You know. The same advancements that gave us 965 00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:12,960 Speaker 1: all the beneficial applications of chemistry also produced chemical weapons. 966 00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:16,360 Speaker 1: So so I want to look at one more potential 967 00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:21,839 Speaker 1: neurotechnology that could have great rewards and great risks. And 968 00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:25,759 Speaker 1: so this one is going to be cognitive augmentation. So 969 00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:30,200 Speaker 1: one commonly discussed example is memory augmentation. This comes with 970 00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:33,360 Speaker 1: its own benefits and risks. The risks are fairly obvious. 971 00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,919 Speaker 1: If you have the capability to augment memory, you may 972 00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:40,080 Speaker 1: also have the capability to degrade a race or alter 973 00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:45,319 Speaker 1: existing memories, or to create false memories or impressions. Uh, 974 00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:49,640 Speaker 1: and and alter the entire integrity of a person's memory system. 975 00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:54,360 Speaker 1: But I got another idea. What about computational upgrades? Assuming 976 00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:56,399 Speaker 1: such a thing as ever possible. We we don't really 977 00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:58,840 Speaker 1: know if it is, but we'll assume for now that 978 00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:03,120 Speaker 1: it could be possible to upgrade the brain's ability to say, 979 00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:07,399 Speaker 1: do math or you or computational reasoning. Okay, just an 980 00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:11,280 Speaker 1: implant that boosts some sort of cognitive function in your brain. Uh, 981 00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:14,520 Speaker 1: at your point being like either you're you're handling of 982 00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:18,160 Speaker 1: mathematics or your memory, etcetera. Yeah, So, Robert, I got 983 00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,640 Speaker 1: a scenario for you. Somebody offers you a free surgery 984 00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:26,560 Speaker 1: that they say has a nine chance of increasing your 985 00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:29,839 Speaker 1: i Q by twenty five points? Would you take it? 986 00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:33,319 Speaker 1: M M, I don't know that. That's pretty good. Uh, 987 00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:36,879 Speaker 1: pretty good odds of success. Yeah, you don't have to answer. Now. 988 00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,239 Speaker 1: I got one to make it a little more obvious 989 00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,680 Speaker 1: if you if you're a person out there who's listening, 990 00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:46,000 Speaker 1: and you'd say, hell, no, you know, I'm not messing 991 00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:48,000 Speaker 1: around with my brain. I like my brain the way 992 00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:50,120 Speaker 1: it is. I'm not going to introduce all these risks. 993 00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:53,799 Speaker 1: Then consider this, What if everybody else around you has 994 00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:58,480 Speaker 1: taken this. Yeah, so all of your friends, your co workers, 995 00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:02,279 Speaker 1: everybody in your professionals circle, all of your professional rivals, 996 00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,360 Speaker 1: they all take the upgrade. This is a This is 997 00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:08,040 Speaker 1: a big issue in trans humanist thought. You know, who 998 00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:10,399 Speaker 1: gets to be trans human? And what does it mean 999 00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,480 Speaker 1: to say no to some sort of trans human experience 1000 00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:17,840 Speaker 1: such as a you know, a surgical implant that that 1001 00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,120 Speaker 1: boost your cognitive ability. Well, I'm just talking about voluntary willingness. 1002 00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,080 Speaker 1: So of course the question of who this is available 1003 00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,360 Speaker 1: to is a big question, but it's a different question 1004 00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:29,520 Speaker 1: I'm saying. Let's let's just assume we're in a crazy 1005 00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:33,080 Speaker 1: scenario where it's freely available to everyone, and the only 1006 00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:36,760 Speaker 1: question is do you want it? Will you voluntarily take it? 1007 00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,440 Speaker 1: I'm not sure you're you're in the situation where if 1008 00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:43,120 Speaker 1: you're if you're the first person, you'd probably say like, no, 1009 00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:45,640 Speaker 1: I don't think I want that, it's too weird. If 1010 