Latest / Identity at the Center / #352 - Misinformation vs. Disinformation in IAM with Alejandro Leal

Transcript

#352 - Misinformation vs. Disinformation in IAM with Alejandro Leal · Identity at the Center

0:00
Some misinformation would be the spread of information that is
0:05
false or inaccurate or without the intent of doing so.
0:10
So people that maybe, I don't know, I can think of my
0:13
grandmother. Maybe she finds something funny
0:15
or something scary and then she shares that online, but that
0:18
happens to be false. Then this information is on the
0:23
other hand the spread of false information, but with the intent
0:28
to create chaos or confusion when some event happens.
0:32
Yeah. And how, I mean, how does that
0:35
manifest when in terms of technology are we talking about
0:38
social media regular, you know, what do you call it legacy media
0:43
or is it all the above? Yeah, I think misinformation,
0:46
disinformation has always existed.
0:48
If we look back in history, across time, there's always been
0:51
some people that have knowledge and they decide to shape it in a
0:56
way to spread it to, let's say, the masses.
0:59
I know you can go to the Roman times and see Julius Caesar, the
1:02
famous book, the Gaelic Wars, and he, you know, wrote it in a
1:07
way that would help his own cause.
1:08
So I think that we can trace this, let's say, spread in a
1:15
very massive scale. If we look at the printing press
1:19
in 1440, here in Germany, in mines so not far from Berlin,
1:24
there was this Goldsmith named Johann Gutenberg, and he
1:27
developed this printing press and that enable editors and
1:32
people to spread information in a much faster way.
1:40
This is identity at the center if it has anything to do with
1:45
IAM. This is the go to podcast now
1:50
your hosts Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman.
2:00
Welcome to the Identity at the Center podcast.
2:02
I'm Jeff, and that's Jim. Hey, Jim.
2:03
Hey, Jeff, how are you? Oh.
2:04
Not so bad yourself. Doing great here at EIC 2025
2:09
early in Germany and just having a fantastic time.
2:13
Did I mention how awesome of a job Marina has been doing
2:17
keeping things organized? She's she's walking across
2:20
behind the cameras right now, but she's the MVP that was even
2:22
said got a smile that that's that's something we'll take.
2:25
Martin, make sure you you, you hear this message right?
2:29
Marina is kicking some butt. Yeah, been a good show.
2:34
We've got a guest with us that we're going.
2:36
So another episode here from the stage of EIC, introduce
2:39
Alejandro Leal. He's the senior analyst with
2:41
Governor Cole. Welcome to the show, Alejandro.
2:43
Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Jim.
2:45
Happy to be here. Yeah.
2:46
So thanks so much for taking the time.
2:48
I know you're very busy. You've got like a bunch of
2:49
different sessions, so definitely appreciate you taking
2:51
that. But let's start with your
2:53
background. How did you get into the
2:54
identity space? Is it something that you chose
2:56
or did it choose you? Chose me.
2:58
I think like many in the industry, it found me.
3:01
I was mainly studying my bachelor's in international
3:04
relations in Poland, and it was in my last semester when I had
3:09
to write a paper on the impact of technology in International
3:13
Security. And that's when I became very
3:15
interested in how technology impacts businesses.
3:19
People cite the politics in general.
3:22
And then I did a master's degree in Estonia on technology
3:25
governance and digital transformation.
3:27
And after that I found this job at Copingoco and here I am.
3:32
Well qualified for that, I would say.
3:34
Yeah, I hope so. One of the topics that you talk
3:38
a lot about is misinformation and disinformation first.
3:42
Could you kind of define that for us?
3:45
What is the difference? Yes, I think it's important to
3:49
to distinguish these two. There's a lot of misconceptions
3:52
out there. I think some misinformation
3:54
would be the spread of information that is false or
3:59
inaccurate or without the intent of doing so.
4:03
So people that maybe, I don't know, I can think of my
4:06
grandmother, maybe she finds something funny or something
4:09
scary and then she shares that online, but that happens to be
4:12
false. Then this information is on the
4:16
other hand, the spread of false information.
4:20
But we didn't intend to create chaos or confusion when some
4:25
event happens. Yeah.
4:26
And how, I mean, how does that manifest when in terms of
4:30
technology we're talking about social media regular, you know,
4:35
what do they call it legacy media or is it all the above?
4:38
Yeah, I think misinformation, this information has always
4:41
existed. If we look back in history,
4:43
across time, there's always been some people that have knowledge
4:47
and they decide to shape it in a way to spread it to, let's say,
4:51
the masses. I know you can go to the Roman
4:54
times and see Julius Caesar, the famous book The Catholic Wars,
4:57
and he, you know, wrote it in a way that would help his own
5:01
cause. So I think that we can trace
5:05
this, let's say, spread in a very massive scale.
