1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:01,520 You can't be secure without identity. 2 00:00:01,520 --> 00:00:05,760 You can't deliver online services without identity. 3 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:09,400 You cannot deliver employee productivity without, you can't 4 00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:11,520 do anything really. You can't do this podcast 5 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:14,440 without identity. So there's a lot of things I 6 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:17,880 think which will probably surprise non identity 7 00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:20,200 practitioners. I think for the for the, for the 8 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:23,000 people who've been in the identity space for a long time, 9 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:27,280 I think it will give a better set of analytical tools. 10 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:30,560 I think there's a lot of assumptions you can make if you 11 00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:34,040 spend time a long time in any technology sector. 12 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:38,760 And I think it's really about unpicking some of those maybe 13 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:42,120 bad habits or, or, or complacencies we all get into 14 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:45,960 and trying to say, look, have a a fresher and I guess more 15 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:49,280 contemporary analytical framework to look at how 16 00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:52,400 identity should be measured, how it should be integrated or 17 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:57,560 problems it should be solving in trying to help analyse both the 18 00:00:57,560 --> 00:01:00,800 vendors and also existing deployments. 19 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:04,879 Because nobody has the luxury of, of designing things from 20 00:01:04,879 --> 00:01:08,160 scratch and picking out the best technologies. 21 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:11,560 You have to deal with existing systems, existing problems. 22 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:16,000 So I think the big take away will be at least provide people 23 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,040 with a set of analytical tools that they can look at their 24 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:23,440 existing systems, existing vendors, existing suppliers and 25 00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:28,000 be a little bit more informed around what success looks like. 26 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:38,560 This is identity at the centre if it has anything to do with 27 00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:43,240 IAM. This is the go to podcast now 28 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:47,120 your hosts Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman. 29 00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:54,840 Welcome to the Identity Center Podcast. 30 00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:56,200 I'm Jeff, and that's Jim. Hey, Jim. 31 00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:59,120 Hey, Jeff, how are you? Oh, not so bad yourself. 32 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:04,120 I'm doing great One. I do have one complaint, OK. 33 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:06,040 No, that's shocking. You complain. 34 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:08,960 No, only one. That's the shocking part. 35 00:02:10,039 --> 00:02:12,360 So. It's what is it 1 complaint with 36 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:15,080 like 8 different bullet points. Yeah, exactly. 37 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:19,200 Now we've got we've, we're doing awesome in terms of or what I 38 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:23,640 should say is our listeners are doing awesome in terms of, you 39 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:27,040 know, downloading the podcast, listening to it mostly unlike 40 00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:30,560 audio only formats. I've checked out our YouTube 41 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:33,120 site, our numbers. What would you call those rookie 42 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:37,160 numbers right? So not complaining is definitely 43 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:39,720 not knocking our listeners be. Careful, Jim, don't don't take 44 00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:42,040 off our listeners. I'm not taking off the listeners 45 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,400 hopefully, but what I wanted to say was I was watching this 46 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:50,240 channel earlier today, so it was beard versus food. 47 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:53,520 The guys had a video out for one year where he eats a pizza. 48 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:59,800 Basically he eats a pizza during the episode. 8.5 million views. 49 00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,920 So he's doing something right that we're not doing. 50 00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:06,760 What it what could it be? Doing something right, I don't 51 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:10,280 know about right. Doing something that's attracted 52 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:13,680 viewers, I guess I don't know. I mean, if you have a beard, if 53 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:15,520 you want to eat pizza while recording, and if you think 54 00:03:15,520 --> 00:03:18,960 that'll get, you know, people to like and subscribe, we can give 55 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,160 it a shot. Well, I'm up for anything, so 56 00:03:22,640 --> 00:03:24,200 I'll give it a shot. I'll give it a shot. 57 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:26,000 I'll take a video of me eating pizza. 58 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:28,360 We'll see if we get 8.5 million views. 59 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:31,120 Unlikely, but hey, you never know. 60 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:33,240 This is how this is how maybe you go viral, right? 61 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:35,320 I'm. Pretty sure you can monetize 62 00:03:35,320 --> 00:03:38,960 that many views, right? I mean, for sure, yeah. 63 00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:40,680 I mean, if you're having, if you're pulling that stuff in, 64 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:43,600 you know, that'll probably pay for, for the pizza that you're 65 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:47,200 eating. No, so OK, so beard versus food 66 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:49,440 is the guy that does all these eating challenges. 67 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:52,440 So the pizza was a 30 inch pizza. 68 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:56,040 So it's pretty much like the size of the moon. 69 00:03:56,320 --> 00:03:58,240 And he ate the whole thing in one sitting. 70 00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:01,800 And he was the first person to ever beat this challenge was 71 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:03,960 actually at a pizza place in Norway. 72 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:07,320 So really cool channel. I think there's a lot of 73 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:10,720 channels out there, but I think, you know, the coolest one is 74 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:14,000 still identity at the center. Oh, without a doubt, it does 75 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:15,480 make me wonder about your algorithm. 76 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:17,760 Like why is? Why is this being pushed into 77 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:21,000 your feed? No, I well, well, two things. 78 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,760 One is I'm going to Norway next week, so I've watched a lot of 79 00:04:23,760 --> 00:04:26,520 videos as I've covered in past episodes. 80 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:30,160 I think the other thing is that like, this guy's channel is 81 00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:33,200 awesome. Watching people eat like massive 82 00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:37,480 amounts of food in like 20 minutes is pretty entertaining. 83 00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:42,680 I I'm I'm struggling with why this is entertaining. 84 00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:44,880 It's just watching people eat, like what's the point? 85 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:48,720 He's doing something that you can't do if you can use a 30 86 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:51,040 inch pizza. I mean, I'm sure you could build 87 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:55,160 a heck of a following. OK, well I guess to each their 88 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:56,960 own. Yeah, I guess so. 89 00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:00,040 So we should talk about our conferences. 90 00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:04,040 By the way, I'm going to have a cache of stickers with me at 91 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:06,160 every conference. I'm going to make sure that 92 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:09,200 you've got a pocket full of stickers too, at all times. 93 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:12,040 So folks see me or you. That's not the reason to go out 94 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:15,960 to YouTube, so they can see our face and recognize us when they 95 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:19,960 see us on the conference floor. We have stickers and they're 96 00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:22,680 good stickers. They are like vinyl stickers. 97 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:27,640 So they're kind of weatherproof, dishwasher proof, all that, and 98 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,680 we'll have them. Yeah, Jim is very proud of these 99 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:32,760 stickers, so you definitely want to get one for sure. 100 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:34,920 Let's talk about the conferences because you and I are going to 101 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:38,320 be at EIC and well, by the time people listen to this tomorrow, 102 00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:41,120 we'll see you tomorrow. So it's kind of the last chance 103 00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:42,440 for people to use a discount code. 104 00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:45,120 If you haven't already registered, you know, probably 105 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:47,120 want to get on that, but it's May 6th or the 9th. 106 00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:51,840 If you use the code IDAC 25 MKO, that'll get you 25% off. 107 00:05:52,840 --> 00:05:55,600 Like I said, if you're listening to this, chances are you're 108 00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:57,480 probably already registered or you're not going to be there, 109 00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:00,600 but we will be at EIC and looking forward to that. 110 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:03,320 Then we've got the Identiverse conference coming up that's in 111 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:05,400 Las Vegas. So kind of a quick turn from 112 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:08,960 Europe over to the US. June 3rd, the 6th, we have the 113 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:14,280 code IDV 25-I D AC25, another 25% off for that one. 114 00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:16,640 So we hope to see lots of friendly faces there and I think 115 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:18,240 we're at the spot now. We're going to say, hey, we are 116 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:23,240 bringing our game show to Identiverse and we have, at 117 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:25,560 least for now called it Identisquabble. 118 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:27,440 So this. Is finalized on the name 119 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:29,320 Identisquabble. For now, right. 120 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:31,480 And I gave a lot of thought over this and then you just kind of 121 00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:34,400 blurted it out, I think yesterday in real time as we're 122 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:35,920 talking about this, like, Oh yeah, that's better than 123 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:36,760 anything I've been thinking about. 124 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:39,920 So we'll just go with that. So yeah, Identisquabble, we're 125 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:43,840 going to kick off, I think the Expo kind of opening night in 126 00:06:43,840 --> 00:06:46,400 the Expo hall. So we'll have a space there. 127 00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:48,720 I will bring my cameras and I definitely want to try and turn 128 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:51,240 this into an episode. But if you're familiar with what 129 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:54,760 we did at the Authenticate conference last year, it is a 130 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:58,960 Family Feud style game. So Jim is going to be a team 131 00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:00,240 captain. We're going to have another team 132 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:02,560 captain, a couple of team mates for each of those. 133 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:04,800 We're going to have judges and things like that. 134 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,000 They're going to help with, you know, deciphering the answers 135 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,080 that our contestants come up. And I will be playing the role 136 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:13,600 of MC or Steve Harvey or whatever you want to call me, 137 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:17,680 trying to keep these cats moving in the same direction. 138 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:19,600 So looking forward to that. Definitely want to invite people 139 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:22,360 out to that. So if you're going to be in 140 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,920 Ideniverse at Ideniverse in Las Vegas, definitely come check us 141 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:29,000 out the opening. I think we're the first on 1st 142 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:31,160 on the board that night. So I think it's like 5:30 or 143 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:32,880 6:00 PM or something like that, that we'll be there. 144 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:35,400 But look forward to seeing friendly faces and having some 145 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:36,840 fun. So it's going to be just a fun 146 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:38,080 you. I don't know if you'll learn 147 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:40,680 anything, Jim, but hopefully you'll be entertained. 148 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:45,160 Yeah, I mean, I think you'll learn how goofy we can get, but 149 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,200 I think it'll be a good time. So I'm really excited about the 150 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:51,800 guests that we have. As somebody that I've known in 151 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:54,760 this identity space since all the way back in his four Drock 152 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:59,480 days and before we got started recording, he mentioned he's on 153 00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:03,120 the Ubuntu computer, which I thought, oh, that's, that's so 154 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:10,440 him, that's and that's so Legacy 4 Drock Classic to be on some 155 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:14,960 version of a Linux laptop. So I had to or I'm I'm not sure 156 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:19,400 if it's a laptop or a desktop. I shouldn't say laptop, but why 157 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:20,800 don't you go ahead and introduce him? 158 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:22,360 I mean, it's Linux. It could be anything. 