00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:48,720 Speaker 1: you're the last person, you would probably be desperate to 1011 00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:53,520 Speaker 1: catch up. Right, Would you voluntarily choose to remain at 1012 00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,880 Speaker 1: a cognitive deficit to everybody else around you who has 1013 00:57:56,960 --> 00:57:59,840 Speaker 1: upgraded themselves. I mean, that's the thing people are going 1014 00:57:59,880 --> 00:58:01,560 Speaker 1: to take the risk. People are going to be hungry 1015 00:58:01,680 --> 00:58:03,760 Speaker 1: enough to take the risk. Some people are going to 1016 00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:06,560 Speaker 1: be comfortable enough not to but for how long. Yeah, 1017 00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:09,440 Speaker 1: this is where we get into a scenario of something 1018 00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:12,000 Speaker 1: that I would call maybe this isn't the best term 1019 00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:14,000 Speaker 1: for it, but I'm going to try this out. The 1020 00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:19,480 Speaker 1: term is irresistible availability, and so I'm going to posit 1021 00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:24,360 Speaker 1: that bring computer interfaces and certain types of neural augmentation, 1022 00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:29,240 Speaker 1: cognitive augmentation, if they're possible, they are going to fall 1023 00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:33,439 Speaker 1: into this category of irresistible availability. So I would say, 1024 00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:37,840 Speaker 1: you know, consumer technology that looks scary at first tends 1025 00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,080 Speaker 1: to go through several phases. Of course, you've got the 1026 00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:42,480 Speaker 1: lab phase, right, You've got the alpha and beta phase. 1027 00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:46,600 Speaker 1: It's fairly contained, constrained. It's testing with people who are 1028 00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:49,720 Speaker 1: part who are in on the game basically, and then 1029 00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:51,600 Speaker 1: you've got to you've got a release, and you've got 1030 00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:55,080 Speaker 1: early adopters. These are people who are technologically adventurous and 1031 00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:58,080 Speaker 1: they start using this new thing. They tend to like 1032 00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:01,520 Speaker 1: to show off its advantages. They're more willing to accept 1033 00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,440 Speaker 1: risks that are you know, that haven't been worked out yet. 1034 00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:06,520 Speaker 1: They're willing to get along with the kinks that haven't 1035 00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:10,680 Speaker 1: been solved. Then the intermediate adopters weighed in, and at 1036 00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:14,560 Speaker 1: some point a new technology that originally seemed scary and 1037 00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:20,360 Speaker 1: weird and unnecessary reaches a tipping point of convenience advantage 1038 00:59:20,400 --> 00:59:23,520 Speaker 1: and widespread adoption. And I would say there's definitely a 1039 00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:28,240 Speaker 1: social element to this. It's not just the true, you know, 1040 00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:32,560 Speaker 1: financial or time convenience it provides, but it's the fact 1041 00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:36,760 Speaker 1: that everybody else is doing it. And at some point 1042 00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:39,120 Speaker 1: it goes from something that I don't need and that 1043 00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,480 Speaker 1: scares me to something I couldn't imagine living without. And 1044 00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:46,560 Speaker 1: you can see this in many in many contexts. Think 1045 00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:50,000 Speaker 1: back to cell phones. How cell phones went from a 1046 00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:54,600 Speaker 1: like weird and unnecessary thing that extravagance. Yeah, like characters 1047 00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,320 Speaker 1: and movies had cell phones, especially in their car. Remember 1048 00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:01,720 Speaker 1: when I still enjoy watching like, you know, eighties films 1049 01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:04,200 Speaker 1: where there's a supervillain of some sort in a crappy 1050 01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:06,959 Speaker 1: B movie, of course they have that big, bulky car phone. 