5:10
If we look at the printing press in 1440 here in Germany and in
5:15
mines so not far from Berlin, there was this Goldsmith name
5:18
Johann Gutenberg. And he developed this printing
5:21
press and that enable editors and people to spread information
5:27
in a much faster way. And that led to in long term, it
5:32
led to the Reformation, it led to the religious conflicts in
5:36
Europe, led to the 30 Years war here in Germany.
5:40
And that caused people to start, let's say, moving from from
5:46
speaking Latin to the vernacular.
5:48
So in a way it's a good thing because he democratizes the
5:52
ability of people to communicate, to learn new
5:54
things, to acquire knowledge. But I think that it can also
5:57
have some consequences that people don't really plan ahead.
6:02
I think it's true for most technology, right?
6:03
It's the intent was probably maybe hopefully pure and then
6:09
gets corrupted or you know, we'll look at other ways to use
6:12
it. You know, a hammer is a tool
6:13
that could be for any number of things.
6:15
And I guess you know, from a misinformation, disinformation.
6:19
You mentioned that intent. That really is probably the key
6:21
part is you're trying to further a goal with one and the other
6:26
one is a mistake of some sort or something on those lines.
6:31
What can we actually do about it though?
6:34
How do we know if something is, you know, misinformation versus
6:38
disinformation? Because I feel like at this
6:41
point there's so much out there that's like, well, how do we
6:44
believe and who do we believe in, you know, with AI, what do
6:47
we believe? Is that really Alejandra sitting
6:49
there or is it Alejandra AI twin, right, something like
6:52
that? Like what can we do about that?
6:53
Yeah, If we step back and look at these examples that I
6:56
mentioned of the printing press, I think back then there was a
6:59
small number of people that could read and write.
7:02
And for example, many people would print books on how to burn
7:09
witches, for example. So that was clearly a
7:12
intentional way of spreading ideas that maybe wasn't that
7:16
nice, but it also led to the spread of religious texts or
7:21
political texts or scientific texts that could be accessible
7:25
for everyone in the population. But if we look at today, I think
7:29
most people should know how to read and write.
7:33
But it looks like all of the things that we see and read are
7:37
more are getting more confusing, are getting more difficult to
7:42
distinguish they're true or they're not true.
7:45
And maybe later we can talk about what are some of the
7:48
potential solutions. But I think that the the scale
7:52
and the scope of misinformation and disinformation today is on
7:56
another level. I.
7:57
Think there's those words are used to sometimes discredit
8:01
ideas as well so to say Oh yeah, I talked to Alejandro and he
8:06
gave me all this misinformation or disinformation.
8:09
I think sometimes those terms get loosely used, but the intent
8:14
is so important because you use the example of your grandma saw
8:18
some article maybe about a medicine and reposted it because
8:24
she wants people to have all this good information that it's
8:27
false. It's a kind of at least a
8:29
disservice to everybody, but she didn't mean to harm people.
8:34
Yes, that's true. But I think that a few years
8:39
ago, you could always provide this grandma example because for
8:45
people like in the industry or younger people, it's easier to
8:48
distinguish. OK, that's completely false.
8:51
But that's getting more difficult today, and it's going
8:53
to keep getting more difficult in the future.
8:56
And I think that with the use of generative AI, it's going to get
9:02
even more complicated. My colleague John Tolbert, which
9:05
I think you guys know, know him very well, he recently shared
9:09
with us a news article on some lawyers, I believe in the US.
9:12
They shared a brief to the judge.
9:18
They were looking at a case and then the judge noticed that
9:20
there were more than 30 mistakes and they used ChatGPT to
9:26
summarize the case. It created like fake cases and
9:30
things like. That it did.
9:31
It did. Not a very well.
9:33
John said LLMS do not care about the truth.
9:36
You know, it's text prediction, so I kind.
9:39
Of have a theory that the LLMS are too embarrassed to admit
9:44
when they don't do something. Make something up to not feel
9:49
embarrassed. So that's what that is human
9:51
emotion every single LLM and and interface.
9:54
So it says use at your own risk. You know they're washing their
9:57
hands of any sort of responsibility that anything
10:00
that puts out on it is accurate, right, whether it's reporting or
10:05
if you're trying to do something with AI voices, right, like are
10:07
we defer April first episode. It's just use at your own risk.