159 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:24,080 It could be a Flipper 0 for anything that he could be 160 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:25,440 recording on right now. So yeah. 161 00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:27,520 It could be a black BlackBerry, right? 162 00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:30,040 Right, Who knows? Yeah, let's introduce Simon 163 00:08:30,040 --> 00:08:32,039 Muffet. He's an identity researcher and 164 00:08:32,039 --> 00:08:34,000 author. He's an identity podcaster, just 165 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:36,400 like we are, and he's the founder of the Cyber Hut. 166 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:41,039 So, Simon, welcome to the show. Hi guys, it's great. 167 00:08:41,039 --> 00:08:41,880 Great. To be honest. 168 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:43,720 It's it's, I've listened to you guys for a while. 169 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:46,560 As you know, it's, it's a small world and the identity space, 170 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,240 albeit it's getting bigger. So you guys doing a, doing a 171 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:54,320 great job in, in entertaining us and informing us of all of the 172 00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:57,680 identity worlds. But it, it is a laptop, it is a, 173 00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:00,840 it's a Linux laptop. I I don't know why I fell in too 174 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:03,840 Ubuntu actually it wasn't really a forge rock thing or be it 175 00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:08,440 being in the open source game I guess for that's all 1020 years 176 00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:10,960 I suppose. But I, I, I fell into using 177 00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:16,640 Ubuntu 15 years ago and I don't know not not really seen it all 178 00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:19,960 to not a Mac fan and I didn't nobody likes Microsoft. 179 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:20,960 Did I? Should I say that? 180 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:26,400 Hey, hey, I'm on a man. So I, I just, I've used lyrics 181 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:27,960 and Ubuntu for a long, long time. 182 00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:31,600 I think everything's browser based these days, isn't it? 183 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:36,000 It's everything's web-based, so I, I totally fully enjoy having 184 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:41,040 a very lightweight laptop or I probably can't see. 185 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:45,480 I, I, my Kindle is my, is my main device of choice these 186 00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:48,960 days, a nice old fashioned Scribe and a Kindle and my 187 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:53,000 mobile phone. I can, I can just about get by 188 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,600 most days with that. I'm just the five years of the 189 00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:00,520 laptop may may disappear, but that's that's probably another 190 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:05,480 podcast worth of conversation. But what what devices we may end 191 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:07,680 up using in a, you know, five years from now, I guess. 192 00:10:07,680 --> 00:10:09,200 Well, I. Think we can definitely have a 193 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:11,360 conversation about that at some point because I think if you've 194 00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:14,040 been following like where some of the tech companies are going, 195 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:17,320 it's glasses are back, right? Maybe it's, you know, Google 196 00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:20,040 Glass was a big thing a couple years back and then, you know, 197 00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:22,800 now we're getting back into what I would call more normal looking 198 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:24,720 glasses. And I have some that I use like 199 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:27,280 when I travel that are, you know, I plug it into my phone 200 00:10:27,280 --> 00:10:30,600 and I can watch a video and a a movie like it and a huge screen. 201 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:32,720 But yeah, there's a lot going on for sure. 202 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:36,720 I'd like to get to know more about you, Simon. 203 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:39,480 So one of the things we like to do with the first time that we 204 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:41,640 have people on the show for the first time, and I'm kind of 205 00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:45,480 shocked that it took 347 episodes to do that, is let's 206 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:48,800 find out about your background. How did you get into the space 207 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:51,280 of identity and access management or digital identity 208 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:52,920 or whatever the heck we're calling it these days? 209 00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:55,400 Is this something you chose or did it choose you? 210 00:10:57,240 --> 00:11:00,680 It, it seems a long time ago. I, I started in 2001. 211 00:11:00,680 --> 00:11:04,400 So that's nearly nearly 25 years, which is, I mean, that's 212 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:08,720 an absolute eternity in, in any technology or any career, I 213 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:10,720 guess. And I think identity has seen 214 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:14,120 just huge transformation in that time. 215 00:11:14,120 --> 00:11:16,320 But I, I, I did sort of fall into it ultimately. 216 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:19,600 I did, I did economics at university with Microsoft first 217 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:24,480 degree, utterly unrelated to identity and access management. 218 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:27,960 And you sort of roll out of university at sort of 2122. 219 00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:32,640 What, what should I do in this big, big wide world? 220 00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,960 And I, I ultimately, I took on a contract straight out of 221 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:40,520 university for three months working for a large insurance 222 00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:43,720 company in the UK. And it wasn't a particularly 223 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:46,920 complicated contract, as you can imagine at the age of 22 or 224 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:49,400 something. You know, we have many great 225 00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:52,200 life skills at this age. And the, the, the job was for 226 00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:55,200 three months to do mainframe Security Administration. 227 00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:59,120 And the project essentially was this, this insurance company had 228 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:05,920 about 3637 thousand users and they ran it out of user IDs. 229 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,360 Can you believe it on their racket for mainframe system. 230 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:10,760 Long story short, they run out of I DS. 231 00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:13,840 So the project, they pulled in three or four graduates who we 232 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:18,160 all didn't know anything about mainframes or identity or 233 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:20,480 anything like this. And they brought us in for three 234 00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:23,480 months and we essentially had to go through this list by hand, 235 00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:28,960 36,000 identities within rack F and essentially copy and paste 236 00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:33,240 them onto a new rack FID. So if your ID was, I think it 237 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:39,600 was something like 5 numbers in a letter, so say 12345 and then 238 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,920 A and we have to essentially change the ID to be something 239 00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:45,880 like 123456 and then A, something like this. 240 00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:47,600 I can't remember the details well. 241 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:50,280 We literally had a print out everyday from PeopleSoft and 242 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:54,800 used to go through this list, find the ID within RACF and then 243 00:12:55,160 --> 00:12:57,880 copy and paste and set up all of the TSO options. 244 00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:01,240 The the job control language stuff, the data says all this 245 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:03,680 stuff. I knew nothing about the age of 246 00:13:03,680 --> 00:13:06,520 22, but it was all by hand. So there's no, there was no 247 00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:08,800 connectors, there was no provisioning systems, there was 248 00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:11,360 no ticketing systems. So they, they essentially 249 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:15,880 brought in actual people to with sort of shovels to shovel 250 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:19,320 through this huge list of mainframe identities. 251 00:13:19,560 --> 00:13:22,640 And obviously the project never lasted 3 months. 252 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:26,280 It lasted 12 months. And that was my first taste of, 253 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:30,360 well, first and last taste of, of mainframe Security 254 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:35,400 Administration and TSOIDS and job control languages and Karla 255 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:37,200 languages and all this crazy, crazy stuff. 256 00:13:37,720 --> 00:13:41,800 But it did get me into this identity world and and from 257 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:46,200 there I spent another three or four years in house for this 258 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:50,680 insurance company looking after their Novell E directory 259 00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:54,480 directory services for the mainframe looking after 30-40 260 00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:59,000 thousand identities in Novell. And that was then replaced by 261 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,880 Active Directory. So all of the good learning 262 00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:05,040 skills you're looking having to look after servers. 263 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:07,480 People remember servers that don't get serviced anymore. 264 00:14:07,480 --> 00:14:10,560 So having to look after servers, having to do health checks, 265 00:14:10,560 --> 00:14:14,600 having to script things, having to build out sort of resilience 266 00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:19,120 and and directory replication topologies and all this really 267 00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:23,960 by hand stuff, which no way do you need to do in 2025. 268 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:28,760 But as as a young guy starting my career, it was great. 269 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:30,000 You know, I learnt, I learnt loads. 270 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,400 I was working with experienced professionals, technology of all 271 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:37,520 calibres, you know, old fashioned mainframes, what at 272 00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:41,120 the time was pretty cutting edge Novell directory. 273 00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:44,080 So it was, it was a really good apprenticeship if you like. 274 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,760 I did that for four or five years and then I went into 275 00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:50,960 consultancy for a couple of years, similar sort of stuff, 276 00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:54,240 Directory services, moving a little bit more into the sort of 277 00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:59,120 networky world as well, VPNs and firewalls and the like, but 278 00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:02,800 still very much focused on, on the directory. 279 00:15:03,160 --> 00:15:07,520 And then I guess I got a big break, if you like, probably six 280 00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:10,280 years into that. I, I, I started and I, I didn't 281 00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:14,120 start. I joined a startup called Value, 282 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:18,840 which was one of the early pioneers in role based access 283 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:22,720 control and identity certification and access review. 284 00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:27,080 And they had a, a stellar two or three years and were then 285 00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:32,120 acquired by Sun Microsystems. They become Sun role manager as 286 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:37,840 part of the, the open source Sun stack, Sun identity manager, the 287 00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:40,520 DS Sun access manager, all this stuff. 288 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:44,600 And they acquired this tiny company called Value as part of 289 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:47,680 their role based access control strategy. 290 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:49,960 And the rest is history after that. 291 00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:53,200 If you like a lot of time then spent in the in the vendor 292 00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:55,040 world. And it's yeah, it's, it's 293 00:15:55,600 --> 00:15:59,480 looking back even sort of the early 2000s, things just have 294 00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:03,280 changed just substantially really in a, in a whole host of 295 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:06,280 ways. I did 15 years in the vendor 296 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:10,040 landscape at a time. So Microsystems, they were then 297 00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:13,520 acquired by Oracle. I had a couple of years at 298 00:16:13,560 --> 00:16:16,480 Oracle looking after the European identity business there 299 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:20,560 for Oracle Identity Analytics. And then I spent a good eight or 300 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:23,800 nine years at another open source company called Forge 301 00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:28,920 Rock, at least partially open source, started, started open 302 00:16:28,920 --> 00:16:32,240 source, ended up closed source for various different reasons. 303 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:34,320 It was a great journey, great journey. 304 00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:37,880 I was doing sort of solution architectural work and finished 305 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:40,880 off doing four or five years as a, as a product manager there 306 00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:44,680 for, for their access management technologies. 307 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,720 And as part of that, to sort of close this little story off, 308 00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:53,280 part of that process was looking at emerging technologies. 