1051 01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:10,760 Speaker 1: You're like, Oh, imagine a world which someone makes a 1052 01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:13,600 Speaker 1: phone call from their car. Do you remember when paying 1053 01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:18,160 Speaker 1: for something online with a credit card? Was this really weird, 1054 01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:23,080 Speaker 1: scary and unnecessary thing. I specifically remember that thing, like, 1055 01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:26,439 Speaker 1: why would anybody ever use a credit card to pay 1056 01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:29,520 Speaker 1: for something on the internet? That's insane? Yeah, that's that's 1057 01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:31,200 Speaker 1: what you do. You call an eight hundred number and 1058 01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:34,240 Speaker 1: you use credit card that way, And then think about 1059 01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:38,520 Speaker 1: maybe mobile banking and transactions, ride sharing apps like Uber 1060 01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:42,680 Speaker 1: and lift. You just think about this progression from scary 1061 01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:48,640 Speaker 1: and unnecessary to fundamental. It's the progress of irresistible availability. 1062 01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:52,040 Speaker 1: And I very much think that neurotechnology could easily go 1063 01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:55,440 Speaker 1: in the same direction as it as the advantage has 1064 01:00:55,520 --> 01:00:59,000 Speaker 1: become more clear, as the risks sort of get blurry 1065 01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:01,360 Speaker 1: and and go out of focus because so many people 1066 01:01:01,400 --> 01:01:04,919 Speaker 1: are using it. Uh, it just starts to look more 1067 01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:07,280 Speaker 1: and more like something that you can't go without. And 1068 01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:10,200 Speaker 1: then once you've tried it, you're in the pool. Yeah. 1069 01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:12,080 Speaker 1: I mean, I just keep thinking back to flying, like 1070 01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:15,440 Speaker 1: if if the flying makes sense in an airline, then 1071 01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:19,120 Speaker 1: everything makes sense. Yeah, you're clearly defining the will of 1072 01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:22,320 Speaker 1: God by getting in this machine and ascending like a bird. 1073 01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:25,800 Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, everything else is on the table too. Yeah. Man, 1074 01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:28,320 Speaker 1: And they don't even try to make it pleasant anymore, 1075 01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:31,320 Speaker 1: and people still can't stop doing it. Yeah, like they 1076 01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:33,320 Speaker 1: don't have to sugarcoat it. Yeah, you're in a flying 1077 01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,040 Speaker 1: death machine. I'm on board. Well. Actually, to speak of 1078 01:01:36,080 --> 01:01:39,320 Speaker 1: death machines, of course, the class of comparison here is 1079 01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:43,080 Speaker 1: the car, the automobile, which is far more potentially deadly 1080 01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:46,080 Speaker 1: than just flying on an airline. Yeah. Imagine cars were 1081 01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:50,000 Speaker 1: new and nobody drove them, and they were just brand 1082 01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:54,600 Speaker 1: new invention, just now being debuted. And they told you, Okay, 1083 01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:58,120 Speaker 1: on average, about thirty three thousand people a year are 1084 01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:01,640 Speaker 1: going to die in these machines in the United States alone. 1085 01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:04,680 Speaker 1: Do you want one? Yeah, you would, You would say, 1086 01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:08,000 Speaker 1: I don't know. That sounds kind of dangerous. But the 1087 01:02:08,040 --> 01:02:11,120 Speaker 1: thing is we were born into this world, right, We're 1088 01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:13,800 Speaker 1: born into the world of the automobile, and so you 1089 01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:16,160 Speaker 1: just take it for granted, like, yeah, these are these 1090 01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,280 Speaker 1: are this is the roll of the dice we take 1091 01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:21,920 Speaker 1: every day. So of course it's normal. The convenience creeps in, 1092 01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:25,840 Speaker 1: the widespread adoption makes it look normal and okay, and 1093 01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:30,840 Speaker 1: so it's irresistible availability. It's just ubiquitous and you can't 1094 01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:33,439 Speaker 1: get around it. Yeah, and even things that are not 1095 01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:37,960 Speaker 1: available to everyone just become increasingly normal. Like I keep 1096 01:02:37,960 --> 01:02:42,000 Speaker 1: thinking back to uh to, like Time magazine headlines about 1097 01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:46,880 Speaker 1: test two babies back in seven nineties, like original stigma 1098 01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:50,600 Speaker 1: about IVF. Yeah, and of course that has become it 1099 01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:54,919 Speaker 1: just became increasingly normal, just increasingly every day, like today. 