10:13
Yes, yes. So let's talk a bit about how
10:16
did this start because I feel like personally, everything
10:20
starts as misinformation until you can prove the intent is this
10:25
information. How does I guess how did things
10:27
start? You know, maybe before and you
10:29
kind of talked about, you know, I think going back to Roman
10:30
times, but how do we look at it now and from a origination
10:35
standpoint of where does misinformation start and then
10:38
when does it convert to disinformation?
10:40
Am I? Is that make sense to how I
10:42
describe that? Yes, yes.
10:43
I think we need to look at where this information is flowing and
10:47
that's taking place in cyberspace.
10:49
So in the digital landscape, in theory, we should all have an
10:53
identity. That's why we're here at the IC.
10:56
But in many cases, we see false information being spread,
11:01
perhaps by a bot, perhaps by a anonymous account.
11:04
And maybe people would share that because they may be in a
11:08
sort of echo chamber or the thing that they read and see it
11:13
matches what they believe or what they are afraid of.
11:16
So they might share that with intention of spreading
11:20
information and maybe telling their friends what's going on
11:23
and they don't really know the source of this information.
11:27
But then we also see the other aspect, the other dimension,
11:30
which is this information. And I think that the origin is
11:36
very clear with the intention of creating a narrative from a
11:41
particular event or a situation. And as I said earlier, you know,
11:45
back then, few years ago with the grandma example, it was easy
11:49
to distinguish these things. But now with generative AII
11:52
think from a business perspective, we need to be very,
11:57
we need to understand this issue because there's been cases of
12:00
false information affecting business practices, businesses
12:05
that have been acquired or businesses that are talking to
12:09
investors. And then there's some online
12:12
narrative that is trying to affect such developments.
12:15
Yeah, I, you know, I was thinking, as you're talking
12:18
earlier about two major scenarios, business and
12:22
politics, right. And you see, I think
12:25
misinformation can happen quite innocently where people hold a
12:30
belief and they say that belief. And you know, in some cases it's
12:34
hard to tell what is true. Maybe there are some things that
12:36
are factual, some things are opinion and you can never prove
12:40
an opinion wrong probably. But then also on the the
12:46
business side, you know, just conversations that we have, I
12:49
might have some beliefs that are incorrect, but if I knew that
12:53
they were incorrect, I wouldn't repeat them.
12:57
But on the disinformation side, from a business standpoint, I
13:01
could potentially be saying, oh, that other software vendor,
13:06
they're not good because of XY and Z.
13:09
And I know that's not true or I know that they are addressing
13:13
it, or I use some recent breach to say, oh, you know, they were
13:18
asleep at the wheel knowing very well that maybe that could have
13:21
happened to almost anybody. So that I think though, where we
13:26
see it a lot also is in the political realm where we here
13:30
with things like like election interference and maybe some
13:38
countries trying to become involved in sway elections in
13:42
other countries and things like that.
13:44
But I also think we are more susceptible to disinformation in
13:49
the political realm because people are becoming more and
13:53
more ingrained into the political process of holding
13:56
their beliefs more firmly than ever, I think.
14:01
And they're more likely to believe disinformation if it,
14:06
you know, backs up what they already believe, if it, if it
14:10
aligns with what they believe, and if it doesn't, then they'll
14:13
disinformation. Yes.
14:15
Well, we were talking about a little bit about philosophy
14:17
earlier. I know this is an identity
14:19
podcast, but if we look at the current narrative from a
14:23
philosophical standpoint, it's this postmodern narrative that
14:27
there are no truths on the interpretations.
14:30
Of course, that's a very vague sentence because there are
14:34
course roots that we can see from a scientific point of view,
14:36
etcetera. But I think many people, you
14:41
know, when I turn like 21, for example, I, I was like, OK, now
14:45
I'm an adult, no more BS. Now it's time to like, I don't
14:49
know, behave like an adult. And then I started to see that
14:52
political leaders or even business leaders, they sometimes
14:55
spread information that it's not true.
14:58
And they clearly don't have good intentions when doing this.
15:02
So I think it ultimately comes to responsibility from the top
15:05
level. And I know that we're all humans
15:07
and we all have our own biases. We have our our own
15:09
preconditions, but I think there's no responsibility from
15:14
from people on top. Then this is going to create
15:17
even more chaos and things are going to be more complicated and
15:21
not only politics in sports. You know, I was watching one
15:24
game last night, my favorite team lost.
15:26
I was very angry this morning. And I started to see comments
15:30
from people from the other team, from the rivals saying all these
15:33
things. And I'm like, no, that's not
15:34
true. So yeah, we can see that.
15:36
You can talk for disinformation of the comments section.
15:40
Yes, yes, sometimes it's a funny area, but you can see many
15:45
comments that are just not factual.
15:48
Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of
15:51
disinformation seems to be in the news cycle, right?
