Back To The Future: A Look At Future Tech And Its Impact - Alex Martin

morning still morning good morning everybody still morning still morning um thanks for joining us um yes there's a reference to Back to the Future and you guys will kind of gather that as we we go with this one but bear with me the the context does come in but uh who am I and why am I here some of you guys already know me know me very well some of you don't so uh just for context uh my name is Alex Martin uh I'm a co-director for a company called cyber Hogan provides pen testing um red teaming uh social engineering and training for the industry um I also run my own consultancy M consulting which

provides mentoring to people joining the industry as well as people and Professionals in the industry wanting to kind of migrate their careers and change directions or whatever the case might be um I'm also a lead uh lecturer for corcom and correlation one providing training against people who are wanting to get into the industry and move around and last but not least uh Mitchel and the yes it's uh I'm not Mitchel and St but it is a home Baking Company I started at the end of the pandemic I make cakes and yes my lemon Dizzle is the bomb um so why have I chosen Back to the Future well future cyber event in uh Old Trafford it was in February this

year a lot of us went to it I was extremely disappointed in it um I've been to the event a few years on the Trot now and it's supposed to be the future of cyber and yet there were still pentesters up on the stage talking about uh DNS poisoning fishing pivoting within networks and uh yeah fishing spear fishing of seos to be able to have um um constant access into a network well that's not the future of cyber that's what we've been doing for the last 15 years right so it kind of irked me that there wasn't anything out there in the show that was saying this is what's on the horizon this is what's coming be

aware of it and let's try and do something a little bit positive and proactive with what's coming rather than reactive as we usually are in this industry which led me to think what's on the horizon what's coming some of you will have seen these some of you might not but interestingly enough personally this is the future um I'm of a generation cuz I'm getting frightfully old now unfortunately don't let the youthful complexion fool you um but I'm of a generation who migrated from riding the BMX and playing out with the friends and all that kind of stuff to having a mobile phone and having Xboxes and all that kind of stuff right I think they

call us uh technology migrants the same evolution is about to happen again where all of our kids and you guys the younger generation that are in here all have your mobile phones your children our grandchildren are going to have wearables this is going to happen currently they are like ski masks they're big compos some things and all that kind of stuff but the technological Advance advancement um means that they are going to be wearables like proper like Sunglasses if you have a look at Apple Apple Ray bands Meta Meta Ray bands Apple Ray bands not sure which one it is now but there are already a set of sunglasses that have the cameras built into them it's not going to be a massive

leap to be able to take the lenses out of these things and put them onto rayb bands sunglasses or something like that in the very near future um so these These are out there at the moment Hollens 2's been around for quite a number of years um I think they they've got a developer pack out at the moment um still they're about 2 and a half Grand to buy um so you know the cost bracket at that point in time makes it a little bit difficult for people to to purchase just general man on the street um Apple Vision Pro that came out earlier this year uh I think it was released in the states particularly in

February um 2 and a half Grand there a number weirdly enough but it's Apple so you expect it to be expensive I have already seen a lot of Tik Tok influencers in the states already wearing these things and already using them um I was also lucky enough to be at DTX a couple of weeks ago and some somebody actually had one on the stand and yes I now definitely want one myself um where I think this is going to massively impact the industry and massively impact Humanity if you like is when the cost comes down and it becomes more realizable for people on the street the average man and whatever you like that which is where meta Quest 3 comes

into play meta Quest 3 was released October last year October last year at an average cost of about 450 quid right the same capabilities more or less as the Apple Vision Pro doesn't look as slick obviously but hey you know it's still pretty cool to be able to have a an augmented reality interaction with seeing all you guys whilst I've still got all these multiple screens going off if I wanted to how is it going to impact us well that's that's Hollow lens over there uh that's Apple Vision Pro and I think that one over there might be met Quest not sure but but what it will do is again people are going to put these things on

and be immersed in the technology you're not going to have to worry about having stuff in your hands wearing stuff on your watch you're going to be in it constantly um there's going to be a massive reduction in hardware and this is where I'm coming from like a there's an organizational drive as well as a personal drive right if you can get rid of your 50-in screen and could have a 400 in screen why wouldn't you right no cost for that cuz you buy one of these things and you can create one virtually um from an organizational perspective do without your laptops do without the extra monitors and stuff like that so I can set up multiple

different screens doing all different sorts of things I've seen these been used uh there was a guy that was reviewing them uh and he was using it on an airplane and even with the restricted space that he had he could still have multiple screens set up still be working away virtually um the collaboration intern Al getting the best of us in the world to work on things we've got that capability in teams now more or less but this would give you the ability to actually interact with another person in a in a more um uh in-depth way a more interactive way feeling like you actually in the room with that person the augmented of it all is what's going

