WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.540 Tell me about your vision. So my vision is really 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:10.839 a reprise of what we had in social media in the 00:00:10.839 --> 00:00:13.419 80s. A lot of people don't realize that social 00:00:13.419 --> 00:00:17.359 media goes back to the 1980s and, in fact, goes 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:21.879 back to the 1970s. But back then we had something 00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:27.039 called accountable anonymity. You were not tracked. 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:30.839 You didn't have to disclose. your identity and 00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:35.920 yet you were accountable so um i launched the 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:40.700 world's first online encyclopedia in 1981 that 00:00:40.700 --> 00:00:44.000 turned out to be a horrible business model but 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:50.700 it fairly quickly morphed into social media 1982 00:00:50.700 --> 00:00:56.740 it became the delphi social network and in delphi 00:00:59.430 --> 00:01:04.390 You know, you had up to six usernames that you 00:01:04.390 --> 00:01:06.930 could use for yourself or for family members. 00:01:07.030 --> 00:01:10.269 You could use them for different personas. And 00:01:10.269 --> 00:01:17.310 no one had to know your identity unless you did 00:01:17.310 --> 00:01:23.510 something wrong, unless you, say, defrauded someone 00:01:23.510 --> 00:01:28.519 online. stole from them, or if you defamed them, 00:01:28.659 --> 00:01:33.500 in other words, you told untruth things about 00:01:33.500 --> 00:01:37.799 another person, if they got a court order, we 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:43.040 would disclose their identity to you, the injured 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:46.599 person. Also, if you broke the law. So we would 00:01:46.599 --> 00:01:51.439 occasionally get a visit from the US Drug Enforcement 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:55.079 Agency saying that we think this user has been 00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:59.219 dealing drugs online and and we'd like to know 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:02.719 who they are and we'd say um well did you bring 00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:05.620 a court order and and they'd say well we're the 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:09.259 the drug enforcement agency do we need a court 00:02:09.259 --> 00:02:11.580 order and we'd say yes you need a court order 00:02:11.580 --> 00:02:15.080 so they'd go get a court order and and we would 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:19.360 disclose the identity of the person so that's 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:23.439 accountable anonymity You are accountable and 00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:27.919 accountability is something that I started writing 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:30.759 a book. In fact, there it is, the second edition 00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:34.219 of Quiet Enjoyment right behind me. I started 00:02:34.219 --> 00:02:40.400 writing a book about bringing accountable anonymity 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.300 or bringing accountability back to social media, 00:02:44.419 --> 00:02:47.080 web -based social media, because of course there 00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:50.020 was no... There was no World Wide Web in the 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:56.560 1980s. It was all text -based. And as I was writing 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:59.300 this book, I was contacted by some people at 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:03.240 the International Telecommunication Union who 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:07.860 said, hey, we understand you're writing a book 00:03:07.860 --> 00:03:11.479 about bringing accountability to social media. 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:15.280 We're actually building. a global PKI network 00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:18.580 that implements the things that you're advocating 00:03:18.580 --> 00:03:23.599 in your book, Let's Get Together. We did and 00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:27.460 I worked with them for a few years and it turned 00:03:27.460 --> 00:03:31.180 out that the member states of the ITU weren't 00:03:31.180 --> 00:03:38.080 so enthusiastic about it and so they pulled the 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:41.419 plug on the World eTrust initiative basically. 