1100 01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:58,160 Speaker 1: It's just another reproductive option that's on the table. And 1101 01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:01,040 Speaker 1: I mean I think that was also influence then by 1102 01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:05,360 Speaker 1: by social social stigma and certainly like misogyny, certain ideas 1103 01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:09,080 Speaker 1: about about you know, people trying to control what women's 1104 01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,560 Speaker 1: bodies are for. But yes, there is Yeah, just the 1105 01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:18,959 Speaker 1: technological aspect alone certainly has become more more accepted. Yeah, 1106 01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:21,840 Speaker 1: so it seems undeniable that will see the same thing 1107 01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:26,280 Speaker 1: occur with these various the idea of neural implants. Yeah, 1108 01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:29,760 Speaker 1: and this stuff may becoming a lot sooner than we think. 1109 01:03:29,800 --> 01:03:33,040 Speaker 1: So we we've talked about how there's already deep brain 1110 01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:36,720 Speaker 1: stimulation and robotic limbs. These are already in development. They 1111 01:03:36,920 --> 01:03:40,120 Speaker 1: already in some cases work pretty well. It's just a 1112 01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,000 Speaker 1: question of them being deployed more in the wild and 1113 01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:47,959 Speaker 1: becoming more widely available. But the question of cognitive augmentation 1114 01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:50,800 Speaker 1: that's still more of a future concern. We haven't really 1115 01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:55,960 Speaker 1: discovered any strong entry ways into that arena of technology yet, 1116 01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:58,760 Speaker 1: but we could be closing that gap really fast, is 1117 01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:03,479 Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So how about neural lace, Elon musk Oh, Yeah, 1118 01:04:03,520 --> 01:04:06,040 Speaker 1: the neural lace. I love this idea because, of course, 1119 01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:09,080 Speaker 1: the the the the guy who coined the term neural 1120 01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:11,840 Speaker 1: lace is a sci fi author Ian M. Banks, one 1121 01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:15,120 Speaker 1: of my personal favorites. Always comes back to the Banks here. Yeah. Yeah. 1122 01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:18,880 Speaker 1: In his books, there's the culture which is this, uh 1123 01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:23,240 Speaker 1: a narco utopian um far future society, and everybody in 1124 01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:28,000 Speaker 1: the culture has all these transhumanist adaptations, such as like 1125 01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:30,920 Speaker 1: drug glands that they can they can gland various substances 1126 01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:33,160 Speaker 1: to change how they're feeling. And they all have this 1127 01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,720 Speaker 1: neural lace that enhances cognitive ability and kind of gives 1128 01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:39,960 Speaker 1: them a Basically, they're they're they're tied into a vast 1129 01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:42,920 Speaker 1: sea of information that they can call up as they need. 1130 01:04:43,280 --> 01:04:46,080 Speaker 1: So basically the idea is it is a way of 1131 01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:50,880 Speaker 1: robustly connecting the brain to the external information systems of 1132 01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:54,320 Speaker 1: the Internet or whatever their future version of the Internet is. Yeah, 1133 01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:57,160 Speaker 1: it would be like Google Brain. Yeah, uh yeah, So 1134 01:04:57,240 --> 01:05:00,280 Speaker 1: that's pretty close to what Musque seems to have in mind. 1135 01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:02,600 Speaker 1: Now obviously we're not there yet, but we do have 1136 01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:05,880 Speaker 1: prototypes of this sort of technology. It's it's nowhere near 1137 01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:11,120 Speaker 1: uh in in Banks level yet. But in March Elon 1138 01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:14,960 Speaker 1: Musk was in the news promoting this new neurotech startup 1139 01:05:15,000 --> 01:05:18,120 Speaker 1: called neural Link, which he basically plans to use as 1140 01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:23,080 Speaker 1: the vanguard of the coming neurocyborg movement. And the idea 1141 01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:26,400 Speaker 1: of the neural lace is really the short version is 1142 01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:30,960 Speaker 1: it's this ultra fine mesh material that can be injected 1143 01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:33,240 Speaker 1: into the brain case with the needles. You get the 1144 01:05:33,240 --> 01:05:37,200 Speaker 1: needle inside the skull and you inject this mesh material 1145 01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:40,400 Speaker 1: over the outside of the brain, where it naturally unfurls 1146 01:05:40,400 --> 01:05:43,760 Speaker 1: to cover the outer surface of the cortices, and from 1147 01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:47,760 Speaker 1: here it melds with the brain and can offer supposedly 1148 01:05:47,840 --> 01:05:52,680 Speaker 1: