Stopping Digital ID & Potential Alternatives with Paul G. Conlon

I talk to to fellow ‘Techie’ Paul G Conlon to discuss practical ways to disrupt the rollout of Digital IDs in Australia as well as anywhere else.

Show notes

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Actionable Truth podcast.
I'm Michael Gainsbourg. This today's episode is a direct follow
up on a previous episode that I've recorded with Nicola
Charles about probably a week ago or two weeks ago,

(00:32):
and it also touches on the same topic, which is
digital idea. This topic is very important for everyone globally,
but it is especially the case for us in Australia
just because of the way the agenda is progressing very
very quickly here. Before we start, I just want to say,
as usual, if you're listening to the audio version, you

(00:54):
may miss some of the material that we're going to
present here, and if that's the case, I encourage you
to check the video recording, which will be made available
on both Spotify and the Substack. This is also the
only place you will find the show notes with the
material to everything that is discussed here. This episode is
also going to be different in the sense that this
is the first time I'm actually live streaming a podcast

(01:18):
and also actually two things that are different about it.
So first time I'm live streaming on substack and also
the first time I'm live streaming. The first time I'm
live streaming live streaming on substack, which is very very exciting,
which basically means that you will be able to participate
in the broadcast as it progresses. So you will be
able to comment and ask questions in real time through

(01:40):
the chat window on the link that you can see below,
which I will display shortly, and also if you're watching
us on substack through the substack app and the substeck
website on desktop on your computer. Now, if you use
the chat window in the link that I will display shortly,
I may be able to display your comment or question

(02:02):
directly in the broadcast, so I will be able to
actually show it. If you're using the chat on substack,
I will not be able to display your comment or question,
but I will be monitoring what you're saying there and
basically will be able to address that as we progress. Now,
as far as the Q and A, you can give
your comments at any time, but as far as the questions,

(02:24):
if you can keep them till the end, we will
have a dedicated Q and A session as we progress,
probably about the last fifteen twenty minutes of this broadcast now,
but we're done with all this admin staff, let me
introduce today's guests. So today I'm joined by Paul g Conland,
an Australian engineer and fellow techie who has literally written

(02:45):
the book, or it is one of them on the
Digital Idea agenda. I will let him explain shortly.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Welcome Paul, Guy Michael, how are you lovely to be
joining you?

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Lovely to have you again. Just before we start, I
just wanted to Obviously, you've written a book about digital idea,
which is very, very valuable and one of the reasons
that I wanted to discuss this topic with you. But
I guess what I want to understand is what prompted
you to write this book in the first place, and
also if you can tell us a little bit about

(03:17):
the sort of research that you've undertaken in preparation for
writing a book such as this. I mean, this is
not an article. This is a full length book, so
I'll be very interested to know what kind of research
you've done on the topic.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, i'd be glad to Well, I'll start with the name.
It's called The Citizen One, the Case against Digital Identity.
I think that's a fairly clear title. It's forwarded by
Malcolm Roberts, currently sitting a strain federal senator who sees
the importance of this topic, and to be quite blunt,
it costs a lot of my soul to put that together.
Is about three years of research. So why devote three

(03:47):
years of someone's life. I suppose to writing a book. Well,
like many of the last few years, I suppose I
saw the world change, and from my eye being having
a technology background, I saw it change in quite a
fundamental way. And I'm sure we're going to get into
what that means in terms of digital I d But first,
maybe a little bit about me. I've got a couple
of degrees. I've got an honors degree in electronic engineering

(04:10):
and an information technology degree as well, both from the
Queensland Union of Technology. And I've spent over twenty years
working with digital systems in various domains, so you know,
everything from gaming and wagering to the military to high
precision machine control and mineral exploration of all things. And
it's got quite a broad career in that regard. So

(04:33):
I guess when I talk about I saw the world change,
it rung bells for me in ways that related to
that career. So in one of my past lives, I
was an engineering officer in the Australian Army, and that
was a position where I saw technology used to very
much influence the human experience. I think that doesn't need
any further definition. You know, technology is deployed in the

(04:56):
armed forces to terminate lives. That's what it is is for.
But on the other side of the spectrum, I've worked
in the private sector with AI based in particular safety
systems that involve the high precision control of hydraulic equipment,
particularly as construction equipment, my bulldozers and excavators and these
sorts of things. There's a lot of smarts and automation

(05:17):
in these systems these days when big construction projects are
being built. And so I've seen the types of systems
that are used for preserving life. So this is the
application of digital technology for the preservation of life. So
they're quite extreme examples those two. And so I have
a bit of a grasp of how the human digital

(05:39):
interface kind of plays out in the real world. And
what I saw in the last few years is what
I would call a fundamental restructure of our society, particularly
in relation to the individual and the state. And so
I have a particularly interesting family history which we talked
about extensively on other views. We can go into that

(06:01):
if you'd like, but it connected a lot of dots
to me, and I thought, I want to do some
extensive research to try and bring a well reasoned, everyday
set of arguments against digital ID. I didn't see that
available in the public space at all, apart from the
general cries we don't want to live like China, But
you know, people don't really connect with that emotionally. They

(06:22):
understand mentally that it's going on, but it's kind of
like it won't happened to me type scenario. And so
I went to great length to research a lot of
the on the ground type of experiences under both digital
ID and in general identification systems that are centralized under
government control. And we can get into all of this,

(06:43):
but I found that there were often alarming similarities between
these types of systems in terms of how they're implemented
and similarities in terms of how the lived experiences on
the ground underneath them. So, yeah, it's research. It's very
human based. I didn't want to write a textbook. It's
something that I hope people will find very relatable and

(07:03):
connect the dots in their everyday life and hopefully rally
some action around this very important topic.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Excellent. Now that that's that's great, and I have read
your book. I wouldn't say that I've read every single
page is just too much happening, but I did read.
I kind of scheme through all all the chapters, and
I like the fact that how like you know, I mean,
this is effectively a technological topic, like it is a
technolo technology system, and you've kind of given it a
human facing the sense that you've given an historical perspective,

(07:32):
and I really really like that. We're not going to
get into the historical perspective, even though it's very very interesting,
and I do encourage people to check that out. But
you have discussed that in in UH, as you said
in previous interviews, and I'm keen to touch on other
topics that you haven't discussed as much. But I do
like the project you've taken there, and also I like
the project. You've suggested the potential alternative at the end,

(07:52):
which is again something that I haven't seen, and we'll
touch on that as well. I guess again, another thing,
and I've alluded to that in the announcement post. We're
not going to cover the basics of digital idea. So
I'm assuming that people are already familiar with the basics,
and if not, I've got a lot of material on that,
and I'll include links in the show notes as well.
So we won't touch on the idea of why digital

(08:14):
idea is bad, or how digital idea works, or how
digital idea leads to a CBDC and who knows what
other stuff. So so we'll assume that people know that,
and I guess what I want to do with you
is kind of touched on two very real life examples,
so nothing theoretical about it. Very are real life examples