00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:45.419 So the Leadership of the World You Trust initiative 00:03:45.419 --> 00:03:47.719 came to me and said, Wes, could you continue 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:51.340 this work? We can't keep doing it. Our mandate 00:03:51.340 --> 00:03:55.319 is to stop. But, you know, and I said, yes, I'd 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:59.120 like to do that. So that's March 7th, 2005 is 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:03.020 when this online municipality, the city of Osmeo, 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:06.860 was born as a source of duly constituted public 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:10.919 authority for the online world, for the social 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:17.110 media world. So that's the vision, you know, 00:04:17.110 --> 00:04:22.230 eliminating fraud and malware and phishing attacks 00:04:22.230 --> 00:04:28.050 and ransomware and breaches through the application 00:04:28.050 --> 00:04:33.189 of accountable anonymity. Tell me more about 00:04:33.189 --> 00:04:38.589 that. How does that entail with what you do now? 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:50.199 How does that entail with media in play? Well, 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:55.879 media meaning online media or media meaning all 00:04:55.879 --> 00:05:05.740 media. It's strictly an online phenomenon. It's 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:13.370 based on PKI. Now, if you're familiar with Well, 00:05:13.569 --> 00:05:22.290 with what we call AC, HTTPS is an application 00:05:22.290 --> 00:05:26.129 of AC, asymmetric cryptography. So right now 00:05:26.129 --> 00:05:35.069 you and I are connected via an SSL tunnel, SSL 00:05:35.069 --> 00:05:38.709 and TLS, right? Yeah. So that makes use of this 00:05:38.709 --> 00:05:44.389 fundamental technology. That technology was invented 00:05:44.389 --> 00:05:49.230 way back in the 70s by the same British Signals 00:05:49.230 --> 00:05:54.189 Intelligence Agency, where decades earlier, Alan 00:05:54.189 --> 00:05:58.050 Turing had shortened World War II by cracking 00:05:58.050 --> 00:06:06.620 the German Enigma codes. In the early 80s, well, 00:06:06.699 --> 00:06:09.639 in the 70s, it was a British military secret, 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:11.459 so he couldn't talk about it, but it was sort 00:06:11.459 --> 00:06:15.540 of reinvented in the US without the knowledge 00:06:15.540 --> 00:06:25.500 of the original work in the UK. And it was, pieces 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:30.220 were filled in to make asymmetric cryptography 00:06:30.220 --> 00:06:35.300 practical and to deliver the kind of. accountability 00:06:35.300 --> 00:06:41.100 that we're talking about. The framework basically 00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:46.639 goes from asymmetric cryptography to public key 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:53.060 cryptography to public PKI, public key infrastructure. 00:06:57.100 --> 00:07:02.339 It's a very mature, very proven, very sound, 00:07:02.439 --> 00:07:07.180 robust. system for a while it was difficult to 00:07:07.180 --> 00:07:09.720 implement for a number of reasons one being that 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:12.459 computers didn't have the power needed to do 00:07:12.459 --> 00:07:15.079 the cryptography but that's all changed like 00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:18.000 we all have a super computer in our pocket now 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:22.420 so that's that's been taken care of but another 00:07:22.420 --> 00:07:28.720 thing happened and that is that um the big tech 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:35.290 companies So doing PKI right puts you in control 00:07:35.290 --> 00:07:39.769 of the use of information about yourself. Well, 00:07:39.889 --> 00:07:44.250 when, you know, a collection of industries we 00:07:44.250 --> 00:07:48.089 call syllabandia makes all their money by basically 00:07:48.089 --> 00:07:51.529 stealing your personal information and selling 00:07:51.529 --> 00:07:56.389 it through information brokers and using it to 00:07:56.389 --> 00:07:59.230 manipulate your perceptions. That's a trillion 00:07:59.230 --> 00:08:03.079 dollar industry. When you add up Silicon Valley, 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:07.319 plus the broadband industry, plus the media industry, 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:12.540 plus the dark web and the botnet farmers, and 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:18.139 we include private equities, venture capital, 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:23.040 and the cybersecurity industry in that. So that's 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:27.660 a big bunch of industries, and it adds up to 00:08:27.660 --> 00:08:30.699 over a trillion dollars worth of revenue. What 00:08:30.699 --> 00:08:32.840 would happen to that trillion -dollar set of 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:36.399 industries if all of a sudden you and I and everyone 00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:39.340 had control of the use of information about ourselves 00:08:39.340 --> 00:08:45.360 and only people that we licensed that information 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.879 to could actually use it? And the answer is that 00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:50.879 would be the end of a trillion -dollar industry. 