15:54
And I guess what is the transition of how this impacts
16:00
identity? Yeah.
16:03
So there are many, I guess, potential solutions out there,
16:07
but I think it ultimately comes down to identity, to digital
16:10
identity, because as I said earlier, the spread of this
16:13
information is taking place in cyberspace.
16:15
And in theory, we should all have an identity if we want to
16:19
post something on a social media platform.
16:22
But then there's a problem that each social platform has
16:24
different rules, different regulations.
16:28
They have they have a different approach to how their social
16:30
media works. So it's really difficult to keep
16:33
track of who, who is who, who's saying what.
16:37
But there's some, there's stock here in Europe.
16:40
The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in in January, he said
16:43
that maybe Europeans can tie the European wallet with social
16:51
media accounts. So you can always know who's
16:54
saying what. And maybe that could prevent
16:56
misinformation, but that also creates more problems with the
17:00
social media platforms and also when it comes to privacy, many
17:03
citizens will be skeptical to that.
17:05
I also wonder, and I'd love to hear your feedback on this,
17:10
whether or not the Internet needs a anonymity feature.
17:17
So let's say you're in a country and you are an oppressed group
17:24
and you need to use the Internet to get information out.
17:28
But if the authorities maybe saw who was posting this, it could
17:34
be bad news for you, right? So having anonymity in that
17:38
context is a good thing. Yes, yes.
17:41
I think that's kind of reminds me of a kind of like a clash
17:46
between do we want more privacy rights or do we want more
17:51
truthful content, Right. Because I guess we can make
17:58
things happen so the Internet will be, you know, having only
18:03
truthful things. But how is that going to work?
18:06
Yeah. Philosophically, it's almost
18:08
like the right to privacy and secrecy versus safety and
18:15
security and surveillance and things like that.
18:18
Well, even still, who decides what's true?
18:20
Yes, yes, exactly. That's sort of also a big thing,
18:23
yeah. The arbiter of truth.
18:25
That's right, I volunteer as tribute.
18:26
I will. I will decide what is.
18:29
True. I don't know if I'd want that
18:30
job. Boy oh boy, I don't know if I'd
18:32
want that job. I mean, I think it would be cool
18:35
if some sopranational organization like the UN could
18:39
have some sort of platform where scientific and factual
18:44
information is there and people maybe can access that somehow.
18:47
But again, who's saying what's true?
18:51
It seems like right now it's kind of the purview of the
18:57
company that runs the platform, right?
18:59
So like X or Facebook can decide whether or not to put a warning
19:06
on a post that it hasn't been vetted or, you know, some other
19:11
organization says this is not true, something like that,
19:15
right? And is that the right place
19:17
where it should be? Or do you think that it should
19:19
be in some kind of neutral third party sands?
19:24
That's a good question. I'm not really sure.
19:26
I think that as I said earlier, I think it ultimately comes with
19:31
to having responsibilities of the owners of these social media
19:37
platforms should try to look at the impact of their technologies
19:44
and see if there's anything they can do about it.
19:46
Because we are in a, let's say, capitalist system that is driven
19:50
by profit. And then is that going to be
19:54
beneficial for them in the long run if they change the whole
19:57
dynamics within or is that going to be good for people?
20:01
So I think it's it really depends.
20:04
I think. I don't know how you see it.
20:05
As what what? The way I see it, I think it's
20:07
as complex as the whole idea of decentralized identity and
20:11
identity wallets because I think so first to start with, I think
20:17
that companies like X and Meta would love to hand this off to
20:22
some third party and say you deal with it and we don't have
20:26
to worry about it. I disagree.
20:29
Well, let me finish my thought. OK, So I think they would love
20:33
to get it off their plate because they've taken a lot of
20:36
heat over it over the years. But I think that if we said
20:43
there's going to be some arbiter of the truth and you'd turn out,
20:46
the UNI can tell you right now a lot of people in the United
20:49
States would not trust what would come out of the UN.
20:52
And I'm not giving my opinion on that one way or the other, but I
20:57
can tell you I'm the same. I think if some arbiter was in
21:03
the United States, folks in Europe would say, hey, you know,
21:06
can it be trusted? And so, and then that's not even
21:10
taking the rest of the world into into account, right?
21:14
And so I think it ultimately does fall back on the platform
21:18
that they have to do it and they're, they have to deal with
21:22
this chaos right now of nobody's ever going to be happy with what
21:27
they're doing, right? Or, or if somebody's happy, that
21:30
means somebody else is not happy.
21:32
What? What we're going to.
21:33
Disagree with yeah. So I mean, I think you look at
21:37
the business where you talk about the business model.