309 00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:55,600 What, what should four drop do next? 310 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:59,640 Looking at start-ups, looking at standards, looking at OF2 and OP 311 00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:02,040 ID connect and what what what's going to happen next. 312 00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:05,440 And it was a struggle because I couldn't, I couldn't find the 313 00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:09,760 information I was looking for. And yeah, we have big research 314 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:13,520 agencies out there doing high levels quadrants and compasses 315 00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:15,560 and this sort of stuff. But I was struggling to find 316 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:20,480 that knowledge of the next big thing if like the start-ups, the 317 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:23,040 emerging patterns, use cases, etcetera. 318 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,720 And that really was the inspiration to set up for an 319 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:30,240 organization called the Cyberhuts, which I set up during 320 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,920 the pandemic. If, if, if there's ever a 321 00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:35,840 difficult time to start a business, do it during the 322 00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:38,280 pandemic when the whole world is shut down. 323 00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:42,600 But I actually, in hindsight, it was a huge opportunity because 324 00:17:43,120 --> 00:17:45,000 everybody else was at home as well. 325 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:49,920 So I, I found at the Cyberhooks the end of 2020, start of 2021, 326 00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:54,720 looking all of the exciting, cool emerging identity 327 00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:58,560 technologies, use cases, patterns, vendors, all that sort 328 00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:01,440 of stuff. And attempt now to to deliver 329 00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:06,080 enablement research, Fender guides, training, all of the 330 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:10,040 stuff to just help the world understand our our amazing 331 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:13,240 identity, practitioner knowledge, vendor knowledge and 332 00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:15,680 all that stuff. And it feels like a really good, 333 00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:19,640 really good journey. So a lot of lot of knowledge 334 00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:23,720 accumulated in that time. A lot of a lot of change, as you 335 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:25,560 can imagine, as you guys have seen as well. 336 00:18:25,560 --> 00:18:28,960 I think the world has changed spectacularly even the last 10 337 00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,920 years, let alone last 25 S Things like servers. 338 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:35,360 Well, exactly. You know, they've got AI to deal 339 00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:36,960 with as well. So it's it's been great. 340 00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:40,040 I feel feel privileged actually to, to be doing what I'm doing 341 00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:44,400 now, which is essentially being briefed by technology vendors, 342 00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:48,080 understanding what's happening next, understanding what use 343 00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,080 cases are being solved and attempting to translate that 344 00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:56,720 into into consumable knowledge. You feel like it's, of all the 345 00:18:56,720 --> 00:18:59,600 jobs I've had over the last sort of 25 years, I feel this is the, 346 00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:05,720 this is the nicest job, I think. Is there a particular content 347 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:07,960 that you like that you kind of have an affinity to? 348 00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:10,440 Is it written? Is it audio? 349 00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:12,920 Is it reports? Is it research? 350 00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:15,240 Is it thinking about the future, Right. 351 00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:17,240 And sort of ideating, like where is this thing going? 352 00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:19,240 And we're going to get to a book you're writing, you know, on 353 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:21,720 that topic. But is there a a specific thing 354 00:19:21,720 --> 00:19:24,200 that you really kind of like? Yeah, this is really my favorite 355 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:29,280 part of this part of what I do. Oh wow, yeah, I think content is 356 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:32,520 really interesting for me. I think it has the, the 357 00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:34,880 technology has changed, so has content. 358 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:38,720 And I think you know, we, we have, we are swamped with 359 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:41,600 material. We have material everywhere on 360 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,160 your phone, your Kindle, you can research anything, 30 inch 361 00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:49,000 pizzas if you want, you know, wherever you go, whatever you 362 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,520 want to buy a new car, you can find as much content as as you 363 00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,800 like. So information overload is the 364 00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:57,360 issue. So I think it's it's trying to 365 00:19:57,360 --> 00:19:59,800 deliver content in in design material. 366 00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:03,520 In a variety of ways. And that's something definitely 367 00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:06,680 the Cyprus experimented with being, yeah, the podcast thing, 368 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:10,680 but also taking maybe a big research report and then 369 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:14,360 breaking that down into a whole host of different channels and 370 00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:18,920 different opportunities from one or two-minute training or videos 371 00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:23,080 or training shorts by guys training in the written form. 372 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:26,480 So that this, I think the content aspect is, is totally 373 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:28,760 changed. I think for me personally, I 374 00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:31,000 like to read and write. I think most people do. 375 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:35,880 I consume via reading, but I also helps me think to write. 376 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,080 So if I'm ever stuck on something that I write, because 377 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:41,720 then I can much more easily understand it. 378 00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:44,400 And if I can understand it, I can then deliver that in a way 379 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:48,160 which other people can. But I think it's, it's always 380 00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:50,160 about, to me, there's three things you should always be 381 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:54,720 doing 3 ES essentially educate the audience, empower them and 382 00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:57,760 maybe entertain them a little bit as well. 383 00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:00,520 So it's how you can get some of these, some of these complex 384 00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:02,560 topics we're all engaged with. Now. 385 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,280 How can we put that across in, in simpler ways? 386 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:08,040 And I think we have to do it in a variety, whether it's written 387 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:10,440 books, reports, podcasts, whatever. 388 00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:13,520 Simon, I have a question about your writing process. 389 00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:16,600 Take us through that. Like do you like to write it at 390 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:19,080 night to like to write in coffee shops? 391 00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:23,400 Or what is your What's the perfect situation for you to get 392 00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:26,200 the most creativity out of your time? 393 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:29,080 Do you know, do you know, I think there's, there's a few, 394 00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,480 there's a few parts to this. A lot of people like this is my 395 00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:34,040 second book I've done. So that's I don't know how many 396 00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:37,720 pages I did 700 pages, but I, I as an analyst, I write for a 397 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:39,640 living in the sense of I write all the time. 398 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:44,880 It's writing isn't difficult. And I, I say this with a bit of 399 00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:47,720 a quip here, but the difficult part is thinking about what to 400 00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,720 write. The act of writing something if 401 00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:54,800 it's researched and thought about it should take seconds. 402 00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:58,280 It should take as, as as quick to write as it does to read. 403 00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:00,360 In my opinion. That's how I typically like it 404 00:22:00,360 --> 00:22:03,480 to operate. And my, my modus operandi is I'm 405 00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,160 thinking and by thinking, I've got my Kindle here now, my 406 00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:11,800 Kindle and my Scribe. I use this daily, hours per day, 407 00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:14,440 writing, sketching notes, small things. 408 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:19,360 I'm quite pictorial, so I'm like pictures, matrices and diagrams 409 00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:21,120 and drawings and stuff like this. 410 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,520 And I will do that constantly. But a lot of the time it's 411 00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:28,080 thinking, thinking about the topic, thinking around the 412 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,680 topic, thinking sort of through the topic and trying to create 413 00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,640 counterpoints and I guess arguing myself out of a 414 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:36,200 particular position, for example. 415 00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,160 And I think if you spend time on that aspect, on the thinking 416 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:45,400 aspect, the writing to me is, is relatively relatively simple. 417 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:50,040 But you, I think you do have to be dedicated at it to, it's a 418 00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,680 bit like going to the gym. It's you have to do a little bit 419 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,000 everyday, 20 minutes, thirty minutes, 15 minutes. 420 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,200 Even if you have writer's block or content block or whatever, 421 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:02,480 just just do something, something, a little a line, a 422 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,600 sentence, a word, anything. And that just continues to push 423 00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:09,280 that rock a little bit further forward. 424 00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,680 But I think, yeah, I, I, I'm always jotting stuff down. 425 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:16,200 I've got reams and reams and notes for all sorts of stuff. 426 00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,320 And it, over time it's sort of builds out a bigger picture. 427 00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,960 And then the execution aspect, physical active writing is, is 428 00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:24,680 pretty straightforward for me personally. 429 00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:28,760 You've mentioned the. Podcast and I've mentioned it as 430 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:29,960 well. Tell us something about the 431 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:31,680 analyst brief, because you do this with our friend David 432 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,320 Mahdi's. And I'm curious, like, what is 433 00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,320 the topic? You know, how did you get this 434 00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:38,120 thing started? And just tell us a bit more 435 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:40,360 about that. Yeah, it's, it's nice. 436 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:41,840 It's not as professional as this one though. 437 00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:45,040 Guys, this is, you know, this is the you, you guys are doing the 438 00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:46,680 professionals. So we, I guess the honest brief 439 00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,720 is, is, is a couple of things. Really, I think it's we try to 440 00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,840 make it part of that contemporary back to that 441 00:23:54,120 --> 00:23:55,520 content view. You're trying to provide that 442 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:57,760 contemporary comment, if you like. 443 00:23:58,120 --> 00:24:02,000 There's, there's, there's so much material, so many vendors 444 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,680 doing so many amazing things, product launches, features, 445 00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,000 mergers, acquisitions. There's so much happening. 446 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:11,640 And I think the analyst brief that the real modus operandi 447 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,600 there was to try and provide a bit of commentary, really a bit 448 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,600 of simple commentary as to what is happening. 449 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:21,440 It's not every week, it's probably a couple of times a 450 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:22,880 month. Really it's, it's trying to 451 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,600 provide that commentary around, look, there's so much change 452 00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:30,240 around technology identity, security, all of these 453 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:33,320 overlapping technology areas and just try and provide a little 454 00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,960 bit of clarity there, a little bit of an independent view, you 455 00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:38,600 know, cut out. The vendor. 456 00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,720 Speak or the the solution providers speak and the gimmicks 457 00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:46,080 and the acronyms provide a bit of real commentary there. 