extremely precise electrical feedback and electrical control of brain activity 1149 01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:56,880 Speaker 1: what they would call a quote direct cortical interface. And 1150 01:05:56,920 --> 01:06:00,440 Speaker 1: supposedly trial versions of this have been deployed in mice 1151 01:06:00,560 --> 01:06:04,520 Speaker 1: with apparently very few side effects, and so in the 1152 01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,720 Speaker 1: short term this might prove a useful treatment for various 1153 01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:13,200 Speaker 1: neurological disorders, you know, age associated neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's 1154 01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:17,520 Speaker 1: and other neurological disorders. But Musk is not shy about 1155 01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:21,320 Speaker 1: the sci fi stuff he's He's into his other motive, 1156 01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:25,520 Speaker 1: which is that ultimately he's interested in cognitive upgrades. He 1157 01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:29,360 Speaker 1: wants cognitive augmentation of the human brain. And one of 1158 01:06:29,400 --> 01:06:32,120 Speaker 1: the main reasons he's given publicly is that Musk is 1159 01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:35,760 Speaker 1: one of these people who's concerned about existential risk from 1160 01:06:35,840 --> 01:06:39,520 Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. So we've talked about this a little bit 1161 01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:41,880 Speaker 1: on the podcast before. We I think we talked about 1162 01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:45,520 Speaker 1: it in our Transhumanist Rapture War episodes, but maybe we 1163 01:06:45,560 --> 01:06:48,680 Speaker 1: should do a whole episode or episode series on this sometimes, 1164 01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:51,840 Speaker 1: because I do think the question of the risks posed 1165 01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:54,880 Speaker 1: by artificial intelligence is interesting, And one of the reasons 1166 01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:58,480 Speaker 1: it's interesting is that it's one of these questions where 1167 01:06:58,520 --> 01:07:01,160 Speaker 1: really smart people who really you know what they're talking about, 1168 01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:03,960 Speaker 1: are totally on both sides of the issue. You hear 1169 01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,040 Speaker 1: people saying we need to be worrying about existential risk 1170 01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:10,040 Speaker 1: from AI right now, and other smart people are saying 1171 01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:12,960 Speaker 1: these people are lunatics. You this is not a concern. 1172 01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:16,720 Speaker 1: And I'm not sure which side of the the issue 1173 01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:20,400 Speaker 1: I fall on. Yeah, it kind of depends on whose 1174 01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:23,120 Speaker 1: argument I'm reading. Yeah, I kind of fall in line 1175 01:07:23,160 --> 01:07:27,280 Speaker 1: with with whoever whatever the last rational argument happen on 1176 01:07:27,320 --> 01:07:29,480 Speaker 1: the matter. Yeah, I guess I'm there. I I consider 1177 01:07:29,520 --> 01:07:33,520 Speaker 1: myself highly persuadable on this topic still, But anyway, Musk 1178 01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:36,400 Speaker 1: is one of these people who says, look, creating superhuman 1179 01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:40,040 Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is a genuine risk to us. We at 1180 01:07:40,120 --> 01:07:44,640 Speaker 1: the very least risk becoming irrelevant, if not risk being destroyed. 1181 01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:47,760 Speaker 1: And so he thinks that in order to avoid becoming 1182 01:07:47,800 --> 01:07:51,000 Speaker 1: irrelevant or worse in the face of superhuman AI, we've 1183 01:07:51,040 --> 01:07:53,480 Speaker 1: got to be willing to upgrade our brains to keep 1184 01:07:53,520 --> 01:07:55,760 Speaker 1: up with the machines. In other words, the only way 1185 01:07:55,800 --> 01:07:58,240 Speaker 1: to make sure that you don't fall victim to machine 1186 01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:02,760 Speaker 1: intelligence is to merge with to become Yeah, and in 1187 01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:04,920 Speaker 1: his view, neural lace might be one way to get 1188 01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:07,280 Speaker 1: us there, giving us the power to augment our bio 1189 01:08:07,360 --> 01:08:12,040 Speaker 1: brains with your neurotechnology to become superhuman mind hybrids. So 1190 01:08:12,120 --> 01:08:16,040 Speaker 1: if the if the the AI god is essentially a 1191 01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:19,280 Speaker 1: cat's cradle design, we want to make sure we're the fingers. 1192 01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:22,680 Speaker 1: We want to make sure we're uh, you know, an 1193 01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:27,040 Speaker 1: important aspect of its spiritual body. Yeah, even if we're 1194 01:08:27,040 --> 01:08:29,160 Speaker 1: not its enemy, we also don't want to be just 1195 01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:32,639 Speaker 1: some irrelevant obstacle to whatever its goals are. We want 1196 01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:36,920 Speaker 1: to be thoroughly integrated with it and its motives. Yeah, 1197 01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:38,519 Speaker 1: which kind of comes back to the end in Banks. 