21:39
If I am a social network, my entire business model is based
21:43
on eyeballs looking at screens. I do not want people going away
21:47
from my screen because that's how I'm going to serve up ads,
21:50
engagement, right, whatever want to measure that for.
21:52
So I would not want to hand off anything to do with my app or my
21:57
service to a third party that could potentially draw people
22:01
away from that. I'm saying that's good.
22:04
What if it was an API that somehow you pulled the info and
22:08
then you presented the data? We get into another scenario
22:11
where it's OK, well, do you trust that API or not?
22:14
And 50% of the population is going to believe one thing, 50%
22:17
of the population's going to believe the other.
22:20
And this becomes more of a question of is there a
22:22
difference between truth and fact?
22:25
Yes. If we can't all agree that 2 + 2
22:27
= 4, now we're not even speaking the same language.
22:31
That's right. I think what you said about the
22:33
business perspective is a sort of microcosm to what you were
22:35
saying, Jim, on the, let's say the US giving up their
22:39
sovereignty to the UN or some other third party.
22:43
I think that it's not only in the US, but I think everywhere
22:47
in the world, people will be skeptical to give up that to
22:51
some other organization that they don't have any
22:54
accountability or transparency or any information on what are
22:58
these people? What are they deciding?
23:01
And that also has a dimension from from a business perspective
23:04
how that's going to impact if you have a local business in the
23:06
States or like anywhere in the world.
23:10
So I want to tie this back to digital identity because we are
23:12
an identity practice. So we're getting philosophical,
23:14
which is great. I think these are important
23:15
matters discussed because I think this ties well back to
23:19
identity verification. What is a truth behind or fact
23:23
maybe behind? Is this really Alejandro or
23:26
someone pretend to be Alejandra or Jim or Jeff or whoever,
23:30
right? What are the things that, from a
23:33
misinformation standpoint, how does that tie back to
23:37
establishing that verified credential or whatever it may
23:40
be? Yeah.
23:41
I think there are several options on how to handle this.
23:43
I think 1 would be, I guess to label AI generated content, but
23:48
there's also some challenges there.
23:50
I think the use of verifiable credentials could potentially be
23:54
a good alternative. We still need to see, for
23:56
example, here in Europe, there's still lots of developments
23:59
around the EI. Does all these 2728 countries
24:02
have to agree? So we still don't really know
24:05
the use cases and how it's going to look like, but I think
24:08
there's potential there. But I think as I said earlier,
24:11
responsibilities key because if a company is going to develop
24:15
their own AI Gen. AI model, their own LLM, then
24:19
they have to look at their data. It has to be, you know,
24:25
transparent. It has to be been.
24:28
They have to maybe implement RAG.
24:31
There are many different ways that these LLMS can be trained.
24:36
So the information that they're going to provide is not only
24:39
going to be true, but also going to be useful for the business or
24:42
for the customer that they're trying to target.
24:45
Yeah, it's a really interesting conundrum because you could say,
24:51
well, go to your AI and say make me a picture of this political
24:56
leader. Make them two feet tall, right?
24:58
And make their hair stick up and make it like 8 inches sticking
25:03
up from their head should be. Describing a troll doll.
25:08
Exactly what I was doing, but put it on the end of a pencil,
25:11
right? Should the AI say no I can't do
25:15
that because that doesn't that's not what that person looks like.
25:20
Or should the AI engine do that for you?
25:23
So is the AI an arbiter of truth?
25:26
Exactly. Or the company that that makes
25:28
the AI like they have to put enough guardrails on it.
25:31
So where does that responsibility fall?
25:33
Yeah, But I think that could lead to more maybe
25:35
fragmentation, different models having their own proof, like
25:38
Deep Sig. You asked them about Taiwan and
25:41
Tiananmen Square and then they're going to tell you
25:43
something completely wrong. Is it better to have more
25:45
fragmentation or do you want to see a finite number, maybe a
25:50
half dozen AI models? Well, who decides?
25:53
Yeah. Yeah, but what?
25:55
What do you think? Is is better?
25:57
What do you think? I don't know if I have an answer
26:00
for it. I don't know what is there.
26:03
It's, it's moving too quickly. And I think there's, there we,
26:07
we, we haven't agreed on what even the standard will be for
26:10
that. I think MCP model contacts
26:12
protocol is certainly all the rage right now as it's sorely
26:16
needed, right. It's been described As for the
26:17
USBC of that area. But I don't know who should be
26:22
making those decisions. Yeah, it's moving too fast, like
26:25
you say, and regulators are not keeping track of what's
26:28
happening. Many of them don't have a
26:29
technical knowledge, so it's sometimes hard for them to
26:32
understand how these systems work.