(08:35):
of one system that is an actual digital idea. It
is a national digital idea. It is a digital idea
that has been successfully mandated by a government right and
has achieved incredible adoption rate. Okay, and this is something
that I really I was not even aware of, and
I think a lot of people are not aware of

(08:56):
up until actually I heard you mentioned it and discuss
that in your book. And it also I guess another
thing that people may find interesting, Like you know, initially
when you think of like you know, government mandating some
like you know, surveillance system like a nineteen eighty four,
very dystopian surveillance system. Immediately you would think of China
or some other like you know, dictatorships, North Korea, places

(09:18):
like that, but it's actually not. So I'll let you
explain what this system is, what it's called, and where
it's where it's been actually implemented and is live. Now.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, well you're referred to ADHA there, which is India's
centralized biometric Digital I D system, And you're quite right.
It's a distinct case from the Chinese one. I mean,
we're talking about a modern nuclear democracy here essentially, so
it's a little closer to home and as you said,
kind of less commonly known about. So I did a

(09:49):
bunch of research in my book for this, and you
know it's it was launched in I think two thousand
and nine, incredible adoption rate, as you said, about ninety
nine percent of the population, which is about one point
three billion people, just to remind everyone, And it stores
extensive biometric information on all its citizens. So this is

(10:11):
you know, this is a fingerprints is IRIS scans photos
of children as well, and it links them all to
a centralized database. And this is one of the key
kind of architectural characteristics of these types of systems that
cause all sorts of problems for you know, people like
us who are looking down the barrel of living under

(10:31):
one of them. So yeah, so what does that look like? Well,
the purpose for introducing these systems, it's often justified in
different ways, but it rhymes right, But ultimately digital idea
is fundamentally about resource denial. You know, you don't have
a you don't have a password on your laptop just
for fart, and that's you know, if you know the password,
you can access that resource and use the computer. If

(10:51):
you don't, then you can't. So you know, when you
apply that to a society, you need this identification for
everything from financial systems you know, access to banks and
welfare and in the Indian case, sim cards, work rations,
the whole spectrum of the lived experience, everything that you
need in modern life. The centralization of it is particularly
the varies because we can get into some of the

(11:13):
architectural characteristics of this, but what you're doing with any
centralized system is you're building in a central point of failure.
Now that failure could either be technical or it could
be how should we say, political? So what does that
look like, well, I'll get it to some of the
details around its introduction, but first of all the justifications.

(11:35):
So it wasn't a grassroots movement. Ardha's introduction wasn't initiated
by the people, so that they didn't campaign for it,
they didn't vote people in for it. It was kind
of passively accepted by a population busy with other things,
you know, And the initial public response was mixed. There

(11:55):
was skepticism. There was a lack of awareness and education,
and particularly in India in the rural sections and the
underdeveloped regions where this sort of stuff is just far
outside of the kind of Overton window all the experience
of everyday life. And yeah, many people weren't familiar with
either the benefits or the risks. So therefore there was

(12:18):
very little public debate. And the policies or the politics
rather around introducing this system politically in India is a
little bit different to the Australian case. India does have
a sort of two party federal system, a lower and
upper house of sorts, but there's a bit of an
exception there. There's a category of legislation called money bills,

(12:42):
which doesn't require the Senate's approval so they can be
passed just by the lower House. And controversially, ardhad was
flagged as effectively a money bill, so all the Senate
could kind of do and it's not called the Senate
but for our terms was provide recommendations effectively, So that
were kind of constitutionally dubious mechanism through which it was introduced.

(13:02):
So resistance resistance wise, Look, there was actually significant resistance
from the privacy advocate space and some politicians as well.
They were particularly revealing the lack of safeguards and legislative protocols.
There have been court cases that the challenges in the
Supreme Court and India that have eventually resulted in some

(13:25):
sort of restrictions. But again the horses bolted by this stage,
and I think prevention is better than cure with these systems.
So what does this look like on the ground.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, we'll see how that looks like on the ground,
so that I actually have like something that I want
to play for that. But I guess what I want
to understand from you before we played that video is
what was I guess the primary justification? Right? The government
in India, right that is technically democratically elected, Right, what
was their justification to introduce a system like that.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so in the Indian case. Parallel in the Indian case,
it was very much sold as a system to combat fraud.
So in Indian culture and society, fraud is, i guess
well recognized as part of the cost of business. It's
much more prevalent than we're accustomed to here, and it's

(14:17):
somewhat integrated into the culture. And in part of my
research I came across a particularly relevant quote from nineteen
eighty five. Of all things, it was from the president
at the time, sorry, the Prime Minister at the time,
Rajiv Gandhi was his name, and the quote is of
every rupee spent by the government, only fifteen paisse, which

(14:37):
is the denomination, reaches the intended recipient. So it's on
that grounds on the elimination of fraud and friction within
the system that Adha was introduced. Now that sounds all
warm and fluffy, and it's a variation of the types
of justifications that we hear throughout history, digital or otherwise.

(14:58):
When we come to these sorts of systems, it's usually
some sort of called a bureaucratic efficiency or convenience on
the consumer side. So it was very much to combat
fraud in the Indian case.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
And what was okay, So there was the I guess
the excuse that the government, that's what they used in
their advertising communion and we'll see them in shortly. But
what was the response from the people. I mean, ultimately,
this is not China, right, I mean the people can
voice like you know, there are a displeasure with this.
So what was there any any demonstrations? Was there any pushback?
I mean eventually they're managed to actually very very high

(15:30):
adoption rate as we'll see. So what happened on the
people side.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, as I said before, it was mixed. So there
was resistance, but it was limited, so it was limited
to those regions that were kind of involved in this
sort of stuff. And like in India, it's a different
planet to Australia. You know, it's very populous, it's got
quite a nomadic population. There are very rural areas that
are quite divorced from technology. So that just a level

(15:56):
of propagation of information and awareness coupled with the digital
literacy or literacy and numeracy in general, means that there
wasn't really maybe the resistance was pocketed. Let's put it
that way, and part of that again comes down to
the fragmentation of the country. It's like many countries in
one there are many administrative areas that each have their

(16:19):
kind of sub sub administration levels of government, and they
implement policy differently. It's like living in different nations, and
so in that context, it's difficult to mount, or more
difficult to mount, a unified national resistance. And I don't
think we suffer from that as acutely in Australia because

(16:40):
we're less nomadic, we're more homogenized as a nation. There
are fewer states, there are fewer administrative bodies, so rallying
the nation on some sort of issue like this is
more feasible hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
But I guess what I'm trying still to understand because
I think there's important lessons to be learned from there,
even though there's obviously significant cultural differences. Did they, like,
were there any demonstrations, did the people, like you know,
assigned petitions. Did anyone try to say, look, I don't
think other than obviously the privacy advocates, but like the
people on the street, did they have any concerns? Did

(17:13):
they think, hold on, this is probably not a good idea,
or we want to know more about it before we
agree to that, or like you know what exactly is about.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, I'm not sure the extent or whether there were
demonstrations or to the extent, but I do have an
interesting little snippet that I heard directly from an Indian
working in India currently actually in the tech space, which
may give you an insight into the answer to that question. Now,
this obviously is this quote is relevant to now since
the system is in, not prior to the legislation passing.