458 00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,240 Peel Back had a bit of history and they had some stories, maybe 459 00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,040 call out some of the vendors perhaps, or maybe call out some 460 00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,320 of the situations or the buzz terms or whatever it can be. 461 00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:01,520 But just to provide that, that that weekly or that monthly view 462 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,120 of this is the snapshot of what's happening. 463 00:25:04,120 --> 00:25:08,640 This is a bit of an independent view of of how things are going, 464 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,160 maybe why they're heading in that way. 465 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,600 So it's, it's trying to provide that contemporary view, if you 466 00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,560 like, of, of all the change which is happening. 467 00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:21,520 And it's there's a lot of change as, as you can, as you can tell, 468 00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:23,400 there's all this, all the technology change, there's a lot 469 00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,280 of stuff happening. So it's, yeah, it's trying to 470 00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:27,480 provide that, that comment. I think it's the, it's the, it's 471 00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:30,480 the big goal. Well, there's so much to cover. 472 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,200 I feel like, you know, when Jim and I started this six years ago 473 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,560 now, I guess at this point it's like, all right, well, at some 474 00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,480 point we're going to run out of things to talk about Lean. 475 00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:39,080 It's identity and access management. 476 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,560 What can you possibly do? And here we are, you know, six 477 00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:46,000 years later, 347 episodes and counting, and there's just 478 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,000 always something happening and there's something new to report 479 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:50,600 on. And, you know, you're putting 480 00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:54,560 out so much content between the podcast and the reports and the, 481 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,960 I guess the the Moffett laws of identity security that you put 482 00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,480 out over this year. Tell me a little bit about what 483 00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:05,520 those laws are and what are you trying to get out into the 484 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:08,720 identity sphere of influence with those things? 485 00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,080 That was good. I quite like a lot of the stuff 486 00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:14,280 that side but does and quite a lot of the stuff I do really 487 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,440 personally is, is just to get conversation going, is to get 488 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,800 discussion going, involving as many different people as 489 00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:26,080 possible, many different voices. And for me it's always about the 490 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,560 signals which which get generated the conversations, not 491 00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,200 necessarily to be provocative or get people disagreeing, but just 492 00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:34,560 to get people thinking and discussing. 493 00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:37,320 And the laws was part of that. Laws was a tongue in cheek, 494 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,040 tongue in cheek thing around describing it or having to try 495 00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,920 and describe what what are some of the best practices really 496 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:46,680 around this, this area of protecting our identity 497 00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,720 infrastructure, our identity landscape because it's under 498 00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:52,080 attack. You know, there's there's no 499 00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:55,640 question about that. You can Google, Google on any 500 00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,600 day of the week and you can find a daily breach of some 501 00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,840 description and it probably has identity at the centre. 502 00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:05,800 They'll put into there's identity somewhere in those 503 00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,520 breach reports. So the, the, the, the techniques 504 00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:10,480 and tactics and procedures, they're somewhere in there. 505 00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:13,280 Whether it's human or non human identity, something's gone wrong 506 00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,840 with that identity landscape. So the laws, the laws aspect was 507 00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,560 friends. Look, we need to just have a, 508 00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,680 have a conversation here around what identity security looks at. 509 00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:27,960 How can we protect all of this identity stuff that we have in 510 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:29,840 there? And to be honest, there's one of 511 00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:31,920 two disagreements. So that the big the biggest 512 00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,520 disagreement for those who haven't read them all, there's, 513 00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:36,640 there's 10 basic statements in there. 514 00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,880 I think there's #3 which is the one which always gets people 515 00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,120 chatting. I think it's the carbon life. 516 00:27:42,120 --> 00:27:44,200 They'll go on, They'll go on that you can tie food. 517 00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,200 They think that the law was something around every identity 518 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,440 should at some stage be tied back to a carbon life forms a 519 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:55,760 physical person ultimately, especially for the workloads, 520 00:27:55,800 --> 00:28:01,160 NHI, agenda, Ki, you name it. Smart TV's what anything where 521 00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,880 there isn't a physical person there. 522 00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:08,120 And it was, I think a lot of people once they actually 523 00:28:08,120 --> 00:28:10,360 understand and nod and agree actually, yeah, that's probably 524 00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:13,040 not a bad thing. But the problem is with this is 525 00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,040 that actually a lot of our human identity records and identity 526 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,160 profiles are not linked to a carbon life form either, which 527 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:22,720 is this subtle part which a lot of people miss because even if 528 00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,720 you're you're Active Directory record, it's not necessarily 529 00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,400 tied to a biometric validated and verified identity. 530 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,560 It's just Simon's AD entry with the UPN and whatever else. 531 00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,760 So there's a bit of a subtlety in that around trying to make 532 00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,120 this real for, for, for all identities. 533 00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,360 But yeah, the, the laws is really again, having some 534 00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:46,920 discussion putting the flag in this. 535 00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,920 I don't want to own the flag in the sand, but I will put the 536 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,760 flag there and we can all at least dance around it or discuss 537 00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:58,880 it and get that get those topics and people's agenda around talk 538 00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,240 about policy, talking about clean plenty of this of of 539 00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,920 identity data, humans, people, software devices. 540 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,280 Let's talk about all of that stuff as well and just yeah, 541 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:11,600 raise awareness was the was the idea behind it. 542 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:13,840 So. Simon, I remember when you 543 00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,440 posted this on LinkedIn, I went out and read them. 544 00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,600 And by the way, I think one of the things I know you for and 545 00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,760 probably other people knew you for is you're not afraid to be 546 00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:29,320 bold. And I exactly #3 jumps off the 547 00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,760 page to me because I agree with it and I know most people don't 548 00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:38,360 agree with it. It's that, you know, basically 549 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,360 every say the controversial part, they're not the 550 00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,320 controversial part is that every non human identity must back map 551 00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,920 to a physical person who essentially owns it who can 552 00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,360 speak for it. I do think the one potential 553 00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:58,080 exception is that if AI becomes advanced enough, it could be a 554 00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,560 representation of a person, in other words, able to make 555 00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,320 decisions. So I think that at some, and I 556 00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,360 don't think we're there now, but at some point you might have a 557 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,280 company where there aren't people or basically the whole 558 00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:17,640 company is run by bots and maybe those bots are the decision 559 00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:22,760 makers and identities as we know them are owned by that bot. 560 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:24,760 So I think that could be an exception. 561 00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:29,480 I know you know, that's super sci-fi at the moment, but I 562 00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:31,560 thought, let me argue. Against that point, because I 563 00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:36,400 think those bots, unless this is a 100% AI company, there is 564 00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,080 still theoretically a human at the very top. 565 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,760 They might be the CEO of, you know, founder, bottle washer, 566 00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:49,160 janitor and all these agents or AI or whatever things that will 567 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,680 map to them. I could do we get to the point 568 00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:57,000 where an entire company, like a legal entity, a definition of a 569 00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,840 company is 100% AII have a feeling we would probably put a 570 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,200 stop to that at some point, at least until the AI takes over 571 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,120 the judicial system and the governance and stuff like that. 572 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,680 But. Here's my thought on that. 573 00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,560 Jeff because I think that's, that's a good point. 574 00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:15,640 But I think the intent of that statement or that law is that a 575 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:17,160 person who is accountable for it. 576 00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,760 In other words, you understand enough about what is doing to 577 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,280 say whether or not it should be, should exist. 578 00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:27,840 If you have a billion baht company or say a billion dollar 579 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,840 size company and it's all robots and maybe there are a few humans 580 00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:36,120 at the top, those humans probably can't be accountable at 581 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,320 that level. And you may delegate the 582 00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:43,560 decision to a bot that is smart enough to determine whether or 583 00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:50,400 not that access is appropriate. A lot of supposing there, But I 584 00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,640 think that the key point is what Syme made, which is essentially 585 00:31:54,640 --> 00:32:00,840 that some life form, whether it's artificial or real, has to 586 00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:04,400 be able to make the decisions for identities, like an identity 587 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:13,800 that, you know, runs a like a computer process or robotic 588 00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,000 process. You know, you just can't like 589 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,800 leave these things kind of unattended and have nobody 590 00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:24,120 accountable for deciding whether or not that access is 591 00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:28,360 appropriate. And I think that is that is my 592 00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,520 concern is that when we call these identities, to me, they're 593 00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,680 really accounts. They're accounts that exist. 594 00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,520 They're not identities, I I. Agree. 595 00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:40,040 I just disagree. I, I think the, the 596 00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,320 accountability thing is, is really what, what what's 597 00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:44,880 important here. I think there's a good slide 598 00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,680 that does the, does the rounds, I think on, on LinkedIn and 599 00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,360 socials. It's by IBM, the 70s and it 600 00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,640 talks about no, no machine should have decision making 601 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,840 capabilities or management capabilities. 602 00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:59,320 Maybe it says because it can't be held accountable now that 603 00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,320 that accountability is really important. 604 00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,360 It is. It's just also a separation 605 00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,040 between decision making and accountability. 606 00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:10,000 Now, if you talk about a genetic AI and and whatever may come 607 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:14,160 over the next decade, all for autonomous decision making that 608 00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,160 that's just going to happen. There's no way you can let you 609 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,080 know you get get in the way of that and put the put the genie 610 00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:20,720 back in the bottle. That's going to happen. 