26:36
So yeah, I think more fragmentation could lead to more
26:40
competition, but more chaos as well.
26:43
But also, who decides that? So it's.
26:45
Yeah. But so with the example I just
26:48
painted, I thought of another thing, which was, let's say we
26:51
we wanted a political figure to look funny like that.
26:55
Is that free speech or is that hate speech?
27:01
Depends on what your perspective is.
27:03
It might be more dependent on where in the world you're you
27:06
live and where you're from. But that's two ways to look at
27:10
the exact same set of facts. Well, if we live in a democratic
27:15
society, I think that would be considered free speech.
27:20
But at the same time, misinformation and
27:22
disinformation are challenges to democratic systems.
27:26
But I think in some countries, they, if you were to take that
27:29
same model and say, take this religious figure and make them
27:33
look ridiculous, print that picture and now people start
27:37
forwarding it on the Internet. It's considered hate speech and
27:40
you can be arrested for it in some places.
27:43
Yeah, yeah. This is kind of a downer of an
27:46
episode, man. Hey, man.
27:47
This is my kind of episode. This is.
27:50
Like you're, you're like all into this.
27:51
Yeah, I'm loving it. I mean, I think the challenge,
27:54
right, is I don't think we have the answers yet, right?
27:56
We, we recognize the problem or the beginnings maybe, of the
28:00
problem, 'cause I'm sure we'll find new and creative ways to
28:03
misuse anything. This is just the latest
28:06
invention that we're grappling with.
28:08
OK what do we do about this? I feel like there's a a play
28:12
here somewhere for authenticity and maybe it's a digital
28:17
watermark. You know, maybe it is something
28:19
where, you know, there is some sort of system to say, OK, if it
28:23
was AI generated, make it very clear.
28:27
And maybe that doesn't stand up in a court of law or it's
28:30
immediately flagged as, yeah, that's not real.
28:33
But when you have technologies right now that are so good at
28:37
making fakes, yeah, fakes and and they're hilarious.
28:40
And I don't want to stifle the innovation because I can see a
28:42
lot. I mean, we've used to food
28:43
podcast and you know, stuff like that, but it is a problem.
28:47
And so how do we, you know, verify the authenticity of
28:50
something is a really part of this and bring it back to the
28:52
identity side. It's the same thing, right?
28:54
What we don't want to do is have a bunch of fake IDs and
28:56
credentials that have proliferated.
28:59
You we're younger, right? You have fake ID.
29:01
Not saying that I did. But.
29:03
People would get a fake driver's license and someone that kind of
29:05
looked like them, and that would pass.
29:07
They get them into the bar, right, to do whatever.
29:09
Maybe the same thing can happen also in the digital world is
29:13
what happens if I replicate something, somebody's active on
29:17
Prem, Active Directory account, and it looks and acts and
29:21
behaves like a person, but it's not really them.
29:24
Yeah. You know, I think the I was
29:26
thinking the most dangerous model is like some kind of
29:30
disinformation that started World War three or something
29:34
like that, right? So someone put out information
29:37
that a nuclear kind of attack took place, and if you weren't
29:42
able to authenticate that that information was correct, maybe
29:47
some country acts on that. That's the worst case scenario.
29:51
But then I was thinking, you know, you can then take it down
29:54
several levels in terms of the global scale and say, hey,
29:58
there's police officers going from door to door, but they're
30:01
not really police officers, so protect yourself.
30:04
And it's like fake. And then a police officer shows
30:06
up in somebody store and the person takes the negative action
30:10
against that police officer, thinking they're a fake person,
30:13
right? And that could be a life or
30:15
death event. So there's been cases like that
30:18
of people committing crimes or other things to other people
30:24
based on false information they found online.
30:27
And I think another challenge. I know we're talking a lot about
30:29
challenges and I hope, hey at least.
30:32
Shine a light on it not sending all the answers, but at least be
30:34
aware of them. Yes, we can't fix what we don't
30:36
know about. Yes, so let's know about it.
30:39
Another one would be that many of the conversations on digital
30:42
identity, like here at EIC or all the conferences that we see
30:46
in the States, it's taking place mainly in the Western world.
30:51
And whatever comes out from these conversations affects the
30:55
Global South. And that's another area where
30:58
many people don't really have a saying of how these technologies
31:01
are going to impact not only their businesses, but their
31:04
politics, their own echo chambers, etcetera.
31:07
So I think it's also important to try to have the sort of, if
31:11
we cannot have AUN implementing something, at least we can try
31:16
to have a global conversation. I don't know how, but it's
31:21
important. To it's important to.
31:22
Keep it going like this for example.