(17:42):
But he spoke of this is a colleague of mine.
He spoke of there being an unwritten level of criticism
that's tolerated in regards to speaking out against Ardha. And
he said to me, if I walk around in the
street wearing an I Hate Ardha T shirt, I might
not be walking around on the street freely, at least

(18:04):
for much longer. So obviously that's since the systems come in.
I don't know to what extent that was at play,
but prior. But bear in mind too, the ability to
protest to some extent relies on your the comfort you
have in maintaining your resources and your upholding your way

(18:26):
of life and the cast system in India. The very
hierarchical nature of it means that there's a cultural perception
that citizens are subservient to their government. You know, it's
a fairly recent democracy nineteen fifty I think, and India's
has had its kings, and the cultural inertia there can
be quite slow. So there would have been I suspect,

(18:49):
quite a large degree of well, if that's what our
masters are telling us to do, then that's what we'll
do type of thing. Again, I think that's quite and
we'll get into some of the differences later. I think
that's different to the austrain experience, where at least orically
we've had an ingrained skepticism of government. So yeah, I
don't have an enough to share with you in terms
of protest, but there are a few factors there I
think that indicate that the at least a national somewhat

(19:13):
coordinated protest effort what either didn't happen to any significant
extent or or did happen and was insufficient to overcome
those hurdles.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
So there was mainly I mean, even though both countries
I guess if we compare in contrast Australia and India
obviously both are democracies, but there are significant cultural differences.
So the pushback in India probably didn't come because of
cultural differences. People in obviously lower costs, like I mean,
they feel that they have no voice at all, so
they don't feel that they're even in a position to protest.
Would they be kind of like an accurate assessment?

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, It's okay, it's always apples
and oranges with these things, but you can certainly see
some parallels.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, okay, all right, so let's see how it actually
looks like. So when like, as I said, I've never
heard of adha until you mentioned that in another interview,
and once you mentioned it, I said, wow, I was
very surprised that it is actually in India and any
places like China. And I've done a bit of research
just to kind of understand how this thing looks on
the ground, and I was, to be perfectly honest, I
was very very surprised to find a very very good

(20:14):
video on this topic and the risks that it poses
from the ABC. Note out that they're the ABC, Australia's
public broadcaster, right, I mean, doesn't get more legacy media
than this, So I was. I was quite tropped. And
this video is not that like long ago, it's only
from two years ago. But I was very very surprised
that they were actually highlighting the risks. Now. They're obviously

(20:35):
a legacy media outlet, so they don't like, you know,
they outline some risks, but they don't get outright conspiratorial, right,
so they don't get into like and okay, well we
will need to see BDC's they will do this, they
will do that, your money will be programmed. They don't
do any of that. But as far as, like, you know,
the privacy risks and how life actually looks post other implementation,

(20:55):
this provides a very very very good overview that should
really in people's eyes, especially in Australia, because we are
in debt, like I mean, legislation and all of that
has already been passed, so we are really on the
final kind of leg to basically something very very similar.
So I'm going to play that now, and I'm going
to play it in four It's only five minutes or

(21:16):
five and a half minutes, and we'll come back and
discuss that after that.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
So look, okay, think about this for a second. If
Australian authorities asked for your fingerprints and your iris, scants
keep forever?

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Would you give them up?

Speaker 4 (21:38):
A revolutionary change that gave a digital identity to each
and every person without any discrimination of caste, creed, class,
or of being rich or poor.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
This is the reality for most people living in India
at the moment. And I know because I handed my
over when I lived there too.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
This is none of them's largest digital identity revolution out Haard,
my other had my identity.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
And I'm not the only one. Ninety nine percent of Indians.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Now, I want to stop for a second to highlight
something that she just said, ninety nine percent adoption. I mean,
I cannot emphasize that enough. Ninety nine I mean this
is like we'll discuss that later, but this is something
that is very very hard to dismantle even if the
people want to do. If ninety nine percent of people
have adopted it, so this is this is just incredible

(22:34):
to me.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
And according to the department that governs this biometric system
have signed up, that's a whopping one point three billion people.
It means my most personal details went into this immense
of our database. And the Indian government says it's to
enable more people, espacially the poor, the access government and
financial services like food rations or bank account There is.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
Earlier one needed a number of cards for different tasks.
Today all identity related work be done with art, but.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Technology and privacy researchers say this allows surveillance and fale
that's not been seen before in a democracy.

Speaker 5 (23:07):
It surprises me immensely how casually this project is being
just spread across all kinds of domains, all manner of
databases being made, everything being linked up music in Theguay number.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Pusha Ramanathan is a lawyer and human rights activist who
has been campaigning against other.

Speaker 5 (23:25):
It's surpriselessly because you know, it's only very recently that
we had a newspaper recognizing that the breach of this
kind of data is a national security There many people
can get.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
At it and you won't even know.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Getting my other card was pretty simple. I just went
to one of the government centers, scanned each of my fingers,
did an IRIS scan, and then went on my way.
But I pretty much felt like I had to because
it wasn't really clear what the consequences would be if
I didn't. Would I be able to use my bank account?
Would I be able to use my phone. There was
just a lot of uncertainty.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
Apart from the public distribution system and scholarships and things.
They also said you can't get you can't get married,
you can't get the class certificate, you can't get a
domicione certificate, you know, and went on for a while.
Then the thoughts stepped in and said that, you know,
you can't come fel people. You can't deny people any
service because they are not into They went ahead, nevertheless
and kept seeing that they will deny it. And what

(24:16):
is very interesting in this is how all the way
to the bottom from the top the system absorbed and
so anywhere you went they would say no, no, no,
you have to give you a UAT number or Orange.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
We can't give you yourself.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
So it was a doctor bullyings, scaring, scaring people, fearmongering, coursh.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Part of the government's reason for bringing in the ah
our system has been to eliminate fraud like people duplicating
identities to collect double the services their own, or the
issue of leakage where entilements are diverted by corrupt bureaucrats.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Now the center is.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
They should have warning against sharing the photography of your heart.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
The information can be used by organization.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
And while the government has said the biometric databases are
fool proof, there has been evidence of fraud continuing, but
they won't provide data on how much fraud or human
error plagues the system. Prasana s is an advocate in
India Supreme Court. The advisors petitioners in other cases.

Speaker 6 (25:11):
There have been no studies, or even if there are studies,
it is there have been no reports. And even if
there are reports and they're not in a big mean.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
There is now no data about the other system eachen.