1198 01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:41,439 Speaker 1: That's that That's kind of how he he weaves the 1199 01:08:41,800 --> 01:08:44,760 Speaker 1: humans and the humanoids of the culture into everything, Like 1200 01:08:44,800 --> 01:08:49,120 Speaker 1: they're the minds the aies that that ultimately rule everything 1201 01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:52,320 Speaker 1: and are making all the hard decisions. They see the 1202 01:08:52,400 --> 01:08:56,120 Speaker 1: value and having human operatives, and they also have this 1203 01:08:56,520 --> 01:09:00,920 Speaker 1: is kind of like like hard hard part of are programming, 1204 01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:04,240 Speaker 1: Like I guess they're sort of corporate culture, is that 1205 01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:08,920 Speaker 1: there's something important about human life. Yeah. Now, if you're 1206 01:09:08,960 --> 01:09:11,479 Speaker 1: still one of those people out there saying, Okay, I'm 1207 01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:14,240 Speaker 1: just never going to get any kind of neurological implants. 1208 01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:18,760 Speaker 1: By the way, I'm not advising people never get neurological implants. 1209 01:09:19,120 --> 01:09:22,080 Speaker 1: I'm more saying that the people designing these things really 1210 01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:25,160 Speaker 1: need to be thinking super hard about security from day one. 1211 01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:28,400 Speaker 1: I guess we're way past day one, but from day whatever. 1212 01:09:28,479 --> 01:09:32,240 Speaker 1: This is right now, But you don't just have to 1213 01:09:32,280 --> 01:09:36,200 Speaker 1: worry about the future of neurological influence from technology. If 1214 01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:39,320 Speaker 1: you get an implant, there are other ways to influence 1215 01:09:39,360 --> 01:09:42,519 Speaker 1: the brain with technology. Yeah, yeah, I mean I mentioned 1216 01:09:42,560 --> 01:09:44,400 Speaker 1: this a little bit earlier, but I think another area 1217 01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:49,200 Speaker 1: of potential exploit exploitation would be, uh you know, if 1218 01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:52,759 Speaker 1: you had some manner of external fine tuned electromagnetic cranial 1219 01:09:52,760 --> 01:09:55,360 Speaker 1: stimulation device, perhaps when that aids with the treatment of 1220 01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:59,880 Speaker 1: a psychological condition, or perhaps even works recreationally. Imagine mal 1221 01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:04,120 Speaker 1: where a hacking scheme that turns such brain functioning management 1222 01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:06,400 Speaker 1: on its ear. You know, how fast would you be 1223 01:10:06,479 --> 01:10:08,760 Speaker 1: able to rip the thing off? And oh I can't 1224 01:10:08,880 --> 01:10:11,800 Speaker 1: use it uh in anymore? You know, I'm gonna have 1225 01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:12,880 Speaker 1: to go a day. I'm gonna have to bring this 1226 01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:14,160 Speaker 1: thing into the shop. How am I going to get 1227 01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:18,360 Speaker 1: across town without my my my god helmet to give 1228 01:10:18,400 --> 01:10:20,800 Speaker 1: me there? Now, these external devices I think are a 1229 01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:24,639 Speaker 1: little less plausible on this account than implanted devices are 1230 01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:29,080 Speaker 1: because they're less precise. Right, So you've got transcranial electrical stimulation, 1231 01:10:29,120 --> 01:10:32,680 Speaker 1: also transcranial magnetic stimulation. These things that you know, yeah, 1232 01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:36,280 Speaker 1: play the electromagnetic force to the outside of the head. Uh. 1233 01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:39,200 Speaker 1: When I've seen experiments with these types of things so far, 1234 01:10:39,920 --> 01:10:43,040 Speaker 1: the results they're able to induce in the brain are 1235 01:10:43,360 --> 01:10:47,000 Speaker 1: very very blunt and broad, if you know what I mean. 1236 01:10:47,400 --> 01:10:51,360 Speaker 1: They're not nearly the kinds of minute targeted results that 1237 01:10:51,360 --> 01:10:55,040 Speaker 1: you would get by implanting electrical devices inside the skull 1238 01:10:55,160 --> 01:10:58,240 Speaker 1: or inside the brain. Still, if it keeps me from 1239 01:10:58,360 --> 01:11:01,840 Speaker 1: from auditing my body themein's appropriately, then that's going to 1240 01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:07,599 Speaker 1: ruin my week. Yeah. So so on one hand, I 1241 01:11:07,680 --> 01:11:10,559 Speaker 1: do think this is a real concern. And I should 1242 01:11:10,600 --> 01:11:13,000 Speaker 1: also mention that one of the other papers we looked 1243 01:11:13,040 --> 01:11:16,679 Speaker 1: at was a paper by Saldi Costa, Dale R. Stevens, 1244 01:11:16,680 --> 01:11:20,919 Speaker 1: and Jeremy A. Hansen in UH from the International Conference 1245 01:11:20,920 --> 01:11:25,240 Speaker 1: on Human Aspects of Information Security, Privacy and Trust from 1246 01:11:25,280 --> 01:11:27,759 Speaker 1: and essentially what they look at is trying to create 1247 01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:32,400 Speaker 1: a broad architecture for an intrusion prevention system for brain 1248 01:11:32,479 --> 01:11:35,559 Speaker 1: computer