31:24
So what do you now? Let's turn this into some action
31:28
we can take. What do you recommend people do
31:31
for themselves to not fall victim to mis and
31:35
disinformation? And what can they recommend to
31:38
people in their lives to, you know, whether it's people that
31:42
they're responsible for work or family members to protect
31:46
themselves? Think being responsible, what
31:50
you're saying online is a part of who you are in a way and
31:55
you're sharing something about you.
31:57
And many people don't see it that way.
31:59
Many people see cyberspace, sure as an extension of themselves,
32:03
but they don't really understand that whatever you share online
32:07
can have consequences. So responsibility would be one.
32:11
Another one would be to have critical thinking that's I mean
32:15
sounds easy sounds. Common sense not so common.
32:19
Yes. So I don't know how it could
32:23
lead in the next few years, maybe even having in schools
32:27
critical thinking skills or lessons on how to distinguish
32:32
false and truth in the online world.
32:35
Sounds a little bit silly. You know the Gram example, it's
32:38
easy to distinguish what's true or false.
32:39
But imagine in five, in 10 years, in 20 years.
32:43
In your own world, if you spot misinformation, different
32:47
disinformation like our comments section, do you post something
32:51
to call it out? No, I don't.
32:54
You don't, do you? Probably not.
32:57
Good counter. I'm.
33:00
Curious. I don't.
33:01
Really go into social media other than LinkedIn.
33:05
I think that would be it's. Like the last safe place.
33:08
Yeah, it's like the last safe place.
33:10
But there are times where I disagree with somebody and I
33:15
usually don't. I usually just say OK.
33:18
Don't feed the trolls. Yeah, I don't.
33:20
I guess if you distinguish if is this disinformation, then
33:24
there's really no reason to engage because maybe it's a bot,
33:27
maybe it's someone that has a narrative and they're not going
33:29
to change their mind. They're just going to keep I
33:33
guess making that the comment is going to be more visible.
33:36
But if it's misinformation, if it's a friend or someone that
33:39
you know, maybe you can have a civilized response.
33:43
But I'm curious to know if you ever had any, let's say,
33:46
conversations in your comments on these podcasts or some?
33:50
We've got pretty good fans, you know, people who support us say,
33:53
I think kind of get what we do. There is always going to be, I
33:57
think the threat of it. I deal with a lot of spam on our
34:00
YouTube channel. You probably never see it, but a
34:02
lot of them are seed values for Bitcoin wallets and things like
34:05
that. They post into the comments and
34:08
reject. Not happening, right, But it
34:10
does happen. Now it's not is that
34:12
disinformation? No, but it's clearly not
34:15
information and it's clearly not relevant or authentic to
34:18
whatever it is they're posting on, right?
34:19
I don't need a 16 code words, but I was like, and it starts
34:24
with I liked your episode and it just doesn't make any sense,
34:27
right. So there I think there's some of
34:29
that. I think the other thing too is I
34:31
think there's a natural inclination where if it doesn't
34:33
affect me and less likely to do something about it.
34:37
And I think that's just probably more, you know, human part of it
34:41
is if someone went out there and said something bad about me or
34:46
something about maybe the podcast and we know it's not
34:49
true, you and I would fight that.
34:51
That's. Much.
34:51
More difficult. That hasn't happened yet.
34:53
No, it hasn't yet. And nobody's called us on, you
34:56
know, You mean the best looking podcast.
34:57
Articles sometimes where I'm like, oh, I want to say
35:00
something, but I usually just restrain myself because I don't
35:04
want to put negative energy into the world.
35:07
Even if the article is negative energy, I usually just say to
35:11
myself, I shouldn't have read that.
35:13
That just made me unhappy. I think that requires courage
35:17
because sometimes you really want to express something that
35:20
you sometimes could trigger you. But that's again what I said
35:23
earlier, the responsibility part and the critical thinking, which
35:26
are two human components. We can maybe talk about other
35:30
technical solutions to this problem, but I think the human
35:33
is the source of the whole conversation we're having today.
35:37
Yeah. All right.
35:39
Well, that was heavy, man, that. Was.
35:42
Heavy. That was heavy.
35:43
Let's try to lighten it up a little bit.
35:45
You did mention philosophy and you mentioned your before you
35:47
hit record, you know that you like to read.
35:50
So I was, I told you, I was going to ask you like, what's a
35:52
good book or something that people in the identity space
35:56
should read? And then I jokingly said
35:58
something like the Art of War and like, well, maybe what's
36:01
something that people should check out, maybe in the book
36:03
world that they can consume to maybe enlighten them from an
36:07
identity standpoint, maybe their thoughts and viewpoints.