Speaker 6 (25:23):
Even as the state becomes more and more data and
where the citizens are are now forced to give their
part with their personal data for any purpose under the SUD,
you see that there is a move towards the state
becoming less and less transfer.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
The question becomes what is all this data collected like
a drag net and cross reference with other data going
to ultimately be used for.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
In Telangana, they started linking the UID number with the
voga ID number and in that process they drop the
large number of people saying these are all you know.
The Voger ideas were dropped saying these are duplicates, These
are faith, these are ghosts. And it was very close
to the elections. There wasn't enough time for people to
go and get you know, redressed on that and in genda.
Now the kind of model that they are coming up with,

(26:09):
it's become like a police state where they can you're
walking on the street and they can just take a
picture and then send it across to see whether you're
on any any you know, any suspicious database. So it's
a it's not the stuff of which freedom has made.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
Now I don't live in India anymore, so the government
doesn't need to keep my personal data. But once you're
in the system, there's no getting back out.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
So the new idea is one system which is a
really really remarkable system which says you can opt in.
In fact, you're not opting it. You get in and
you cannot opt up. There is no opt of mechanism.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Pretty wild. So this is pretty wild. This is not
science fiction. This is not like hyper bowl. This is
not like you know, at some imaginary scenario that we've
come up with. This is real life for one point
three billion people, right, the largest democracy in the world, actually,
I think the largest country in the world, full stop
as far as like population size. So I mean I

(27:07):
think that, like you know, I cannot emphasize how significant
this is. And I mean this video blew my mind.
It's from It's from twenty twenty three, and it only
had like eight thousand views. I mean, this should have
eighty million views, eight hundred million views. I mean, I'm
just still to this day, I'm shocked that the ABC
has produced something like that that is better than I think,

(27:27):
like anyone really can produce. It is it is profound.
So yeah, came to hear your thoughts on that, Paul.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
I mean, where do you start?

Speaker 7 (27:36):
Right?

Speaker 2 (27:36):
The first thing I noticed is look at all the happy,
smiling faces. You know, I tell you who isn't happy
and smiling. That's Sita from Kakala village in India's northwest. So, like,
like the hundreds of millions of people who have voluntarily
tried to comply with the AUTAR requirements, for some reason,

(27:56):
Sitar's fingerprints and iris scans weren't recognized by the system
and accountability. There's no skin in the game because when
the system fails the people. If you're a bureaucrat, you
know that doesn't impact your life so there's there's no
real accountability. But for Sita, that meant that she was
denied work, and she was denied rations, and she's a mother,
she's got children, And there's a news article actually referenced
this in my book where you know, she ended up

(28:17):
in an emaciated state because she literally couldn't feed herself
and her family despite trying to do everything to comply
with the system. For whatever reason, that wouldn't be accepted.
And bear in mind, too often when you have problems
in India with these systems, with this system, if you
can't sort it out yourself, there's very little interest in
helping you, and it often requires a three hundred mile journey,

(28:39):
multiple three hundred mile journeys to the next bureaucradit kind
of office where you try again. So Sitar certainly wasn't
smiling there. But I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean credit
to the ABC, like as you mentioned, they must have
skipped their meds that morning when they posted that one.
But I'm always glad to meet. One of the comments
there was you know that something along the lines of

(28:59):
the biometer database is feel proof. I mean, pack up
your bags and go home right now. That's a clearly
false statement. Anyone who's worked e in the periphery of
technology understands that the only secure computer is one that's
switched off. You know, there are always compromises at play,
and that's a that's a blanket false statement. The use
of biometrics in general, particularly fingerprints, and this has come

(29:21):
up in Australia's history as well. I'm sure we'll get
into there's a negative connotation around that as well. So
the use of fingerprint technology was originally developed for criminal investigations.
And I remember a personal experience when visiting Japan and
the recently I think it was twenty nine eighteen or
something like that, fairly recently, and you know, when you

(29:41):
get off the plane, everyone is fingerprinted at the airport
before entry. And I actually felt quite invaded in a way,
you know what, because I had this mental association with
criminal investigations and many of us, many of us do.

Speaker 7 (29:55):
So.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, they also made a statement along the lines of
and we've seen this in the Australian case as well,
contrast these centralized systems against the clearly arduous situation of
having to have multiple cards for different tasks. You know
that that is a feature of a system centralizing these
things is the bug. So, yeah, there's a lot of

(30:19):
sale stuff in there in some of those those comments,
but it's it's clearly a shiny brochure type video, right,
look at all the smiley, happy, happy faces. But there
are always a few of my thoughts there.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, the ads are always like that, and we'll soon
see some of the Australian ones. And yeah, there's a
there is a recurring theme there. So I guess the
things that I took away from that is, first of all,
the ninety nine percent adoption. They just blew my mind.
I don't think I didn't even think that China will
be able to get ninety nine percent adoption. Ninety nine

(30:53):
percent of the Indian population. I don't know if it's adult.
I'm assuming it's the adult population, it's not kids, but
ninety nine percent of the adult Indian population is on ADHA,
So that is that is just mind blowing. The second
thing is the biometrics. Yes, absolutely, and they used to
they use both fingerprint and a RECTNAS scan. Right, the fingerprint,

(31:14):
I guess people are used to it now in the
sense that like you know, I mean you mentioned Japan,
but there's a lot of other countries where you have
to provide a fingerprint scan is a condition of entry US.
I think Malaysia used to do that, Vietnam used to
do that or maybe still does. So there's people are
kind of even though like it kind of has like
the ikey feeling of like, you know, you feel like
you're a criminal why you're being fingerprinted, but you're kind
of used to it now because you've done it in

(31:36):
other places in order to get into the country. But
I mean a retness scan and as the lady said,
once you're on it, you're never getting off it. There
is no undo button ever, like you once you're on that,
you're on it. And I mean, think about it. It's
a database that has your fingerprint and your retina scan
as a digital representation. So someone gets that even if

(31:59):
you have two facts authentication, three factor authentication. I mean,
I don't meany I don't know how many factors they
have your fingerprint right, and they have your retina scan
and digital representation. I mean, I mean they just I mean,
I guess from a cybersecurity perspective, it's just incredible. I
mean that the implications for that is just like literally,
like I mean, anyone who's like, you know, on it

(32:20):
should be like, you know, waking up in horror every morning,
like not be able to sleep at night. So this
is this is very very profound. So this is like
I guess the things that I took away from that,
and I guess it's interesting how kind of similar things
and similar approaches are tried also in Australia, obviously with
the with the cultural differences, uh that exist between the

(32:43):
two countries. But it's kind of like you know, my odda,
my idea, you know, like those like short slogans, shortened
catchy slogans. So let's have a look, right, and how
it is done in Australia, and let's see if people
can sport the three world slogan right before I will
reveal it. Let's have a look. Let's see. So first
of all, this one doesn't have the three ward slogan,

(33:05):
but it has something else in it. So I mentioned
that as we go along, my go ID is.

Speaker 8 (33:10):
Now simply my idea, the new name for one way
you can identify yourself for government services and in the
future other places too.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
And in the future other places too, Okay, and you
don't have to change a thing. How nice of the
Australian government. All right, now let's get into the three ward.

Speaker 9 (33:27):
Slogan authorized by the Australian Government camera.

Speaker 8 (33:30):
Digital ID isn't just about security, It's also about convenience.
With digital ID, logging into services is quicker, simpler and
more secure, cutback on usernaims, passwords, or delays in processing applications.