611 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,720 Autonomous decision making, which is perfectly legitimate if 612 00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:28,680 you have accountability of a chain of accountability around 613 00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,120 who has the final say who, who is going to be the person on the 614 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:38,200 hook in the court of law to say, yes, that was me, that was my 615 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,160 responsibility to do so. And I think soon, as soon as you 616 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,400 have a disconnection there, you have a whole host of, of 617 00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,560 liability issues and and process issues and governance issues 618 00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:52,120 around how that data processing or how the organization should 619 00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:53,880 be run. So it was really all about 620 00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,320 saying, look, we have this brand new world potentially of, of 621 00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,480 autonomous decision making, which is absolutely necessary 622 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,880 and scalable. We have to have some sort of 623 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,040 accountability there. And it may just start off being 624 00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,040 a team. You know, it could be a team 625 00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,239 that responds to an oath to client. 626 00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:16,080 This team, this, you know, SEC OPS team owns this particular 627 00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,400 oath to client perfectly fine because you then know who in 628 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:23,480 that team to go and knock on the door and say hey, this this or 629 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,800 two client is whatever behaving suspiciously or whatever it 630 00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,560 could be. But you need to have that 631 00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:31,560 lineage, I think to a physical person. 632 00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,520 Yeah, maybe 100 years from now or 50 years from now, we do have 633 00:34:35,639 --> 00:34:37,920 bot wars. And you know, I watched the film 634 00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:39,600 recently, the electric electric state. 635 00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:40,760 It was called electric state film. 636 00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,480 That was pretty, pretty Skyfire with robots and humans and 637 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:46,400 stuff. And there's absolutely some, 638 00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,159 some potentially terrifying use cases ahead. 639 00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,159 So being held. Accountable for being held 640 00:34:52,159 --> 00:34:56,679 accountable for an AI would be you're getting unplugged for 10 641 00:34:56,679 --> 00:34:59,360 years. It's like going to jail. 642 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:01,200 Exactly. Exactly. 643 00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:04,240 So yeah, the whole thing about the laws was having these sort 644 00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:05,960 of conversations. I think it's you've got to 645 00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:07,200 start. You've got to start somewhere, I 646 00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:10,480 think. So this this whole topic of AI 647 00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,200 fascinates me. And I think we're sort of in an 648 00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,040 inflection point here where people are starting to wonder, 649 00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,000 well, am I going to have a job when AI comes around? 650 00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,800 And one of the things that's been making the rounds, I think, 651 00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,160 you know, especially in the consulting world and probably 652 00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:26,160 the analyst world as well. Can I just have an AI do the 653 00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,560 same things that Jim, Jeff and Simon are doing if it's just 654 00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,160 spitting out stuff? And there was an article that 655 00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,960 was put out by Mike Neuenschwander around this very 656 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,600 topic. And I think he's hopefully right 657 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:39,960 that it's like, yeah, we're not dead yet. 658 00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:42,840 There's still plenty to go. And, and I think there's still 659 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:47,200 going to be opportunities for being able to leverage those 660 00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,320 types of tools. But maybe take, hey, here is 661 00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:52,720 Simon's brain maybe to some degree, and here's what he's 662 00:35:52,720 --> 00:35:54,200 thinking. But you're always going to have 663 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:57,320 the individual human element where, you know, we're ideating, 664 00:35:57,320 --> 00:35:59,040 we're thinking about, OK, where things are going. 665 00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,080 And at some point maybe we do borrow that line a little bit. 666 00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,160 But where do you feel about AI? And, you know, there's this idea 667 00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:10,120 about replacing consulting, you know, for any number of topics 668 00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,880 because it's not just I am, right, it's doctors, it's 669 00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:14,160 lawyers. I mean, there's all kinds of 670 00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,880 stuff happening right now. Absolutely right. 671 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,640 Look, I think first of all, progress is is always scary I 672 00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:25,160 think for all parts of of society and for all parts of of 673 00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:27,120 the world. And I think this is a few 674 00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,920 cliches you can throw out around, you know, futures here. 675 00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:32,720 It's just not evenly distributed and things like this. 676 00:36:32,720 --> 00:36:36,120 And you know, the industrial revolution, I doing this podcast 677 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,840 now sort of 20 minutes South of Manchester, which was the sort 678 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,840 of world's first industrialised city sort of 250 years ago. 679 00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,320 And obviously when the industrial revolution came 680 00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,440 along, that was a scary place. If you're a subsistence farmer 681 00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:54,520 in rural Cheshire or Midwest or whatever, it could be suddenly, 682 00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:59,000 wow, this huge big city with factories and mills and 683 00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,320 automation, steam engines and this sort of stuff that that's a 684 00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:07,160 pretty scary time. The pros and cons for where the 685 00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:09,760 industrial revolution has taken us, I guess. 686 00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,320 But ultimately it was changed, which you couldn't stop. 687 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,520 So I think AI is here to say, first of all, I think will it 688 00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,760 impact jobs? Yeah, absolutely will, no doubt 689 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,360 about that for the next probably 3-5, ten years, I guess a lot of 690 00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,800 jobs, which repeatable jobs, which will be automated purely 691 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,440 for productivity reasons. Flip side, of course, if you're 692 00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,640 looking at things like government services, health 693 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:39,040 triage systems, banking systems, government services where you do 694 00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,680 have finite resources, you don't, you can't do everything 695 00:37:42,720 --> 00:37:45,600 with the budgets you have. You leverage automation. 696 00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:49,880 So there's positive benefits to being able to triage and scale 697 00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,320 services in certain ways. I guess back to your question 698 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:58,040 around replacement of people, we've experimented with, with 699 00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,960 stuff for the cyber with, with AI, virtual analyst stuff for 700 00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,000 internal uses. And by that we've we've fed it, 701 00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,200 if you like, we've fed it all of the cyber's contents. 702 00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,440 So things like research reports and things that we have 703 00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,640 generated and I've generated and book material and everything 704 00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:19,200 else. And it's very easy to create a 705 00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:24,520 very powerful system. I guess there's a couple of 706 00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:26,680 things I would add to this though. 707 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,160 It's very easy to get an answer for something or to create a 708 00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,200 system that will give you an answer for something. 709 00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:35,680 It's not so easy to have the right questions. 710 00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,920 And this is where I think the value comes to play from being 711 00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:43,200 a, an experienced practitioner where you know the questions to 712 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,200 answer, you know the questions that need to be asked. 713 00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:48,440 And that's, that's a big, big difference. 714 00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,840 It's very easy to go and do a search and say, right, give me a 715 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:55,960 identity assessment framework for IGA, whatever, you're going 716 00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,920 to get some stuff splurted out there and great, you know what, 717 00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:03,080 what can you do with this? But I think being able to again, 718 00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,640 leverage judgement, leverage creativity, leverage the ability 719 00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:11,760 to ask the right questions that really only comes with human 720 00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:12,880 experience. Now. 721 00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:17,040 I was quite like another another cliched quote around the guy who 722 00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:21,640 who gets hired to fix the big engine on the big in the big 723 00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:24,120 industrial plant and the engine's not working 724 00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,200 effectively. It's making a horrible noise and 725 00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,800 he gets brought in. He comes in, he looks at it and 726 00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:32,400 he just whacks it with a hammer. It takes him 30 seconds, you 727 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,520 know, gets the hammer out of his bag, whacks the engine. 728 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:40,040 The engine starts working. He gives a bill to the to the 729 00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,680 factory owner and says they go, there's a bill for 500 bucks and 730 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:47,920 the guy goes, well, that just took you 30 seconds and you all 731 00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:49,560 you did was whack it with a hammer. 732 00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,120 So yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I knew exactly where to hit 733 00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,160 the machine with my hammer. And that, that's the sort of 734 00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:00,400 stuff which potentially I can't do because it's bringing out 735 00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:05,040 that judgement, the experience that, that creativity angle. 736 00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,680 But I I think there's some huge, huge benefits. 737 00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:10,480 Summarisations, being able to query things quickly, being able 738 00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:16,680 to. Rapidly get to at least an area 739 00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,560 where human can add a bit more judgement to the equation. 740 00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:24,240 So I think it's, I think. The one thing, Simon, is that 741 00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:28,400 it's hard to say where AI will be in 10 years. 742 00:40:28,720 --> 00:40:32,160 I'd say, well, you know, looking at AI right now, you're right. 743 00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,400 It lacks the creativity. It's almost like a calculator. 744 00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,800 It can. A calculator can do arithmetic 745 00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,600 far better than a human can, but the human has to decide what 746 00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:49,600 goes into the calculator, what, how the calculations get applied 747 00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,120 to something, etcetera. And I think AI sort of similar, 748 00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:58,320 like we can never research the Internet or summarize these 749 00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:03,760 large amounts of data in the way the AI can, But what we bring to 750 00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:08,200 the table is the creative application of that data and 751 00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:10,400 what we want to get out of that data. 752 00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:15,120 Now, maybe where AI is 10 years from now, as you say, hey, 753 00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:18,240 here's some examples of information. 754 00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,120 Maybe you plug some raw data into it and you say, here's the 755 00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:25,880 kind of output that I want. And boom, analysts, reporters, 756 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,440 birth from that. I, I actually could see a 757 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:35,800 process and I, I, I messaged this to Mike where potentially 758 00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,520 you could have the AI tell you, hey, this is the kind of data or 759 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:43,120 tell me what kind of data I need to gather from a vendor to tell 760 00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:47,560 me about their, you know, the example uses as ITGR for the, 761 00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:50,560 your ITGR solution. Now you get that output. 