to drive it I think I'm going to add at this point and get on to the fears of the kind of things in a minute but there was um another uh gentleman who reviewed the technology um he put it on and he said it was really weird putting it on mean you put putting a pair of ski goggles on basically it's it's weird to have these things on your face to start with but he says within about 5 10 minutes he was engrossed he was he was bought into it stuff at your fingertips just you know clicking and and scrolling and doing whatever you wanted to do but it was at your fingertips literally he says that that was amazing to be able

to get into it and engrossed in it so quickly was was for him just mind-blowing the problem he had was taking it off so having all of that power all that knowledge all that ability at your fingertips and then coming back to what is technically a bland and mundane reality at the best of times right there's going to be a driver for that but I'll get to that one in a minute another benefit I feel for these and this is meta's meta's version of it uh meta avatars so meta's already coming up with this idea of you will be able to create a character that best represents you I think in this day and age where um

there's a wide variety of all different cultures and uh individuals and what have you like that we need to be able to reduce visual bias and this will be able to enable us to do that you know um we can we can change clothing appearance whatever the case might be and express ourselves as our true selves or as as we believe ourselves to be on this on this platform and again when we're applying for jobs if we Mee people whatever the case might be you don't have visual bias that's potentially going to get in in the way of getting that job or whatever the case is because you will be represented by the version of you that you want to portray to the

world

personally this is what I feel it's really going to look like um this is actually a clip screenshots from uh a a video a short video clip called hyper reality on YouTube I would very much recommend going and having to watch of it um for me as with everything that is my world um bright neon and Loud I've had to wear this which is still bright enough but you know I did come in a Hawaiian shirt if anybody saw me arrive if you didn't you'd have seen me coming trust me um but for me this is what I think the world will be like the way that the uh augmented reality of the headsets works

is it takes the world and adds to it so you're going to have you know bus stops whatever the case might be or pedestrian Crossings you going have adverts I mean you know yes we are the commodity we're the ones that people are selling so that they can spam us with ads about everything meta is doing it Facebook you know everybody's doing it Instagram the whole lot we are the commodity but this is what it'll be it'll be it'll be neon it'll be bright it'll be loud there'll be a lot going off at the same time you will obviously be able to dial this thing down so that you can do with your own personal stuff whilst you're out and

about it's all going to be like this I feel there going to be a lot of input coming at us all the time uh it'll make it a lot more interactive um with the world but I feel it's also the way it's going to work is primarily off of QR codes which we'll get to in a second what's all this going to generate well it's going to be a massive impact in the workload that data centors are going to have to deal with you know all of a sudden you've gone from your laptop your uh your phone your your watch these are devices that you pick up turn on and then interact with these things are

going to be on permanently you know particularly like I said once You' sort of scaled it down to being a pair of sunglasses or something like that rather it be the big headset that you would typically turn on where if it's pair of sunglasses or normal glasses whatever the case is it's going to be on permanently the amount of data the input the the the constant feed of information is going to be processing about you your whereabouts your interests what you look at what you don't look at how you walk all that kind of stuff is all going to be there and it's all going to be processed out in the cloud somewhere so there's going to be a huge burst of data

and information being pushed out to the cloud more so than we already have at the moment um and that data the bad guys are W their hands on it aren't they you know that's the only thing that they're going for data is valuable so the more we push out there the more valuable you become as an individual to try and have that data stolen from coming back to the advertising it's going to be these QR codes I feel registering from the Optics of the devices it's going to pick up the QR code and give you the instruction of what that piece is um there is again I'm not going to go too far over here but in

that far image this one here there is actually an outline of a person on there which means that you'll be able to potentially wear a t-shirt that says you can't see me the Invisible Man right you can walk up to persons and steal their digital identity I don't know somehow hack into their visual Optics through QR codes again and have their their QR their QR registered device visually show them something that isn't necessarily there these things are meant to be worn I'm going to say worn on a permanent basis but don't CU obviously you want to just actually the a with people eventually but it's going to be that you're going to be wearing them quite

frequently shall we say and let's just say at some point they allow you to drive with these things on and that car in front of you gets blipped off the map CU it's the QR code that's been stuck onto the back of it that says this car doesn't exist you're happily driving along at 70 mph and bang you know there's all sorts of weird and wonderful things that I feel that they're going to be able to do with these things just because it's the optic registration um there's also going to be I feel again this is a clip from that same video um the Advent of AI and deep fake and those two coming together and evolving

as they are doing means that what you see isn't necessarily what you should believe that's going to become a big problem you know um we always say seeing is believing and if you phone somebody customer support your mom your dad your sister brother family friends police you know whatever the case is at that point in time when you're using your device there might be somebody that's really redirecting that traffic off somewhere else maliciously because they want you to interact in a certain way or with them rather than with a family member or a family member phones you we've seen this in the Deep fakes as well where you know somebody might pose as a family member