interfaces. That's kind of a hard thing to design 1249 01:11:35,600 --> 01:11:38,160 Speaker 1: at this point, because you know, you don't know exactly 1250 01:11:38,160 --> 01:11:40,479 Speaker 1: what all these systems are gonna look like. But the 1251 01:11:40,479 --> 01:11:42,640 Speaker 1: basic system they come up with is that you know, 1252 01:11:42,680 --> 01:11:46,719 Speaker 1: you'd you'd have a two tiered security system where any uh, 1253 01:11:47,080 --> 01:11:51,280 Speaker 1: Internet or external input coming into the brain has to 1254 01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:54,639 Speaker 1: go through what's known as an intrusion prevention system, which 1255 01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:57,920 Speaker 1: is just a system that tries to screen traffic passing 1256 01:11:58,000 --> 01:12:01,360 Speaker 1: into a network or a machine. If traffic looks suspicious, 1257 01:12:01,439 --> 01:12:04,000 Speaker 1: it says, sorry, you can't go in. And then you'd 1258 01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:06,360 Speaker 1: have to pair that with And I love this sort 1259 01:12:06,360 --> 01:12:10,479 Speaker 1: of the brain equivalent of an anti virus program. Anti 1260 01:12:10,560 --> 01:12:13,840 Speaker 1: virus program looks at what code is executing on this 1261 01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:17,600 Speaker 1: computer right now, what what executive functions are happening, and 1262 01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:21,439 Speaker 1: if it sees suspicious activity, it shuts it down. The 1263 01:12:21,520 --> 01:12:24,120 Speaker 1: brain version would have to use some kind of signal 1264 01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:27,360 Speaker 1: processing to look at what's happening in the brain or 1265 01:12:27,360 --> 01:12:29,880 Speaker 1: in the or in the neural device and say, does 1266 01:12:29,920 --> 01:12:32,679 Speaker 1: any of this looks suspicious like something the brain wouldn't 1267 01:12:32,720 --> 01:12:35,360 Speaker 1: normally be doing, and if so, you might have to 1268 01:12:35,479 --> 01:12:38,479 Speaker 1: disconnect the neural device or shut it down. Yeah, And 1269 01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:40,439 Speaker 1: this is an area where I can just imagine this 1270 01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:43,559 Speaker 1: kind of instead of going just full fledged, face forward 1271 01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:46,240 Speaker 1: into a thought police scenario, we're kind of backing into 1272 01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:50,400 Speaker 1: one because you end up with a situation where potentially 1273 01:12:50,600 --> 01:12:55,200 Speaker 1: where you have we're human cognition. Is this byproduct of 1274 01:12:55,400 --> 01:12:58,799 Speaker 1: organic and machine, right, become increasingly cyborg it's it becomes 1275 01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:02,280 Speaker 1: and then therefore any kind of intrusive thoughts or even 1276 01:13:02,280 --> 01:13:05,479 Speaker 1: criminal thoughts, it becomes kind of like bad behavior. And 1277 01:13:05,520 --> 01:13:09,080 Speaker 1: a dog, right, not a wild dog, but a pet 1278 01:13:09,439 --> 01:13:12,920 Speaker 1: animal because whatever what always happens, Like people are saying, oh, well, 1279 01:13:13,040 --> 01:13:15,720 Speaker 1: is this because the this is the owner's faults, is 1280 01:13:15,800 --> 01:13:17,800 Speaker 1: the dog's fault, and it is there any way to 1281 01:13:17,840 --> 01:13:21,920 Speaker 1: really distinguish between all of these things because the condition 1282 01:13:21,960 --> 01:13:25,280 Speaker 1: of the dog is so manipulated and so changed by 1283 01:13:25,320 --> 01:13:29,120 Speaker 1: its relationship with humans. Yeah, that's a very good point. 1284 01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:32,200 Speaker 1: I mean, I can see a scenario where in the 1285 01:13:32,240 --> 01:13:35,160 Speaker 1: future people might have say, you've got a deep brain 1286 01:13:35,240 --> 01:13:38,599 Speaker 1: stimulator in your head, or you've just got neural lace 1287 01:13:38,720 --> 01:13:42,920 Speaker 1: or something like that, some kind of neuro peripheral technology 1288 01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:45,360 Speaker 1: that that changes the way your brain works. And then 1289 01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:49,360 Speaker 1: you do something that you say that didn't seem like me. 1290 01:13:50,080 --> 01:13:52,840 Speaker 1: Did the neuroprosthetic make me do it. Let's say I 1291 01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:56,599 Speaker 1: went and robbed a bank. Could I sue the company 1292 01:13:56,640 --> 01:13:59,599 Speaker 1: that made my neuroprosthetics and say this is totally out 1293 01:13:59,600 --> 01:14:01,720 Speaker 1: of care for me. I don't know why I did that. 1294 01:14:01,800 --> 01:14:04,720 Speaker 1: I never would have robbed a bank normally, And I 1295 01:14:04,760 --> 01:14:08,720 Speaker 1: think what happened is that my neuroprosthetic malfunctioned and it 1296 01:14:08,920 --> 01:14:12,720 Speaker 1: artificially pumped up my aggressiveness and lowered my inhibitions and 1297 01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:15,880 Speaker 1: did all this stuff that temporarily turned me into a 1298 01:14:15,880 --> 01:14:19,920 Speaker 1: bank robber. And that's not my biological brain's fault. Or 1299 01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:22,160 Speaker 1: it could be that you went to the wrong ret website, 1300 01:14:22,720 --> 01:14:25,599 Speaker 1: you clicked on something you you shouldn't have, and that 1301 01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:28,920 Speaker 1: somehow that managed to like follow up the chain to 1302 01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:32,400 Speaker 