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:56.240 So that's why PKI never got the traction. that 00:08:56.240 --> 00:09:01.639 people needed to gain real security, real privacy, 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:05.139 and real accountability. So we're bringing that 00:09:05.139 --> 00:09:08.919 back now that more people, now that people in 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:12.259 general are more sophisticated about what Silicon 00:09:12.259 --> 00:09:14.720 Valley is doing with their personal information. 00:09:14.980 --> 00:09:18.220 We think there's a market now for people who 00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:22.460 are willing to invest a little bit of time and 00:09:22.460 --> 00:09:27.610 effort into... bring themselves to a space that 00:09:27.610 --> 00:09:31.350 delivers real privacy, real security, real accountability. 00:09:31.549 --> 00:09:38.250 That is accountable anonymity. So how do you... 00:09:38.250 --> 00:09:44.090 Because I know our data is tracked in almost 00:09:44.090 --> 00:09:47.230 everything we do now. One of the things is because 00:09:47.230 --> 00:09:50.750 we carry our phones everywhere. Anytime I'm going 00:09:50.750 --> 00:09:53.169 on Amazon, looking through some stuff, they're 00:09:53.169 --> 00:09:55.830 tracking how much time I spend on each item. 00:09:56.070 --> 00:09:59.009 What did I search? When did I search? What time 00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:01.490 of the day? Same as social media. They're tracking, 00:10:01.649 --> 00:10:04.769 hey, I was at this picture, at this like, at 00:10:04.769 --> 00:10:07.990 this moment. I switched it out. We eliminate 00:10:07.990 --> 00:10:13.570 that. How do you eliminate that? Through what 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:22.019 we call. a certificate stack. Okay, so you know 00:10:22.019 --> 00:10:25.480 how personas work, right? You have multiple personas. 00:10:28.179 --> 00:10:33.460 Imagine that if you drive around town, you're 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:36.639 in a small town and people recognize your car, 00:10:36.860 --> 00:10:41.320 right? They know where you're going. People take 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:47.110 note of what you do and where you go. So you 00:10:47.110 --> 00:10:51.429 go out and buy 40 cars and you drive around town 00:10:51.429 --> 00:10:56.230 in 40 different cars. Now, all of a sudden, it's 00:10:56.230 --> 00:11:02.970 much more difficult to track you, right? And 00:11:02.970 --> 00:11:09.549 that's through, you know, the physical, that's 00:11:09.549 --> 00:11:17.190 in a physical environment. Online. We can emulate 00:11:17.190 --> 00:11:21.889 something from that physical world, and that 00:11:21.889 --> 00:11:25.990 is your car's number plate. Now, think about 00:11:25.990 --> 00:11:29.230 it. Anyone can see your number plate, but no 00:11:29.230 --> 00:11:32.309 one gets to know the identity of the driver or 00:11:32.309 --> 00:11:35.409 owner of the car unless there's been an incident. 00:11:35.809 --> 00:11:39.549 And this is important because you can't, you 00:11:39.549 --> 00:11:46.370 know, there are. A lot of people out there who 00:11:46.370 --> 00:11:49.529 think that the solution to this trackability 00:11:49.529 --> 00:11:54.990 is to eliminate governance, eliminate authority, 00:11:55.490 --> 00:12:01.190 and let there be no consequences for anything. 00:12:01.529 --> 00:12:08.789 Well, that doesn't work either, right? If you 00:12:08.789 --> 00:12:13.269 emulate your car's license plate, In social media, 00:12:13.470 --> 00:12:22.470 in the online world. And furthermore, you create, 00:12:22.870 --> 00:12:26.370 and I say license plate, number plate, I've got 00:12:26.370 --> 00:12:32.950 to get used to using one or the other. But picture 00:12:32.950 --> 00:12:36.149 those 40 cars with 40 different number plates. 00:12:36.230 --> 00:12:38.590 Now that, in the physical world, that gets pretty 00:12:38.590 --> 00:12:41.590 costly to have 40 different cars. But in the 00:12:41.590 --> 00:12:44.850 online world, you can have 140 cars. You can 00:12:44.850 --> 00:12:48.509 have as many personas as you want. And you present 00:12:48.509 --> 00:12:51.669 yourself in different communities as different 00:12:51.669 --> 00:12:55.789 people. But they're all tied to a foundational 00:12:55.789 --> 00:12:58.990 certificate. It's like your birth certificate. 