Speaker 9 (33:45):
For example, when requesting.

Speaker 8 (33:47):
A tax file number, the process can take as little
as just ten minutes instead of twenty eight days. Or
you could use your digital ID to complete a digital
statutory declaration online without meaning to have a witnessed one setup.
You won't need to upload or send copies of your
driver's license, passport or other ideas. You can verify your
identity quickly and security or from your device, even if

(34:10):
your physical documents are lost or damaged. Your digital ID
stays with you, allowing verification anywhere any time, whether at home,
while traveling, or after hours when offices are closed. This
flexibility gives you greater convenience and access to services no
matter where you are. Digital ID secure, convenient and voluntary.

Speaker 9 (34:37):
What is the digital ID trust mark?

Speaker 7 (34:39):
It's important to note that your digital ID provider is trustworthy.

Speaker 9 (34:43):
That's where the digital ID trust Monk comes in.

Speaker 7 (34:46):
The trust mark is a stand of approval biders who
meet rigorous standards for privacy, cybersecurity, for.

Speaker 9 (34:52):
Control and more.

Speaker 7 (34:53):
Your provised transparency by showing which services come with the
safeguards we all expect.

Speaker 9 (35:00):
Providers decided to trust.

Speaker 7 (35:01):
Mark have gone through a strict accreditation process, so you
know they legitimate.

Speaker 9 (35:05):
And safety use.

Speaker 7 (35:07):
You can also find a list of accredited to providers
on the digital ID Accredited Entities Register, which is regularly
updated for added peace of mind. When you see the
trust mark, you can be confident that your personal information
is being handled securely and responsibly. Look for the digital
ID trustmark for assurance that your data is in safe hands.

(35:28):
Digital ID secure, convenient and voluntary.

Speaker 9 (35:36):
Who can use digital ID and do you have to
have one?

Speaker 8 (35:40):
Digital ID is available for people age fifteen or over
who want to keep the information secure. You don't need
to be an Australian citizen to have one. Digital ID
is also available to people who have a visa and
it's voluntary for individuals. You choose whether or not to
create or use one, and you can deactivate it at
any time and don't worry if you can't or don't

(36:01):
want to use digital ID, you won't be left behind.
The government services for individuals that are part of the
Australian Government Digital ID system will continue to offer other
ways to verify your ID to.

Speaker 9 (36:11):
Access those services.

Speaker 8 (36:13):
A secure digital ID is just another option for proving
who you are online.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Digital ID, secure, convenient and voluntary.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
All right, let's see who can spoil the three world slogan.
Anyone wants to ever go and put it in any
of the chats before, obviously I'll reveal it. It could be
pretty pretty obvious. Let's see if we have any takers.

(36:46):
All right, doesn't look like anyone wants to have a goal.
I'll give it up a couple more seconds now, no takers, Okay,
So obviously the three word slogan is secure, convenient, and voluntary. Right,

(37:08):
we have a recurring theme here, especially that last word
of our voluntary. Okay, I think we have heard that
one before somewhere. Okay, so let's play a little video
just on that topic of voluntary well again in the

(37:29):
Australian contact. That should give people, I guess a very
very good idea.

Speaker 10 (37:35):
All right, Sure, ID system being safer and trustworthy and voluntary.
Government's position on COVID nineteen vaccinations is that it is voluntary.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
COVID vaccine is now mandatory.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
All authorized workers in Victoria must be fully vaccinated or
risk losing that.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
You'll be implemented in a partnership between the common walths
and the States. It's not a choice to get vaccinated.

Speaker 10 (37:59):
Decisions state governments and the Commonwealth Government took were difficult.
The Queensland Supreme Court has found mandatory COVID vaccination for
police officers and nurses unlawful and.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
They balanced up. As is always the case with human rights.

Speaker 7 (38:12):
Outcoming Commissioner Katerina Carroll failed to give proper consideration to human.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Rights and in breach of their human rights.

Speaker 10 (38:18):
It is voluntary and obviously people will make that decision
for themselves. If you're an individual, you will not have
to have one of voluntary, Okay.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
So that's I guess that's as far as the voluntary
part right. So I don't think I need to add
anything about that. But Paul, let's talk about first of
all the secure and the convenient. What are your thoughts
about that?

Speaker 11 (38:42):
Well, I'm trying very hard not to go on quite
a lengthy rant here with those ones.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, just on the voluntary quickly. People want to dig
a little bit more into the subjective nature of that word,
very much in line with that excellent milk video there.
They can jump on my website and in an extensive
blog on what that actually means in reality and how
it's it's a simple word that hides all manner of sins.

(39:08):
But yeah, secure and convenient. Okay, so convenience. So I
note that the shiny sales pitch there was able to
provide one at least one concrete example applying for a
tax file number, so you can you can do that now,
supposedly in ten minutes rather than twenty eight days. You
tell me, Michael, here's a question, when's the last time

(39:29):
you applied for a tax while number? You know? Does
that really impede your working week? Every week? It's I
don't know how frequent.

Speaker 12 (39:38):
You know, morequent people taxtile numbers, Yeah, people doing lifetime
so we shave you know, twenty eight days off, waiting
time off, getting a one time a one time event,
you know.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
And presumably that's one of the more convenient uses of
this system, given it's the one they picked you know,
for the video there the stat deck earning a stat deck,
So that was another one they mentioned again, question to
you or do anyone when's the last time you had
to sign a stat deck. I mean, it doesn't really
hinder my every working day. I can't see how it

(40:12):
at all justifies onboarding the incredible risks that these safety
critical systems necessarily impose on people. So the security stuff, well,
I'm sorry, but from my point of view, there's a
fairly simple test here when it comes to security. You
can't talk about the level of security anything unless you've

(40:34):
got some skin in the game when it goes wrong.
You know, if you're selling the virtues of or the
features of a fireproof safe or something, it's wonderful safe,
you know, it's completely secure unless you've got your own
gold or cash or valuables or you know, family photos
stored in there and you're willing to put that on
the line. There's actually some personal loss involved at your end.

(40:55):
You know, if things go wrong, then I just don't
see that you're credentialed to make any sort of statements
about security. You know, and again going back to Ardha there,
that's very much, very much the case you know, the
bureaucrats that that hold all of these people information at
their fingertips. There's there's no negative outcomes for them when

(41:16):
when they're leaked, and we didn't we didn't talk about
some of the sizeable leaks that have already happened from ARDHA.
But so as far as I'm concerned, it's it's a
dead argument because because there's there's the no skin in
the game factor and a lot of these how do
you define security? So here's another general comment about these
the sweeter videos here. You can't reduce the complexity of

(41:38):
a national identification system down to a simple video like
such a simple snippet like that. Anyone attempting to do
so is I don't know, maybe disingenuous might be a
little bit strong, but there's it gives me a sense
of where there's smoke, there's fire. You know what, Why
does it need to be such a shiny kind of
simple thing with are we children? As an are we children?