saying oh I'm stuck in a situation I need to get a taxi I've lost my wallet could you just forward me some cash blah blah blah if you've seen the person pH you and it's your mom your dad your sister your brother whatever family member you're more likely to believe them and go oh yeah there you go meanwhile it's a potential deep fake cuz it's only getting worse I think personally as well there's going to be a massive issue with mental health I'm a big advocate for mental health we are in men's mental health month just so every knows so you know reach out give somebody a hug eventually um but um I think there's going to be a

massive issue with mental health um social skills and interactions between people we always see seen a bit of an impact with this with you know my my son's generation Xbox fans they they chat they don't go out and ride their bikes very much they don't socialize interact with people um personally they'd rather get online and have a chat there we're missing some of the soft skills there genuinely um and I think it's only going to potentially uh get worse we're going to meet each other online and maybe they will still carry through but certainly when you take the goggles off the anxiety levels of actually having to interact with another actual human being is yeah there's there's all sorts of

problems that are potentially going to be there and then there is the whole you know just even losing touch with reality we're going to be seeing this huge neon world and it's going to be interactive and we're going to have all this input all this input coming at us all the time and then you're going to take the goggles off and it's going to go and the serotonin you rest of the hormones in your brain you be the feel good stuff all that interaction will be gone and coming back to reality will suck so it's it's quite damaging I think there needs to be some kind of way of policing that but I don't know how just

yet um well before I get to that one so the concern that I've got is genuinely that it's going to be that we need to take care of this but it's coming this technology is coming we need to be aware that it is on the horizon there's more people using it it's going to become part of our daily lives corporates are going to take it on this I feel is now a turning point where this technology because it's available will start being integrated in I say this on the grounds of you guys being the ones that look after security that look into this kind of technology that are there to protect and build systems and antiviruses and anything

against the AP stuff and all those right need to be aware that this technology is on the horizon it's going to be Mass used not mass manufactured but Mass used and I feel like we're an industry who is more reactive than proactive only reason why we have a firewalls because somebody tried to break in one time the only reason why we have antivirus is somebody created a worm to try and get in this has been created already let's try and get ahead of that curve knowing that they're going to be utiliz I mean we've already seen a raisin QR code delicious QR codes out there knowing that this is going to be there that there's going to be ways and means that

the bad guys are going to try and break into this technology and steal your data let's try and get ahead of that curve before it's Mass used let's try and get it now and I say this without having the hon myself but if we aren't doing something about it if we aren't focusing in on this and driving towards a better future for the wearers of these things we are the problem we are not being proactive we are the problem it's just going to be another reactive situation in our industry let's try and change that going forward and then for some fun stuff cuz yeah you know they've been telling us about this stuff for years right Back to

the Future Johnny and monic I mean some of this for you guys might be like you know you're too young for it but um Ready Player one I bring you to that because that's ready player one that's Apple Vision Pro right and who didn't watch uh for those who watched Ready Player one who didn't like go yeah I want that I want to be that immersed in the game that I feel like I'm actually genuinely there well with apple Vision Pro you pretty much nearly are so we apart from I mean you can buy the suits now but apart from being strong up and actually being driv yeah you know me but you're almost there

we're almost there this technology is at the point of Hollywood and of course in The Simpsons We Trust um that clip was aired eight years ago eight years ago before Apple Vision Pro before probably before Hol lens and certainly before Ready Player one and doesn't that look uncannily familiar so i' just like to say that is a QR code yes don't click on it no yeah it's fine it's safe that's me as my details if we aren't already connected on LinkedIn I'm on it I'm prolific I chat to everybody please be feel free to connect um all my details are on there um and uh I'll open for Q&A thank you for your

time any questions can't of been that thorough go on with a little bit of a conspiracy hat on yeah yeah oh wait I for so governments do trackers and stuff like that we know that TR Technologies um do we need to also incorporate the idea of protecting ourselves from our own governments uh trackers potentially turning is off if we don't agree with you see that that's a potential think about I mean I mean that's with every technology right yeah you got a mobile phone they're tracking you yeah yeah yeah exactly you aren't somewhere in their demogra traffic then you probably find that all of a sudden your Wi-Fi connections go down a little bit you

know you're not getting you're getting a little bit more latency um of course yeah how do you do it is the problem you can't it's not necessarily on the device itself it's going to be out there the connections it's going to be at the data centers all of that kind of stuff I mean how far does that rabbit hole go cuz you got to trust somebody at some point in the government kind of I feels really dirty saying that but um you've got to kind of say well somebody at some point is working in benefit as well it's not all about them trying to control us do you know what I mean yeah Tim fo hat on