00:12:59.950 --> 00:13:02.269 People don't see your birth certificate. They 00:13:02.269 --> 00:13:06.870 don't see your foundational certificate. Physical 00:13:06.870 --> 00:13:09.129 world, how often do you use your birth certificate? 00:13:09.350 --> 00:13:11.870 Pretty infrequently, right? You don't carry it 00:13:11.870 --> 00:13:14.250 around with you and use it. For identity, you 00:13:14.250 --> 00:13:17.570 have your driver's license, your passport, or 00:13:17.570 --> 00:13:22.809 your school ID, your employer ID. So that's how 00:13:22.809 --> 00:13:26.870 it works. You make yourself accountable, but 00:13:26.870 --> 00:13:29.289 you don't give away anything about yourself, 00:13:29.450 --> 00:13:33.330 your location, your identity, your name, anything. 00:13:36.229 --> 00:13:39.750 a lot of these platforms that are actually tracking 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:44.350 us right um are now requiring id verification 00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:49.450 right to to to make sure that you are the person 00:13:49.450 --> 00:13:52.429 you say you are and that could be to verify it 00:13:52.429 --> 00:13:54.950 could be for information on could be either or 00:13:54.950 --> 00:13:59.529 to to eliminate bots and other other things um 00:14:01.580 --> 00:14:07.440 How does someone get over that with KPI? First 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:15.639 of all, we're not accepting that as the way to 00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:17.799 do things. I guess that's the best answer. Just 00:14:17.799 --> 00:14:20.580 because people are doing things the wrong way 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:24.480 doesn't mean that it won't be replaced. One of 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:28.960 my favorite sayings is that tomorrow will always 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:33.379 be different from today. um you know everything 00:14:33.379 --> 00:14:37.399 that we people people have a a way of assuming 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:40.700 that the latest technology is the permanent technology 00:14:40.700 --> 00:14:44.000 well it never is it's not that it often gets 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:48.779 uh succeeded by something else it always gets 00:14:48.779 --> 00:14:50.940 succeeded by something else so whatever you're 00:14:50.940 --> 00:14:55.639 looking at now that means of authentication you 00:14:55.639 --> 00:14:58.679 know i'm Here I am saying, here's how we're going 00:14:58.679 --> 00:15:01.159 to replace that. But whether we replace it or 00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:03.720 not, someone's going to replace it. Now, you're 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:07.759 probably familiar with Passkey. Yes. Okay. So 00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:14.220 Passkey is one way to bring a level of consistency 00:15:14.220 --> 00:15:19.799 from one relying party to another. But of course, 00:15:19.820 --> 00:15:23.679 that also introduces immense trackability, as 00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:26.919 though we didn't already. have enough trackability 00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:30.740 where, as you said, everything we do is being 00:15:30.740 --> 00:15:35.980 tracked. And now this just, you know, reinforces 00:15:35.980 --> 00:15:40.200 that view of the way Silicon Valley, plus the 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:42.720 broadband and media industries, plus all the 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:46.299 others track you. We're getting rid of that. 00:15:46.580 --> 00:15:49.360 Now, the thing is, it's not, there's another 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:52.399 assumption. And that is that when you change 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:55.379 the way things work online, You're changing them 00:15:55.379 --> 00:16:01.980 everywhere. Because the Internet works like a 00:16:01.980 --> 00:16:04.220 highway system, right? It was called an information 00:16:04.220 --> 00:16:07.460 highway. And so if you're changing the way the 00:16:07.460 --> 00:16:10.059 highway works, you know, if you're going to all 00:16:10.059 --> 00:16:13.179 of a sudden say, you know, instead of red is 00:16:13.179 --> 00:16:16.960 stop and green is go, we're going to say purple 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:21.279 is go or something like that. You've got to change 00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:24.679 everything everywhere. That's not the assumption 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:28.759 that we have going forward. You choose to be 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:37.299 part of our online world. It's not imposed upon 00:16:37.299 --> 00:16:44.320 you. So we have a number of enterprises in the 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:47.590 works. Think of us as a... as a franchising type 00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:51.169 of business. We have a platform and our franchisees 00:16:51.169 --> 00:16:54.850 use that platform, the authenticity platform. 