36:10
I think that there's an essay written by a German philosopher
36:14
called The Question Concerning technology.
36:17
It was, I think, published in 1954 by a philosopher named
36:21
Martin Heidegger. And he talks about that
36:24
technology is not a means to an end.
36:27
It's not an instrument, but it's a revelation of being.
36:30
It's a revelation of what it means to be human.
36:33
And he warns us that if we keep relying too much on this
36:39
technological framework, we're going to start looking at the
36:42
world through that lens, through that frame.
36:45
And that could lead to, I don't know, environmental
36:48
catastrophes, etcetera. I know maybe that wasn't the
36:52
most possible and happy. You sound like me.
36:56
That's what I do every every week.
36:58
There's a real chemistry having here, yeah.
37:00
My wife calls me at grandpa, so I guess yeah, well.
37:02
No, but I think it's important to recognize some of that stuff,
37:05
right? I mean, this maybe this episode
37:07
is a little bit more of a downer, but it's mostly because
37:10
this is a real challenge, right? And then there's plenty of
37:13
things that we can talk through is OK, like I said, we don't
37:15
have all the answers, but at least we can shine a light on
37:18
and say, what are we going to do about this?
37:20
Because we can't just bury our head in the sand and say
37:23
whatever, right? Whether it's, you know, someone
37:26
using in, you know, credentials to do bad things, which still is
37:29
the majority of attacks. There was our friend Jason
37:32
Kenahan this morning from, from Telus.
37:34
He had a keynote. And you know, over a third of
37:37
all Internet traffic is malicious bot activity.
37:39
So whether you know it or not, it's happening and whether
37:43
you're doing something about doesn't, just because you're not
37:46
doing something about it doesn't mean it's stopping.
37:47
And so it's just going to keep going.
37:48
So I think I think it is important to have discussions
37:51
like this and. It's a wake up call because for
37:53
example, this essay, if you read about it, then you could maybe
37:56
have a different understanding of what technology is and that
37:59
could impact the way you conduct business or you do your IM
38:03
programs. You will think it's not just for
38:06
technical efficiency, but we're talking about humans, we're
38:08
talking about identities. So let's try to have a clear
38:13
perspective and a nice framework that will work for the human.
38:18
I feel like there's a Black Mirror episode here that we can
38:21
get into. I watched the, the, the newest
38:23
season, the first episode of my way here.
38:25
It's like, Oh my gosh, I, I talked about like this whole AI
38:28
and like, you know, making an imprint of your brain and you
38:31
got to watch this because I don't know if you've, you've
38:33
seen it, but it is I, it got me thinking about like what that
38:37
would be like in the future. I'm, I'm almost through Better
38:41
Call Saul, OK. And everybody I tell who I'm,
38:43
I'm watching it, they're like, oh, it's so good, really good.
38:46
Yeah. So I'm I'm going to be ready to
38:48
dive into something else. Buck mirrors are great because
38:51
they're like 45 minutes to an hour roughly and they're all
38:54
self-contained. So you can watch one and kind of
38:58
be done with it. And you might want to be done
39:00
with it because they're they're generally not happy stories,
39:02
right? But it's.
39:04
Like today's episode? Yes, yeah, yeah.
39:07
But they are good and they're thought provoking and it's like,
39:09
oh, exactly, I haven't thought about that before.
39:12
And I think if that's what you take away from, that's good,
39:14
right? You're expanding your horizons,
39:15
you're expanding it. So I'm going to ask you for the
39:18
link that I can put in our show notes for that so people can
39:20
check it out. Thank you so much for taking the
39:23
time with us. I said you have like I was
39:24
looking through your list, you have like 5 different panels and
39:27
talks and things that you're doing.
39:28
Yeah, you're a busy. Guy yeah.
39:29
So taking the time off for this has been great.
39:30
Thank you pretty much. Happy to be here.
39:31
Yeah. So we'll go ahead and wrap it up
39:33
there for this episode on behalf of Jim.
39:36
Thanks everybody for watching and are listening.
39:38
Check us out on the web, IDC podcast.com, like subscribe,
39:41
share. This is information, not not.
39:45
We are information, definitely not disinformation, and we try
39:48
to get it right. We try not to have missing.
39:50
Right, exactly. Yeah.
39:51
And if we are, call us on it, let us know so we can fix it.
39:55
OK, that's it. Thanks everyone, and we'll talk
39:57
with everyone in the next one. You've been listening to
40:02
Identity at the Center. We hope you've enjoyed the show.
40:06
Make sure to like, rate and review, and we'll be back soon.
40:11
But in the meantime, hit the website at
40:13
identity@thecenter.com. See you next time on Identity at
40:19
the Center.