762 00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,840 Now you feed into AI all the output that I'm sorry, all the, 763 00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,560 the vendor questionnaires responded to you give some 764 00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,840 samples of here's the kind of papers that I'm looking to 765 00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,320 create. Cross these two things, get what 766 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,080 you can find on the Internet and produce me an ITGR paper. 767 00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,360 I bet you it could be pretty good that way. 768 00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:15,680 So yeah. But I think there's huge, huge 769 00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,320 opportunities, huge, huge value. And it's, I think you're right 770 00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,360 in the sense of where will it be 10 years from now? 771 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,120 I think there's, there's probably a lot of ambiguity 772 00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:26,400 there. And I think we're definitely 773 00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,720 probably not going nothing spoiled under the the podcast 774 00:42:29,720 --> 00:42:31,480 there. But there's definitely issues 775 00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:33,840 around things like misinformation, disinformation, 776 00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:38,200 data authenticity and where the the output is, is could be used 777 00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:39,600 for. And I think we're definitely 778 00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:44,320 moving towards a, a realm of assume fake, if that makes 779 00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:46,440 sense. I think we in the enterprise, we 780 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:48,680 assume breach, you know that we talk about zero trust. 781 00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,640 We assume the network's breach now probably got to assume that 782 00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,120 everything online is fake. Everything's generated. 783 00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:57,880 It's a deep fake. It's the content is synthesised 784 00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:02,000 articles perhaps do not have factual information in them or 785 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:03,800 they are synthesised and blended. 786 00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,120 So there's definitely my, my bigger word really is, is all 787 00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,400 about that authenticity of the data origin really, and 788 00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:14,440 providing data origin authentication against a piece 789 00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,200 of content and making sure it's you know, the origin of it. 790 00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,320 You can trust it and you can use that as part of, of something 791 00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:22,880 else. And that that to me is, is not 792 00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:26,720 really an area being actively solved at the minute. 793 00:43:26,720 --> 00:43:29,240 I think that's that's the biggest, a bigger word for me 794 00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:31,560 going forward, yeah. That's a good point. 795 00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:35,080 So one of the, the, the main reasons we wanted to get you on 796 00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,720 to the show, Simon, is you're producing this book. 797 00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:42,560 Producing is the term I, I chose to use because it's not just 798 00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:45,680 writing. I mean, this is a, a production 799 00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,320 that you put forth. Tell us what is the book called 800 00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:52,520 and what is it about? Yeah, this is my second book. 801 00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:58,280 It's called IAM at 2035, so I am at 2035. 802 00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:03,640 Basically, it's a future Guide to Identity security 1010 years 803 00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:08,160 from now, which does seem a long, a long time to go in the 804 00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:12,120 current evolution of things. Why? 805 00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:13,680 I guess what? Why would I bother doing any of 806 00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:15,160 the books? I, I did a book about four years 807 00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:20,600 ago looking at BTC identity, So consumer customer identity and 808 00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,360 access management. And as, as books go, you 809 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:26,600 typically never finish a book. And by this you write a book and 810 00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,160 then you get asked to do a second edition and, and et 811 00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:31,280 cetera, et cetera. And you've sort of leveraged 812 00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:34,080 that book for, for consultancy and whatever else. 813 00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:38,040 And it, it came to a point, the real inflection point, probably 814 00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:42,760 about 2 1/2 years ago, I guess, when there were more non 815 00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:48,160 identity people asking about BTC application owners, digital 816 00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:52,640 owners, non-technical and product leads and others who are 817 00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:55,720 wanting to know about BTC identity, which is quite, a, 818 00:44:55,720 --> 00:44:59,240 quite an obvious thing because BTC covers a whole host of 819 00:44:59,240 --> 00:45:02,120 different stakeholders. But it just got me thinking 820 00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:06,200 around, OK, well, BTC is changing, but the whole identity 821 00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,280 landscape is changing and there's a whole host of new 822 00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:14,440 stakeholders wanting to understand what identity is, 823 00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:18,160 where it's been for the past 25 years, what are the current 824 00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:22,080 problems now and obviously where things may be heading to. 825 00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:26,400 So I am at 2035. Essentially it's based on the 826 00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,840 back of probably 2 years of of interviews and briefings as part 827 00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,840 of the Cyberhub. Being interviewed, being briefed 828 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,960 I should say of all of the interesting start-ups doing a 829 00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,160 whole host of different technology areas from password 830 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:47,560 less authorisation, ITDRISPMNHI, new authentication flaws, 831 00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,440 orchestration, identity, data management, identity risk 832 00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:56,160 management, the whole thing around AI and agentic AI in 833 00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,560 there as well. So, so much going on, I felt 834 00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:04,760 compelled to try and focus upon where we were, essentially where 835 00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,960 we are today. All the problems we have today 836 00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:13,800 around lack of coverage, NHI cloud versus hybrid, 837 00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,760 decentralised versus centralised access controls is a bit of a 838 00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,640 mess to be honest with all this stuff around identity as an 839 00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:24,800 attack surface because of visibility concerns and 840 00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,160 behavioural monitoring issues. So there's, there's a lot going 841 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,560 on with identity, but it's becoming more important. 842 00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:36,560 So getting identity right can deliver huge benefits to B to E 843 00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:38,800 workforce productivity and security. 844 00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:41,960 It can deliver revenue and services online. 845 00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,520 It can help with the disinformation thing we talked 846 00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,440 about earlier, integrates with data and network and endpoint 847 00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:50,240 security. So you, you get it, right. 848 00:46:50,240 --> 00:46:56,080 You want a, a huge opportunity to deliver robust, secure 849 00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:58,200 services. And I guess the, the, the sort 850 00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,280 of second-half of the book is looking ahead, you know, where 851 00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:05,240 things may end up in the next decade, looking at things like 852 00:47:05,240 --> 00:47:10,640 intents, looking at attributions or I guess back to #3 in those 853 00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:15,640 laws around being able to really tie identities to a biometric. 854 00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,280 We're talking about people looking at behavioural 855 00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:23,760 monitoring, intent of identity behaviours, looking the whole 856 00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:27,720 world of, you know, how can we secure this identity ecosystem 857 00:47:27,720 --> 00:47:32,160 if we are starting to see IAM and cyber merge together? 858 00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,920 So it was really trying to say, look, this is where we are now. 859 00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:39,120 A bit of the history there and a bit of the future view of, of, 860 00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:42,560 of where things are going to. And it's, it's been a really 861 00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,320 good, really good journey and enjoyable journey, if if not a, 862 00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:47,440 a long one. Yeah. 863 00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:51,200 My my favorite part, to be honest, was the history part. 864 00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:55,480 And I think you could probably just write a book on the 865 00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:59,680 history, but I could tell even there, there had to be some 866 00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:01,320 things left on the cutting floor. 867 00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:05,200 So when you look back on it, can you tell us what were the things 868 00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:09,280 you said they have to be in here and what did you end up cutting 869 00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,640 that you were especially things? What I'm really interested is 870 00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,480 like it almost made it, but it didn't. 871 00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:20,400 Oh wow, it's, it's funny. What do doing a book is, it's a 872 00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:25,040 little bit like going on holiday with a very small suitcase and 873 00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:29,440 you're desperately trying to scram your sewing trunks in your 874 00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,240 jumpers, in your sunglasses, in your Lido and all you're trying 875 00:48:32,240 --> 00:48:35,960 to squeeze it all into this tiny suitcase and you can't get 876 00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:38,240 everything in. So you really have to be, you 877 00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:40,280 have to be quite brutal with, with stuff. 878 00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,320 And it's, it is difficult when you are trying to, trying to do 879 00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:45,560 2 things. One, trying to get your 880 00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,920 experience across. You can get AI to write a book 881 00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,520 if you want to. I'm sure, I'm sure AI will do a 882 00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:54,040 great job of that, but it's probably going to be pretty dry. 883 00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:56,840 So part of part of both the books are written. 884 00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,680 We're all trying to put your experience across. 885 00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:03,360 You know what I've learnt my, my mistakes, the anecdotal 886 00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,840 conversations that the water cooler chat, the linking 887 00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:10,320 together of, of maybe some patterns I've heard or seen 888 00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:16,880 really somehow trying to put my experience right and wrong in a 889 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,960 book which people can obviously hopefully then wrap into their 890 00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,520 world as well. So I don't think that in itself 891 00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:26,520 is congenerate content. I think the stuff that missed 892 00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,120 out, I think you've always got to think of your audience, who 893 00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,400 is the audience for this book? And it's it's really it isn't 894 00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,600 just identity practitioners. First of all, it is a whole host 895 00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:40,280 of of different personas I'd like to think gain benefit from 896 00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:42,440 this non-technical as well as technical. 897 00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:46,840 The security landscape, data application owners, seesaw sea 898 00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,800 level people who are non-technical in obviously and 899 00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,880 really should take them on that zero to hero journey. 900 00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,920 And I think the stuff which you then pull out of there is often 901 00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,240 some of that really fine grained detail, you know, explaining 902 00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:05,960 what zero trust is for example. Well, you can go Google that to 903 00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,880 be honest with you. Or the difference between O2 and 904 00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,160 no IDC. So there's a lot of maybe fine 905 00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:16,080 grained detail in there which you sort of assume can be found 906 00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,040 elsewhere ultimately. So there's a lot of that stuff 907 00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,840 gets sort of dropped and I try and raise up a little bit some 908 00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:26,000 of those meta patterns and some of those bigger trends and then 909 00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:30,440 so highlight my sort of experience in Yeah, so that so. 910 00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,600 I think you covered well. Like who should read it now? 911 00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:37,280 How should they read it? Should they read it like you eat 912 00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:41,520 an elephant one bite at a time, or like you eat a 30 inch pizza 913 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,320 all in one sitting? Oh well. 914 00:50:45,720 --> 00:50:48,680 I reckon you could do that. It's two pizzas, isn't it? 915 00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:50,800 30 inch pizzas? That's probably 2 regular. 