(42:00):
Can we not have a more nuanced debate than those
videos you just described there, because I tell you what,
the systems that they're advocating for on the back of
these simple videos are don't at all reflect the video simplicity.
They're very complex and very the implications they have on
the lived experience of everyone is potentially dire, So there

(42:21):
seems to be a real disconnect there. Trust was another
one that's part of security. So trust is one of
those words that sounds warm and fuzzy, and you know,
when you hear it, it elicits these thoughts in your
head of you know, how you trust a family member
or a long term friend or something. But that's not
the type of trust that we're talking about here. I
go into I devote a whole chapter actually to trust

(42:41):
in my book because it's a very nuanced topic, and
I think there's a degree of conflation in that terms,
you know, in that term where we see videos like
that where they use the word trust, they're evoking that
warm sense of relational trust that we're accustomed to in
our everyday life with what is effectively an institution relationship
that is not trust trust has earned. And I just

(43:04):
don't see the credentials that the government has earns that
trust at all. We heard reference to, you know, these
systems having the safeguards that we all expect, all words
to that effect. Please define that what safeguards. Do we
all expect what's everyone's general level of digital literacy? You know,
I don't know how you define define That same comment

(43:27):
goes with the supposedly strict accreditation criteria. Well, here's a
general kind of outcome from the or take away from
the research I did for my book. One of the
core kind of features or components of these centralized systems,
digital or otherwise is something like in the Australia card terminology,

(43:50):
which we'll get into that was called the Companion Entity system.
But effectively there's a component to the legislation or the
system that necessarily deputizes the the private business. So the
areas where this actually needs to be enforced on the ground.
In the ARDHA case, part of the source of leaks

(44:11):
is the fact that the underlying IDENTI identity information in
the system is actually shared with third parties and they
make determinations based on the underlying identity data. So that's
an extremely risky scenario because once you've released that data
to third parties, you don't control their level of privacy
and security. You've completely the horses bolted. You have no
influence over that, and it chains only as strong as

(44:33):
its weak as link. As soon as it's out there
in this companion entity system, you have no ability to
make these claims of security at all. And there are
variations of this kind of sharing identity data with the
deputized entities or businesses or corporate entities that need to
implement the policies. So it's out of the control of

(44:53):
the centralized organization anyway. But again, that doesn't matter unless
there's skin in the game. So yeah, that's that's my
best attempt at avoiding a rant. I'm not sure how
successful I was at it.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Now that that's that's good, that that's really valuable. I mean,
I guess from my perspective. So you know, let's talk
about like, you know, secure and convenient. Okay, let's start
from the convenient aspect first, because that's easier for people
to understand because we actually have a real life example
that is available right now. So let's have a look

(45:25):
at that. Okay. So that's the w A. So the
Western Australian State government. So that's one of the Australian states, right,
the biggest state by by size, by territory. Right, So
they have something called the student Assistance Payment. Okay, Now
that's the web. That's the page. I'll include the link
in the show notes. But have a look at this

(45:46):
so it doesn't really matter. We won't go about the eligibility,
but have a look how to claim so bit your
claim through service WA. Here are the QR codes to
download the app right, get free and look at that
for supple and general information about service WA, including assistance
to download the app and set up my ID, remember

(46:08):
my ID and other places too. Here's one place so
they will help you, no problem. Call customers support. They'll
set up my ID for you and they'll take your
biometrics and you just download the app so that you're convenient,
very very convenient, right, and they say get it like
they even have in person health, they've kiosks, theve whatever
you want right, twenty four hours a day, seven days

(46:29):
a week. Look at that, right, whatever you want, we
will like it. Just just do it right. But you
need to scroll all the way to the bottom find
alternative claim methods. Right, and they tell you, they say, look, yeah,
there's other ways, but you don't want to lose use
it because the service WA app is the fastest and
most convenient, secure, convenient, voluntary to claim the WA student

(46:56):
assistance payment. This is a real government webpage like this
is I'm not making this up right, So if you
don't want to use that, and you're gonna walk the
slow way, look, you can claim online and or you
can do a claim form, right, but they say it's
gonna take longer. Claims made through this method may take
longer to process. So if you want the money fast, right,

(47:16):
because whatever, you need the money to buy supplies like
you know, kids school supplies for your kid, right, you
need that two hundred and fifty bucks now like quickly, right,
or one hundred and fifty bucks right, better for you
to set up my idea and look, we have all
this support for you, twenty hours a day for sex,
twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Whatever

(47:37):
you want, just do it, right. So that's that's the
convenient aspect right, as far as the secure aspect, right.
So it's interesting that they did them. And I'll play
a video shortly, but the government is taking the line
that look, if instead of this being decentralized, if we

(47:58):
control all of that and everything is done through us,
then everything is good, right, everything will be fine. You
don't have like you know, you don't have to worry
about it. It'll be a lot more secure. Now this is
again not the first time that they've used this argument,
so people in Australia will be familiar with that, but
people obviously may not. So a few years ago, we
had the electronic health records, right, we're basically the guy

(48:19):
it's called my Health literally the same name, right, it's
called my Health, where all the health records were digitized, right,
and it was opt in. It wasn't mandated, but basically
all your like you know, if you go to like
different doctors that can access your health records and like
see all the conditions you've had, like you know what medication,
if you had surgery, all that sort of stuff. You
don't have to repeat that. And again it was promoted
as like very very convenient because if you go to

(48:41):
a new doctor because you moved cities or whatever, they'll
already have all your medical history. They don't need to
get it from the clinic. So again it's convenient because
it's faster and it was voluntary, but a lot of
people sign up, and I think literally within a month
it was hacked and the information was upplauded to the
Dark Way. Literally within a month, right, because everything was centralized,

(49:02):
and from a cybersecurity perspective, and I mean from any perspective,
think about it as as a common thief, as a
petty thief. We're trying to like steal a pot of gold.
Right if you know that there is a port of
goal distributed between thirty places and each place has a
small quantity, or you can go to like you know,
the central Bank and somehow blow the vault and steal

(49:23):
everything all the goal is there? What's better for you?
Like you know what, what gives you more benefit? So
this is this is like an oxy morning. It makes
no sense on any level, on the most logical sense,
like you know, the most logical aspect of it. So
I want to play actually something that you sent me, Paul,
I believe and that's let's see if we can play

(49:45):
this one. Let's see all right.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Doing that if it's right, Just a couple of follow
up comments, sure, sure, sure, yeah, what you're describing there
is a category to look out for. Nothing in life
is free, and when you get these little goodies dangled
in front of you, one needs to ask the question
what's the cost? Now we saw that in Adha as well,
so the national government extensively leveraged its control over the

(50:13):
welfare system and that's one of the reasons we saw
such a high adoption adoption rate. We need to qualify
these terms, so we're not talking about voluntary adoption here,
it's just adoption. Now that makes it sound like everyone's
happy to use it. But yeah, they're leveraging these welfare
systems and dangling goodies. So what other sort of goodies. Well,
many people in India were given free or heavily subsidized