00:16:56.590 --> 00:17:01.029 And one that is about to be introduced, you know, 00:17:01.049 --> 00:17:03.269 I'll tip my hand a little bit here and say that 00:17:03.269 --> 00:17:07.190 one of our franchisees, an independent company, 00:17:07.250 --> 00:17:11.430 is going to be launching a dating network, a 00:17:11.430 --> 00:17:16.549 dating app, where everyone... If you join this 00:17:16.549 --> 00:17:18.990 dating app, naturally, as with the Internet, 00:17:19.210 --> 00:17:22.170 you don't have to be part of it. But when you 00:17:22.170 --> 00:17:25.829 do join this dating app, you know that anybody 00:17:25.829 --> 00:17:29.609 you encounter is a real person. No fake people, 00:17:29.750 --> 00:17:32.869 no synthetic identities, and that everyone is 00:17:32.869 --> 00:17:36.289 accountable for what they say and do online. 00:17:36.769 --> 00:17:41.569 So no more pig butchering scams. No more, you 00:17:41.569 --> 00:17:47.380 know. fraud and and um all the bad stuff that 00:17:47.380 --> 00:17:51.900 comes with a lot of dating sites now that's an 00:17:51.900 --> 00:17:59.140 example of the way this is deployed so your this 00:17:59.140 --> 00:18:01.500 is how what i understand from what you said so 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:06.299 your system is not designed to replace what's 00:18:06.299 --> 00:18:09.720 in place because i mean there's a lot of reasons 00:18:09.720 --> 00:18:13.299 because but one of the reasons could be It's, 00:18:13.299 --> 00:18:17.259 I'm guessing, extremely hard to replace the way 00:18:17.259 --> 00:18:22.559 data is used and being manipulated and sold on 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:25.359 the Internet today. But your network specifically, 00:18:25.900 --> 00:18:29.980 someone has to choose to be a part of to protect 00:18:29.980 --> 00:18:34.319 their information. So you're familiar with that 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:37.299 old metaphor, right? The information highway. 00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:41.359 It's easily understood. when you think about 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:45.240 that expression. So what is a highway? In the 00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:49.140 physical world, how do we use highways? Typically, 00:18:49.140 --> 00:18:51.900 we use highways to go from building to building, 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:57.039 right? Yeah. You and I are both inside of buildings 00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:02.460 now. These are spaces of accountability. You 00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:05.900 tend to know who's in a room with you. Where 00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:08.200 you're sitting and where I'm sitting are not 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:10.730 part of the highway. They're separate from the 00:19:10.730 --> 00:19:13.250 highway. You use the highway to get to them. 00:19:13.569 --> 00:19:17.430 So that's the way this works. The internet, we've 00:19:17.430 --> 00:19:23.710 tried for years to keep our files, have our meetings, 00:19:23.829 --> 00:19:26.490 let our kids hang out by the side of the highway 00:19:26.490 --> 00:19:29.289 when we should have been saying, wait a minute, 00:19:29.430 --> 00:19:33.650 this isn't the way highways work. Highways take 00:19:33.650 --> 00:19:38.859 us to bounded spaces of accountability. Right. 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:42.539 You leave the highway and go into a building. 00:19:42.740 --> 00:19:46.759 Well, think of what we're doing as providing 00:19:46.759 --> 00:19:50.559 the tools by which you can build buildings that 00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:53.299 you reach by the highway, but are not part of 00:19:53.299 --> 00:19:55.430 the highway. Thank you for being here today. 00:19:55.589 --> 00:19:57.369 I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision 00:19:57.369 --> 00:19:59.990 Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your 00:19:59.990 --> 00:20:02.789 reactions as these episodes continue to move 00:20:02.789 --> 00:20:04.730 forward. This is going to get more and more fun. 00:20:04.750 --> 00:20:06.609 We'll have more and more engagement as well. 00:20:06.650 --> 00:20:08.549 We'll invite people to participate in the show. 00:20:08.690 --> 00:20:10.750 And thank you for giving us your time and attention. 00:20:11.009 --> 00:20:13.650 Have an excellent time building out your vision 00:20:13.650 --> 00:20:15.029 and becoming a vision pro yourself.