916 00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:54,440 I think I could do that. I think anyway, definition of 917 00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:59,480 two is well, yeah, it's a really interesting question. 918 00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,240 So the the the book, essentially The thing is 16 chapters we 919 00:51:02,240 --> 00:51:05,440 ended up with. And ultimately you talk, it's 920 00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:09,480 based on the sort of standard, standard model of situation, 921 00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:13,120 complications, implications, solution. 922 00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,720 And obviously the first thing people look for is give me the 923 00:51:15,720 --> 00:51:20,080 solution page, Give me what's the, what does 2035 look like? 924 00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,760 Give me, give me the ideas, give me the, the buzzwords or the, 925 00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:26,600 the vendors or the, the categories that will definitely 926 00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,920 exist in 2035. So I reckon a lot of people will 927 00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:33,280 aim for that. Now, in my opinion, you're 928 00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:34,400 better off reading the whole book. 929 00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:37,640 It's, it's you, you can get through it, I imagine pretty 930 00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,960 rapidly. So I, I think it, it is a 931 00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,480 journey read it is, it is looking at understanding the 932 00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,280 past so you can better predict the future. 933 00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,000 You, you can't, you can't understand the future unless 934 00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:51,520 you've got a good understanding of history. 935 00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:53,640 And I think that is vitally important. 936 00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:57,960 So my, my, my recommendation will be to start at the 937 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,080 beginning with a coffee and slowly go through it. 938 00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:05,480 You can probably do less than an hour per chapter. 939 00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,760 I think 16 hours, probably condensed under 12 hours. 940 00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:10,760 It's not a long, it's not a long period of time. 941 00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,280 So my recommendation would be to read it through in a in a 942 00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:15,920 journey in a journey and enjoy. It. 943 00:52:16,240 --> 00:52:20,160 Enjoy it, enjoy it. Exactly is the book going. 944 00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,400 To change people's mind about anything. 945 00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:26,240 Are there preconceived notions that most of us identity 946 00:52:26,240 --> 00:52:28,000 practitioners are walking around with? 947 00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,120 And you read the book and you're like, I needed to question the 948 00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:34,200 way I was thinking. I, I hope so. 949 00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,400 I hope so. I think it'll, it'll definitely 950 00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,280 change the mindset of, of non identity people. 951 00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:43,480 I think it'll definitely put identity is a more strategic 952 00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:45,560 enabler. I think, you know, 25 years ago, 953 00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:50,200 identity was the purview of the CIO of operations. 954 00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,880 It was focused on productivity and compliance. 955 00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:56,000 It's, it's not that anymore. It's it's certainly a strategic 956 00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:59,920 fulcrum within even the smallest enterprises. 957 00:52:59,920 --> 00:53:02,360 You know, they can't, you can't be secure without identity. 958 00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:06,600 You can't deliver online services without identity. 959 00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:10,240 You cannot deliver employee productivity without, you can't 960 00:53:10,240 --> 00:53:12,360 do anything really. You can't do this podcast 961 00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:15,280 without identity. So there's a lot of things I 962 00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,720 think which will probably surprise non identity 963 00:53:18,720 --> 00:53:21,040 practitioners. I think for the for the, for the 964 00:53:21,240 --> 00:53:23,840 people who've been in the identity space for a long time, 965 00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:28,120 I think it will give a better set of analytical tools. 966 00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:31,400 I think there's a lot of assumptions you can make if you 967 00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:34,880 spend time a long time in any technology sector. 968 00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:39,600 And I think it's really about unpicking some of those maybe 969 00:53:39,720 --> 00:53:42,960 bad habits or, or, or complacencies we all get into 970 00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:46,760 and trying to say, look, have a fresher and I guess more 971 00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:50,080 contemporary analytical framework to look at how 972 00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,200 identity should be measured, how it should be integrated or 973 00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:58,360 problems it should be solving in trying to help analyse both the 974 00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,560 vendors and also existing deployments. 975 00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:05,680 Because nobody has the luxury of, of designing things from 976 00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,000 scratch and picking out the best technologies. 977 00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,360 You have to deal with existing systems, existing problems. 978 00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:16,840 So I think the big take away will be at least provide people 979 00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,840 with a set of analytical tools that they can look at their 980 00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:24,280 existing systems, existing vendors, existing suppliers and 981 00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:28,800 be a little bit more informed around what success looks like 982 00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:30,320 for some of those things. Yeah, I mean. 983 00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:34,480 The other thing I think is like you come with such a great 984 00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:36,440 perspective. You kind of gave that history, 985 00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:40,960 but also, like I said, you. I think your. 986 00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:45,840 Creativity and kind of how you set yourself up for these, this 987 00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:52,320 deep thinking and also your willingness to be bold and to 988 00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:55,640 not just accept like, OK, this is what everybody's saying, but 989 00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:58,720 I'm going to question it and I'm going to put out some big 990 00:54:58,720 --> 00:55:01,480 statements and not everybody's going to agree with it. 991 00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:05,320 That's going to get people thinking and potentially change 992 00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:09,240 some minds. But I'm wondering now, what did 993 00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:11,720 you learn through writing the book? 994 00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,120 Did you start to question your own thinking? 995 00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:20,880 100% yeah, I generally did yeah. I think, you know, I've been as 996 00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,800 you guys have you do this stuff for a long time, you do get into 997 00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:27,680 patterns of, of thinking, patterns of behaviour, 998 00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:29,960 assumptions around certain things. 999 00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:33,040 And it was I think it's really it's quite refreshing I think to 1000 00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:38,000 to to be briefed by technology start-ups who are early in their 1001 00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:39,240 journey. You feel like, you know, maybe 1002 00:55:39,240 --> 00:55:44,560 tackling ideal behavioural analytics or NHI or modern 1003 00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:48,880 approaches to authorisation or some quite esoteric parts of our 1004 00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,320 identity world and they bring a freshness to that. 1005 00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:55,160 And you have to be, you have to question that. 1006 00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:58,760 You have to question it, both business and technical is is to 1007 00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:00,440 their back story. But equally you've got to be 1008 00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:02,720 open minded. I think as well, I think there's 1009 00:56:02,720 --> 00:56:07,160 definitely opportunities for huge improvement across all 1010 00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:09,600 parts of our identity life cycles. 1011 00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,520 And to me, that's, that's what keeps me interested in this 1012 00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:15,000 because I think, you know, you could easily sit there and say, 1013 00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:18,240 well, you know, we still haven't solved the elder bar back 1014 00:56:18,240 --> 00:56:19,800 problem. And for honest support, we never 1015 00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,640 will. So accept that and move on and 1016 00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:26,880 start tackling some of the more pressing problems if you like. 1017 00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,520 But I think I, I always try and keep an open mind. 1018 00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,760 Don't accept, don't reject. Question the assumptions of 1019 00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:36,000 things. Question the assumptions of 1020 00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:40,760 vendors questioning assumptions of design and what, what, what 1021 00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:45,040 real problem is being solved. And I think that that is 1022 00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:47,280 definitely refreshed me over the last couple of years. 1023 00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:52,000 I think definitely kept me invigorated as to IAM being a a 1024 00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,720 really powerful dynamic industry that will definitely be around 1025 00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:57,400 10 years from now. I think there's there's no 1026 00:56:57,400 --> 00:57:01,000 question about so with this. Idea of like all this 1027 00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:03,280 proliferation of writing that you do. 1028 00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:06,000 I want to take us to a lighter note here as we kind of wrap up 1029 00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:09,760 the show and talk about if you were, you know, writing a 1030 00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:13,040 fictional story, Do you have any ideas on what a fictional book 1031 00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,760 might be from the mind of Simon Moffett? 1032 00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:19,960 Oh God, digging into my mind. Well, that's a fun. 1033 00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:23,480 Do you know, I, I, I do, I do, I do like writing. 1034 00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:27,320 I think writing is a very enjoyable pastime. 1035 00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:30,920 I think I, I don't, I don't actually read a lot of fiction. 1036 00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:35,080 I must say I, I typically read non fiction, essays, 1037 00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:39,800 biographies, history books, how how the world works, sort of 1038 00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:41,640 thing. And it's, I've actually a bit of 1039 00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:45,080 AI try and keep my local library running. 1040 00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:47,760 There's a big thing in the UK about libraries closing down. 1041 00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:49,920 So I, I try and go library relatively frequently. 1042 00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:53,040 And I'm, I'm probably four or five books at the minute into 1043 00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:57,560 whole history of, of looking at the natural world, if you like. 1044 00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:00,680 I'm reading an absolutely amazing book at the minute about 1045 00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:05,000 Eastern owls in Eastern Russia. A guy, a guy went over to 1046 00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:09,400 Eastern Russia about 20 years ago and he researched these fish 1047 00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:15,080 owls, massive big birds of prey, fish owls in eastern Russia on 1048 00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:18,200 the Japanese Sea of Japan. And he, he spent five years 1049 00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:21,360 going through, you know, the eastern coast of Russia, 1050 00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,440 tracking these fish owls, measuring them, checking their 1051 00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:26,680 habitat, all that sort of stuff. I love all that. 1052 00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:28,480 I carry on. It's, it's real life. 1053 00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:32,240 It's again back to the memoirs. And he's trying to transpose his 1054 00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:36,880 experience into into US non fish owl experts. 1055 00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,920 So I'm I'm into that sort of thing and non fiction me. 1056 00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,880 I think if I had to write something non professional, I 1057 00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:48,120 would probably go down the sort of essayist routes or writing of 1058 00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,400 essays around, you know, how we live our life, how how to take a 1059 00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:55,520 walk in the countryside, how to make a cup of tea and how to 1060 00:58:55,520 --> 00:58:57,720 drink a pint of beer. These sorts of things, which you 1061 00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:04,000 can, you can extend over 5 or 6 pages of link and really uncover 1062 00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,080 the real world. I think that'll probably be my 1063 00:59:06,640 --> 00:59:09,600 that could be a nice hobby, I think describing, describing the 1064 00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:12,200 mess we're all leaving this planet in, that sort of stuff. 