(50:37):
SIM cards. There was network infrastructure put in to capture
more of the rural areas. This all sounds wonderful, right,
but nothing in life is for free. What is the cost?
So beware are the goodies? Another takeaway point from what
you were saying there is we all need to ask
ourselves a very important question. What is your sovereignty worth
to you? Put a dollar figure on it? Because that

(50:59):
claim case in the w A government site there reference
to two hundred and fifty dollars claim. So it's two
hundred and fifty dollars the cost of your sovereignty, not
just your sovereignty, but your family sovereignty. So going back
to one of the previous videos you shared there there
was a comment along the lines of, you know, if
your identification cards are lost or stolen, don't worry. Your

(51:20):
digital ID stays with you even beyond your death. So
we cannot appreciate what it's like living today with such
high resolution, immediately available data that is effectively timeless. And
again I devote a lot of time and Layman's terms
in my book to describe some of the qualities of

(51:41):
digital data. It doesn't go away and fade like our
natural bodies do. So ours will be the first generation
where our lives are captured in crystal clear, high resolution
databases that will persist beyond our deaths. So that's a
bit akin to the shadow outlasting the object casts it.
You know what relevance is identifying data. If you're no

(52:03):
longer alive, I'll tell you what the relevance is. It
can have a direct impact on our children and our grandchildren.
We see that socially now there are calls for people
alive today to pay for the sins, supposed sins of
those who have come before them. Well, what if those
supposed sins are in high resolution data from hundreds of
years ago? I mean, we just we can't appreciate yet

(52:24):
what the social impacts will be, so I don't know.
My cost for sovereignty is non negotiable. And I find
it again a feature that my identifying information and all
the cards and so forth go with that do degrade
with time as my body does. They do get lost.
That's a feature of the system. So yeah, again a
couple of thoughts there on the security side, it might

(52:47):
be worthwhile putting some numbers to this because you can
arm wave about hacks and so forth. Let's look at
what's actually happened with ARDHA. So in twenty twenty three,
so this is fairly recent. I think that was one
of the largest breaches of ARDHA. Eight hundred and fifteen
million Indians personal data was leaked. So that's all sorts

(53:07):
of personal details of the ardhad number obviously the name's
phone numbers. I mean, we've seen already the sorts of
information this system holds. Again no accountability for the bureaucrats.
It actually took a US security firm to detect the leak,
and that follows up from the trifector in years before
than twenty nineteen, twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. So

(53:31):
pre consecutive years that were three hundred million, twenty million,
and one hundred million users were exposed. So you know,
it's just a baked and characteristic of the system. As
I've said before, the only secure computers is the one
that switched off. Look at the order of magnitude of
breaches that's happening in the India in just current years.
So again I think the whole secure thing can just

(53:52):
be shown the door. It's a non argument, heard of.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
A stand and I mean you said, like you know,
the only secure computer is a computer that turned off.
I mean, yes, that that's the ultimate security. But I
mean even like you know, if you go one level
less extreme than that, I would say it has to
be air gap. Right, anything that is connected to the Internet,
by definition is not secure. And that is I mean,
as someone who comes from a cybersecurity background, that is
like the one thing that nobody in the cybersecurity industry

(54:18):
will tell you because they want to sell you products
and services, right, just like you know, just like you
know the farmer company wants to sell you vaccines and
who knows what else, There is no way to guarantee
security for any system that is connected to the Internet
because as a kind of like hammered that many times before,
the Internet is not designed to be secure. It was
ever designed to be secure. It was designed to be resilient.

(54:40):
You cannot have security and resiliency. You just can't. You
have to compromise on something. So that that's where I
kind of might take it on that and you know
as far as like you know, uh, you know, centralize
and make it all convenient. I want to play this video.
So this is a video that you sent me in
exactly really really good one, so that for people in
all Australia they may not recognize these guys. His name is

(55:00):
Bill Shorten and he used to be you used to
be leader of their position. Then he became Government Services minister.
I think now he's in some university, so he's left
politics to our greener pastures. But look what he says
and look how he justifies things. Let's have a listen.

Speaker 13 (55:15):
Contact with government through human services, that's a fundamental part
of daily life.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Hold on, let me play that gaes.

Speaker 13 (55:22):
Today I unveil a project that we have in development
that we call the Trust Exchange or texts all That
speed Exchange is a digital thumbs up from the government,
but you are who you say you are. And given
the importance of digital technologies and improving people's lives, it's
important to the Australian government helps to build trust more
and more. We do our banking and shopping online. We
order our food, we ride share, we pay for parking,
we book appointments, we do our tax online. And we'd

(55:44):
prefer to organize our government services online. Not everyone needs
their own app not everyone needs their own processes. One
door is better than many doors. We need other departments
and agencies to come on board so we can offer.
But tell us once experience across key events in people's
life journeys of Australians that contact with politics is fleeting,
but they contact with government for human services. That's a

(56:06):
fundamental part of daily life.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Okay, so it's interesting, like basically, trust us and you
don't have to worry about it. Now another angle that
I think, like you know, it's worth mentioning here, Like
you know, from the business perspective, Like you know, if
people think that maybe we can pressure businesses and as
a result they will kind of save us and don't participate,
I can tell you, Like think from the perspective of
a bank, right, or brokerage company or anything related to

(56:34):
like you know, an industry that has like regulatory requirements
around KYC know your customer. Right. So at the moment, right,
a bank needs to in Australia, they need to collect
what's called one hundred point they need to do what's
called one hundred point I D checked. So basically they
need to collect a bunch of documents that together they
basically every document has a value and together it brings

(56:54):
you to like one hundred points Okay, So they need
to do more work.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Then they need to store this information to prove that
they've done that right. So they need to store that
potentially indefinitely. So they need to like, you know, make
sure it doesn't get had in order to comply with
like privacy legislation and security legislation and stuff like that.
Here the government comes and says, look, don't worry about it.
Don't worry about it, mister CEO of bank X, don't
worry about it. We're gonna do that for you, and

(57:20):
we're gonna tell you, we're gonna give you a thumbs
up from the government. Right that this person who do
they say they are right? So from that the perspective
of the CEO of the bank or the chief technology
officer of the chief information security officer, they just save
themselves like an enormous amount of work, expenses, compliance stuff.

(57:43):
Right there will be there will be literally competing, jumping
over each other who can adopt that quicker. So from
their perspective, this is brilliant. They're gonna love that. So
you know, if you think that you're gonna, like, you know,
pressure bank not to do that, right, as long as
other banks are doing that, they are that is disadvantage.
So the pressure has to be on all of them

(58:04):
at the same time. Right that that That's the way
I see it, And I guess that's a good kind
of segue to discuss, like, you know, how we can
counter like, you know, this propaganda like those those are
actual ads that I just showed from the Ascainana government
are running now and they clearly have like you know,
the three world slogan sorted out, so they're they're good
to go. They're running, like you know, they are off
to the races. So before we figure out, like you're

(58:27):
and I, Paul, how we potentially can counteract that, I
want to also highlight the examples that you mentioned of
the Australia card right that was successfully defeated. Right, So
that that's a good example in the sense that it
was stopped. It was a national idea scheme, there was stopped, right,
It wasn't a digital idea, but it was actually stopped.
And it'd be interesting to discuss, like, you know, how

(58:48):
it was stopped and what potentially lessons we can learn
from that. But I guess for the benefit of people,
because we're talking about the eighties, right, so there may
be people who are, like you know, not aware of that,
even even if they are Australia, and I mean I
wasn't aware of that, and definitely for people overseas. Let
me see if I can play that another little clip
that you sent me. So that's Channel seven News, like

(59:13):
the opening a few seconds Channel seven News nineteen eighty six.
All right, so let's have a look at.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
That evening mark be lead to the latest free of
seven News rus.