for a second cuz they are but it's it's potentially the access from all the other third parties you El's talk just now we were talking about the APS and how they come from all the multiple different countries that they do and they're attacking the governments and the governments are you know where they where they're formulating it but at the point where all our data is at the data centers and it's a huge feed of that data the data sensors are probably going to get attacked by APS probably government sponsored and it's the other governments that we need to maybe more worried about so it's protecting our data in general not just from our own homegrown government but from

everybody okay um maybe one of the reason people not consider this one as a near future yet because of the branded one which is quite expensive so limited people can approaches don't you think the biggest threat is when China come to the picture and make the version of them yep Y and it's would be everyone accessibility yeah accessibility is the massive driver with this um at what point will everybody use it cuz I'm pretty sure from just this very short clip that I've shown you here and please do go and watch the Youtube video CU it's freaking amazing um but everybody here would have to agree that they probably want one as well yeah you

know you've seen the stuff augmented reality and you can put it on you can walk around your house whilst also watching TV and blah blah blah of course we want it it's at the point where it becomes available for everybody at a reasonable cost which is when it will explode and our kids will have it cuz everybody's kids there'll be a certain demographic of kids that will get it at the more uplifted price and then everybody else is going to be like I want one I want one I want and when it becomes a reasonable price Christmas will go r and everybody will be online right um meta Quest 3 currently is at 450 quid I'd like to say that that's

probably an accessible price for the majority of people still you know it's not it's not massively expensive it's not the thousands of pounds it's still it's more than an Xbox but it's not outside the realm of well yeah we'll buy one as a special thing now still accessible price that but yes certainly when it comes down couple hundred quid you know Mass manufactured plastic thing that when you drop it on the floor it breaks apart and Y just buy another one you know that absolutely that's when it'll become a major problem and our kids will have it our kids will be wearing them constantly you can wear them and walk around with them on so it

will be a case that they will be used

more that switch that nintend a few years ago and then all of the things where you could do that you just drop [Music] yep yes and no Google Glass is dead I love Google Glass I wanted one of them I know I know but I love the augmented reality aspect of it do you know what I mean right and I would have bought one I would have bought one if they hadn't killed it um the cardboard things and the Oculus where you put your phone in all that kind of stuff this is the evolution of that this is this is them progressing that idea to go right let's go down a road where we can have

wearables and then have a look at the um Apple Ray bands they are that's we the cusp of that becoming the next leap into it because why would you want your mobile phone slotted into it and wearing a big thing like that do you know what I mean when I can just get the uh the Met Quest 3 or the Apple Vision Pro and I can put that on get rid of my phone completely um so it's there's an evolutionary there's an evolution of the technology and that was probably the beginning of it to try to test the market to see if it was something that people would accept would you put something on your face that you could

allow to interact with the rest of the world in the internet yes you would cool let's stop let's start going down that road I think that's the gist of it basically yes [Music]

sir

comat there's another aspect of that where AI is making decisions so you about

to so I guess as a community where one of the things research to solve like have

some and I guess that's probably

FOC just yeah yeah no no and that is um you know the data go to the cloud um it's not necessarily the devices that we would have that we need to be to be concerned about but yes certainly where is it been stored what are they doing about it um I've I've over the last couple of years been interested in data sensors and how they're evolving um because there is now new technologies that are coming out the processing speeds and the heat generated means that the old fashioned aircooled um uh data censers are possibly going to go redundant very quickly and particularly if we're going to start shoving a load of dataor out there um that throughput and processing

ability means that the heat generator is going to go through the roof that's a whole data center issue but securing the data centers is definitely going to be a big cause that's where our data is going to be stored um is there a trust element there is there a trust element there do we trust the data centers to hold our data do we know that they're doing it in the right way do we know that they are they utilizing some kind of level of AI to combat persistent threats because that can process faster and evolve quicker than what the human being could do looking at stuff and maybe the algorithms and some of the current

protective softwares are I don't know the answer and and maybe we need some reassurance from data center um uh organizations to to actually stand up and go yes you know what cuz I've never heard them standing up and doing stuff going we're protecting your data you know they'll they'll quite easy I I on the course I've been recently running uh I gave them the analogy of the cloud is basically somebody give giving you a house with no windows and doors and stuff like that but you've got the the outside shell and then you fill it with the applications and the furniture and you put the security on it of the doors and windows they'll give you they'll

give you the house but you've got to secure it as members of the public that's our responsibility is it no there should be a level of well the Joe public everybody outside of this event and these rooms that we come into from a cyber security perspective they don't know the plumbers hairdressers you know dog walkers they don't know about security so the onus needs to be on somebody who's housing it to secure it again I come back to I've never really heard them standing up going yeah we're doing it so maybe there's a conversation to be had there maybe we need to come somehow push back on those guys to say what are you doing

and how are you doing it and when the breach happens at your side that it is your responsibility and not mine to put the doors and windows in it's a good point good question anymore anymore cool again thank you very much for your time