1065 00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:14,880 What would be the setting for this? 1066 00:59:14,880 --> 00:59:17,200 Would it be something that is like realistic, a place that 1067 00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,640 you've visited? Is it something maybe a little 1068 00:59:19,640 --> 00:59:23,320 more fantastical or fantasy? Like give me the idea of like, 1069 00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:27,320 OK, I am, I'm reading about this character who is learning how 1070 00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:30,480 to, you know, sounds like, you know, relax in life a little 1071 00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:33,440 bit, take a step back and maybe have a cup of tea or some other 1072 00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:36,760 beverage it. Will be contemporary, so it'll 1073 00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:39,000 be it'll be right now it'll be 2025. 1074 00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:42,400 I did saying I wouldn't do a non fiction, but I did I did. 1075 00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:46,240 I did start an idea for something and it was it was 1076 00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:51,240 based on the back of reading 1984 by George Orwell Disatopian 1077 00:59:51,240 --> 00:59:53,320 novel where everything's everything's terrible. 1078 00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:58,120 And my book was going to be called 2361 right. 1079 00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:05,120 And the, the the the reason for this 23 the hour 202361 meant 61 1080 01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:08,880 minutes past midnight, which you can never get to, of course. 1081 01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:12,560 Now the the reason being long Long story short. 1082 01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:15,680 It was all focused on the Doomsday Clock. 1083 01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:18,160 If, if you've, if you've heard of the Doomsday Clock, which is 1084 01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:22,400 I think it's at 89 seconds to midnight at the minute, which is 1085 01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:26,400 the destruction of the planet, the nuclear annihilation of 1086 01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:28,880 everything. It's it's clicked forward to 89 1087 01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:32,040 seconds to midnight. And my, my idea was to say what 1088 01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:34,720 happens at one minute past midnight when the whole world is 1089 01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:39,440 in a dystopian mess. But yeah, I, I didn't think it 1090 01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:41,600 would be happy ending sort of books. 1091 01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,800 I thought I'd I might park that, park that for the time being and 1092 01:00:44,800 --> 01:00:50,120 focus on 2025 and how we can all live a slightly better life. 1093 01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:53,640 Not to be confused with the Iron Maiden song 2 Minutes to 1094 01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:56,040 Midnight, which is I guess roughly kind of the same idea. 1095 01:00:57,640 --> 01:00:59,280 Jim, if you were to. Write a fictional book. 1096 01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:01,200 What would you write about? Or I got this? 1097 01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:04,640 Idea. So I've switched companies a 1098 01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:07,480 couple of times and when you switch companies you have the 1099 01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:13,360 ability to take your retirement, roll it out of your 4O1K in the 1100 01:01:13,520 --> 01:01:19,160 US was like the employ the employment retirement package to 1101 01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:23,400 an IRA, which is kind of like an independent retirement package. 1102 01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:27,280 And during that time, it's kind of like you have to transfer all 1103 01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:31,520 your money into cash, freeze it, and then it goes into your IRA 1104 01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:34,280 and you select the investments that you want to go into. 1105 01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:40,360 I'm not sure exactly how that process, but I've done it a few 1106 01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:41,520 times. It's been a while. 1107 01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:48,320 Anyway, so my, the backdrop of my story would be I, you know, 1108 01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:53,440 the, the character in the book is switching jobs and decides, 1109 01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:55,560 OK, he's going to roll his money over. 1110 01:01:55,760 --> 01:01:59,120 It gets frozen in cash and then the market tanks. 1111 01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:05,640 I mean, it drops like 85% and then it's out of his control. 1112 01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:08,280 It's frozen in cash. Then it gets put into the 1113 01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:10,920 market. When it's down 85%, it bounces 1114 01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:16,160 back up even higher than it was. And so now the guy's like an 1115 01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:21,880 instant multi millionaire with dumb luck, right? 1116 01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:26,320 So now he's got all this money and then he goes to the doctor 1117 01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:31,600 and the doctor says you have only two days to live. 1118 01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:35,720 And so now he has all these millions of dollars and he has 1119 01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:39,360 to spend it or he has to decide what to do with it in two days. 1120 01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,800 He hadn't like given us any thought because, you know, he 1121 01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:49,360 basically by dumb luck became a a multi millionaire and now he 1122 01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:52,160 finds out he only has two days or some amount or some short 1123 01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:54,800 amount of time to live. He's got to figure out what to 1124 01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:59,240 do in that time. And then I think as like the 1125 01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:04,400 kicker, you get to the end of the two days or whatever it is, 1126 01:03:04,400 --> 01:03:06,560 and then you find out that he was still alive. 1127 01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:09,600 And you go back to the doctor and they'd be like, yeah, we've 1128 01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:12,960 been trying to call you, but it was going to voicemail. 1129 01:03:13,160 --> 01:03:15,520 We we gave you the wrong person's information. 1130 01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:19,480 You're actually going to live. There's nothing wrong with you. 1131 01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:22,840 You've given. This a lot of thought. 1132 01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:24,960 More, more. No, thought I, I. 1133 01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:27,560 Thought about it. All within the last hour. 1134 01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:31,200 It. Has like elements of like 1135 01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:34,240 Brewster's Millions, Joe versus the volcano. 1136 01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:36,960 There's there's tragedy. There there. 1137 01:03:37,080 --> 01:03:38,040 Isn't there? Right. 1138 01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:39,600 Yeah, there's. Identity plate, Yeah, like we 1139 01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:43,000 tried to get a hold of you and you know the wrong information 1140 01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:46,720 scopes. Of two token yeah I. 1141 01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:49,520 I just thought of it like I thought of different parts 1142 01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:51,920 throughout the show, but I was listening to you, Simon. 1143 01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:57,320 But I, I, I've been thinking about this like this investment 1144 01:03:57,320 --> 01:04:00,000 thing because the markets have been crazy lately. 1145 01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:03,080 But I also thought about that whole thing about how the IT 1146 01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:05,160 would have been. It's just too obvious to say I 1147 01:04:05,160 --> 01:04:07,520 bought a lottery ticket and won $10 million. 1148 01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:09,960 And maybe if I needed to keep that front part of the book 1149 01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:13,960 short, I would do that. But I think that whole scenario 1150 01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:18,200 that I just talked about could be a kind of a backdrop that it 1151 01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:20,800 also ruined a bunch of people. And now there's all these 1152 01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:23,200 desperate people living in the world. 1153 01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:27,480 Because one of the the offshoots of the story could be that 1154 01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:32,240 there's all these desperate people and they kidnap somebody 1155 01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:37,920 from your family who you had a falling out with and basically 1156 01:04:37,920 --> 01:04:43,720 you are estranged from. And they were asking for all of 1157 01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:47,840 your money as so state was one of your parents and you're 1158 01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:50,200 estranged from your parent. And now they're saying they want 1159 01:04:50,200 --> 01:04:53,640 all the money to release the hostage. 1160 01:04:55,520 --> 01:04:57,800 Hopefully it's not like. Stalin and his son, where they 1161 01:04:57,800 --> 01:05:00,000 kidnapped his son and then he's like, man, keep him. 1162 01:05:00,480 --> 01:05:01,520 Yeah, right. Right. 1163 01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:05,280 Well, you know, you'll have to read my book. 1164 01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:07,360 Yeah, well. Get get on it. 1165 01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:09,720 You know, maybe you make an AI Co writer or something to get 1166 01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:11,000 this out there. Get inside of your head. 1167 01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:13,080 Yeah, right. Good. 1168 01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:15,800 Idea I I I can't. Top that because you have so 1169 01:05:15,800 --> 01:05:17,760 much detail in this vivid imagination years. 1170 01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:20,320 I was I was waiting for the downer part of it. 1171 01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:25,200 And you, you, you got to it with the the death diagnosis and with 1172 01:05:25,200 --> 01:05:27,640 the kidnapping and the desperate people all around the world. 1173 01:05:27,640 --> 01:05:29,560 So it had a little bit of everything, you know, for you, 1174 01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:31,640 yeah. Hey, if I'm going to be the 1175 01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:34,480 author, you know, there's got to be some, some downside to the 1176 01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:37,600 whole thing, all right? Well, I, I'll just say probably 1177 01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,800 for me, something sci-fi, just because I'm a sci-fi nerd and I 1178 01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:44,080 am not super creative. So I, I don't know even what it 1179 01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:47,000 would be about, But it'll be something far, far in the future 1180 01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:52,200 where, you know, maybe I can somehow extend my brain to be 1181 01:05:52,200 --> 01:05:54,320 able to experience all the things I'm going to miss after 1182 01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:56,680 my mortal life is dead is has ended. 1183 01:05:56,680 --> 01:05:59,560 So maybe it's like an AI version of Jeff or, you know, I always 1184 01:05:59,560 --> 01:06:02,040 talk about the the the Baba verse set of books, which I 1185 01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:05,040 think is really good. So maybe something along those 1186 01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:08,720 lines of like some sort of AI immortality and what does that 1187 01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:10,880 actually mean? And you know, maybe it's 1188 01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:11,920 something on those. Lines. 1189 01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:15,920 So I don't know, we could. OK, let's go ahead and wrap. 1190 01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:17,880 It up there for this week. Simon, thank you so much for 1191 01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:20,040 taking time with us. Really you step appreciate you 1192 01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:22,280 stepping in with us. I'll have links in our show 1193 01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:23,560 notes for everything we talked about today. 1194 01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:27,960 So link to the cyber huts as well as the podcasts as well as 1195 01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:31,040 you are present on LinkedIn, Simon. 1196 01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:34,040 So hopefully that's all cool with you and perfect. 1197 01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:35,880 Thanks guys. Yeah, it's been. 1198 01:06:35,880 --> 01:06:38,480 Great. Let's not wait another 347 1199 01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:42,280 episodes to do this again. Let's let's let's talk more and 1200 01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:44,040 I'm sure we'll see each other at conferences coming up in the 1201 01:06:44,040 --> 01:06:46,160 future. So with that, we'll go ahead and 1202 01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:48,560 leave it for this week. Thank you everybody for watching 1203 01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:51,040 and or listening. Thank you, Jim, for not really 1204 01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:53,640 ticking off our listeners at the very beginning. 1205 01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:56,240 Like and subscribe. That's all we're asking for. 1206 01:06:56,240 --> 01:06:57,680 Share it with a friend, share it with an enemy. 1207 01:06:57,680 --> 01:06:59,600 We don't care. As long as somebody's watching 1208 01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:01,680 or listening, we'll keep doing this. 1209 01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,640 We're on the web, IDC, podcast.com, visit the YouTube 1210 01:07:04,640 --> 01:07:08,880 channelidcpodcast.tv. And yeah, thanks everybody. 1211 01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:10,720 And we'll talk with everybody in the next one. 1212 01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:11,680 Cheers, guys. Thank you. 1213 01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:16,400 You've been. Listening to Identity at the 1214 01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:19,040 Center. We hope you've enjoyed the show. 1215 01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:23,320 Make sure to like, rate and review and we'll be back soon, 1216 01:07:23,640 --> 01:07:25,880 but in the meantime, hit the website at 1217 01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:32,280 identity@thecenter.com. See you next time on Identity at 1218 01:07:32,280 --> 01:07:33,160 the Center.