1: your brain itself and altered your behavior. Oh, I didn't 1303 01:14:32,400 --> 01:14:34,680 Speaker 1: even think about that with neuroprosthetics. So it could be 1304 01:14:34,720 --> 01:14:37,639 Speaker 1: something you click on on the Internet or some search 1305 01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:40,960 Speaker 1: you do on Amazon can now not only follow you 1306 01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:43,400 Speaker 1: around it showing you ads at different websites, but it 1307 01:14:43,439 --> 01:14:45,519 Speaker 1: can follow you into your brain. Yeah. Or maybe they 1308 01:14:45,560 --> 01:14:48,280 Speaker 1: didn't even hack you, say they hacked an advertisement that 1309 01:14:48,320 --> 01:14:51,880 Speaker 1: you passed, and that advertisement communicates with devices that you 1310 01:14:51,960 --> 01:14:55,280 Speaker 1: have that you know, so that it can it can 1311 01:14:55,280 --> 01:14:57,240 Speaker 1: figure out what your behavior is and you know, feed 1312 01:14:57,280 --> 01:15:02,519 Speaker 1: you the right advertisements, maybe in your dreams or something. Yeah. Yeah, 1313 01:15:02,800 --> 01:15:05,760 Speaker 1: So the main thing, my main point in this episode 1314 01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:10,880 Speaker 1: is that I think that we cannot depend on the 1315 01:15:10,920 --> 01:15:16,280 Speaker 1: consumers opting out as a way to avoid these risks 1316 01:15:16,600 --> 01:15:20,360 Speaker 1: because of this this irresistible availability thing. As these things 1317 01:15:20,400 --> 01:15:24,080 Speaker 1: become more available, become more widespread, and become more useful, 1318 01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:27,520 Speaker 1: people are just not going to be able to resist 1319 01:15:27,640 --> 01:15:31,000 Speaker 1: the urge to use them. And uh and in some 1320 01:15:31,040 --> 01:15:34,000 Speaker 1: cases there you know, if you suffer like an injury 1321 01:15:34,080 --> 01:15:36,720 Speaker 1: or disability or something, there's no reason you you you 1322 01:15:36,800 --> 01:15:39,080 Speaker 1: should want to resist them, right, they will give you 1323 01:15:39,160 --> 01:15:42,720 Speaker 1: lost functionality back. Yeah, I mean, unless there's an end 1324 01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:46,400 Speaker 1: to the advancement technology or say there's a buttle Arian 1325 01:15:46,520 --> 01:15:50,040 Speaker 1: Jahad and and people as as you know in mass 1326 01:15:50,240 --> 01:15:52,880 Speaker 1: decide no, we we you know, we're not going to 1327 01:15:53,000 --> 01:15:56,080 Speaker 1: cross this point. We're gonna put in place laws that 1328 01:15:56,280 --> 01:16:01,519 Speaker 1: keep us from augmenting ourselves and becoming and thinking machines. Yeah. 1329 01:16:01,600 --> 01:16:04,760 Speaker 1: So I'm saying you can't depend on the individual consumer 1330 01:16:05,000 --> 01:16:08,280 Speaker 1: or patient to opt out. That that is not something 1331 01:16:08,400 --> 01:16:10,880 Speaker 1: that should be part of the thinking on this. It 1332 01:16:10,880 --> 01:16:15,800 Speaker 1: should be that security concerns are absolutely taken into consideration 1333 01:16:16,120 --> 01:16:19,960 Speaker 1: from day whatever this is now, because it's never from 1334 01:16:20,040 --> 01:16:22,880 Speaker 1: day one, it's always going to be like day you 1335 01:16:24,280 --> 01:16:26,920 Speaker 1: gotta you gotta be ahead of those brain hackers. Yeah, 1336 01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:29,360 Speaker 1: all right, so there you have it. Hopefully we gave 1337 01:16:29,400 --> 01:16:32,080 Speaker 1: everyone some you know ace, you know, definitely some some 1338 01:16:32,200 --> 01:16:35,240 Speaker 1: room for a little paranoia and a little sci fi 1339 01:16:35,360 --> 01:16:38,639 Speaker 1: wondering for sure, but also just some some some real 1340 01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:44,640 Speaker 1: facts about technology and security and how the how the 1341 01:16:45,280 --> 01:16:48,599 Speaker 1: footfalls tend to go in this trek, and one hopes 1342 01:16:48,640 --> 01:16:52,599 Speaker 1: those footfalls are chosen by one's own free will. Yes, indeed, 1343 01:16:53,080 --> 01:16:55,519 Speaker 1: so hey, if you want to uh learn more about 1344 01:16:55,520 --> 01:16:57,479 Speaker 1: this topic, heading over to stuff to Blow your Mind 1345 01:16:57,520 --> 01:16:59,599 Speaker 1: dot com. That's where we'll find all of our podcast 1346 01:16:59,600 --> 01:17:02,760 Speaker 1: episode blog post links out to our various social media 1347 01:17:02,760 --> 01:17:05,880 Speaker 1: accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram. We're on all 1348 01:17:05,880 --> 01:17:08,800 Speaker 1: those things, and the landing page for this episode will 1349 01:17:08,800 --> 01:17:10,960 Speaker 1: include some links out to some of the sources we 1350 01:17:10,960 --> 01:17:13,360 Speaker 1: talked about here today. And if you want to get 1351 01:17:13,400 --> 01:17:15,400 Speaker 1: in touch with us directly to give us feedback on 1352 01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:17,280 Speaker 1: this episode or any other, or to let us know 1353 01:17:17,360 --> 01:17:20,640 Speaker 1: if you think you would accept a voluntarily opt in 1354 01:17:21,360 --> 01:17:24,840 Speaker 1: neuro enhancement, or if you want to suggest topics for 1355 01:17:24,880 --> 01:17:27,280 Speaker 1: the future or anything like that, you can always email 1356 01:17:27,360 --> 01:17:29,840 Speaker 1: us at blow the Mind at how staff works dot 1357 01:17:29,840 --> 01:17:43,599 Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics. 1358 01:17:43,920 --> 01:17:51,760 Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works? Dot com b b b 1359 01:17:52,479 --> 01:18:01,439 Speaker 1: b b blas, wait to wait, to wait to people 1360 01:18:02,280 --> 01:18:05,240 Speaker 1: lass as far back