Speaker 14 (59:25):
It's been revealed that the legislation for the proposed national
ID system carries with it penalties of up to twenty
thousand dollars. The opposition and the Australian Democrats say they'll
block the legislation in the Senate after it was discovered
the Australia Card. Penalties include the fines and jail terms
of up to five years. In other news, more controversy
over uranium exploration in Kakadu National Park. Mining giant Pico

(59:46):
walls End plans to resume its explorations, but the government
says it will do everything it can to stop any mining.
Those stories in news world.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
After the movie, all right, I wonder what movie they
shot after that? So that's interesting. So this was an
initiative that the government has pushed very, very hard. But
he was actually defeated, right, So I'd be interested to
hear your thoughts, Paul, Like you know, first of all,
how was he defeated and whether there are any potentially
lessons that can be learned for our situation right now,
which is pretty die I would say, a look more

(01:00:17):
died than what he was in years.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Yeah, sure, Michael, it's a big topic. As you said,
it was the eighties, so it's fairly recent Australian history.
But still there are plenty of people who won't be
aware of it. Now. The Australia Card is just part
of our history here that gives me a spring in
my step. To me just encapsulates in one national example

(01:00:43):
of citizen resistance what's possible. And it also shows us
a little bit about the bones of this country is
built on. And I agree we're in a dire situation,
but by no means is all lost, and by no
means should we not try So, just to riff a
little bit about the Australia Card, what was it? It
started actually quite innocuously, so in ninety eighty five the

(01:01:04):
government released a federal government released a white paper on
tax reform, actually in the lead up to a tax
reform summit that was being held that year, and it
briefly mentioned the introduction of a national identification scheme. So
what did that look like? Well, over the years it
spanned a few years, this campaign, not many people really

(01:01:25):
paid much attention to it. Its characteristics share the characteristics
as I've mentioned before, of many of these other analog
and digital identification systems. It was effectively proposing that every
citizen hold a physical card. In the eighties and now
at the time, people were loosely aware of the computing

(01:01:46):
technology that was possible at the time, you know, credit
cards were starting to come in. They were a kind
of skeptical of that. They were aware of the sort
of fraud around it, and sought The government was proposing
again under the the auspices of an eclectic range of benefits,
from eliminating welfare and immigration fraud, illegal immigration to the

(01:02:09):
convenience of better access to government services, all the same
talking sheet, right, So they were proposing storing centrally everyone's names,
their nicknames, their travel plans, their genealogical data, their passport
details if you hold multiple passports, they wanted access to
those two. They wanted your employment records, your citizenship status,

(01:02:30):
your eligibility for many care, which was actually introduced the
year prior in nine to eighty four. They wanted a
two year residential history for everyone, and a digitized image
of everyone's signature. And again all the shallow justifications were used.
In nineteen eighty six, the government proposed a submission to
a Joint Select Committee. It was a three hundred page

(01:02:51):
submission titled towards Equity and Fairness. So there's four words
pretty close to our target. Yeah, So everyone was to
have a unique code if ued by a governing body.
In that case, it was the Health Insurance Commission, the HIIC,
and that was going to be used by many. So
what it required was it imposed obligations in two significant areas,

(01:03:14):
so obligations on individuals to start with, so they had
to produce the card, or the proposal was that they
had to produce the card in all manner of daily
exchanges for which there was no current hurdle. So these
were introducing new identification checkpoints scattered throughout society where none
existed at the moment. And again I've read the entire

(01:03:35):
bill from the eighties. It's all still available in the
type written pds and the Joint Select Committee's Report descending report,
and the level of granularity of access to society was alarming,
especially for the day. So you couldn't be employed, you
couldn't travel, you couldn't pay anyone, you couldn't even hold
a safety deposit box without an Australia card. So I

(01:03:58):
think people got the idea that this was very invasive.
Another characteristic is the weaponization of language against those opposed
to the introduction of the identification system. I mentioned before
in Ardha, the case of walking around with an I
Hate Ardha sign. The labels used against opponents in the
eighties for the Australia Card they were the opponents were

(01:04:20):
called friends of tax cheats, whatever that means. Yeah, so
it lay normant ish for a number of years, but
it was blocked, ultimately blocked twice by an effective political opposition.
Now one of the distinctions between the Indian case that

(01:04:42):
I mentioned before, In Australia's case, we have a more
established rule of law and effective governance at federal at
state levels. In the eighties, at least the Senate was
used in the way that it should and quite legitimately
spoke out about the concerns that were being expressed by
by the public. And it was blocked twice in the Senate.
And under our constitution here that means that both the

(01:05:04):
lower and upper house can be spilled into a general election. Interestingly,
this was proposed under the ALP, a Labor government hit Interestingly,
during that double dissolution campaign, the card hardly came up.
In fact, the bulk of the public awareness was still
absent that during that the campaign, the election campaign that

(01:05:25):
was only triggered because of this actual issue, which I
found really interesting, and the ALP won the election. The
Prime Minister Bob Hawk at the time was re elected. Now,
after that election, he said that the introduction of the
Australia Card was the government now the government's top priority.
And boy to that set of fire under Ossie's because
I think that was nineteen eighty seven that happened. Now,

(01:05:47):
I'll relinquished the mic in a moment, But what happened
thereafter was quite quite spirited and I think shows us
a little bit of a way possibly forward. So I'll
let you comment on that first.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Yeah, sure, not that that's actually great because like I
literally have no no background on that, so that to me,
that seems basically what you're saying is there was political opposition,
but was also very very significant pushback from the people
to the extend that it became a major election issue.
Would that be accurate?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
No, actually, so that the opposition was post election, So
this is really interesting. It was when the government was
re elected and said we're now setting as our top
priority this Australia Card that the opposition really started ramping up.
So again, like it's not over until the Fat Lady sings.
One of the things I try to do in my
discussions here is leave little break crumbs of hope and optimism.

(01:06:46):
It's not all about the doom. And I just find
that quirk about it being post election because as you
mentioned before, we're now post legislation with digital ID. Don't
think that that's the end of it, because you know,
again it was only forty forty four decades ago or whatever,
but almost exactly since the announcement. It's only after that
election that the society arose. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Interesting, Yeah, look, I think also obviously there was a
there was one. From my perspective, there's one major difference
with the Australia Card compared to the situation right now
is the fact that the Australia Card was obviously we're
talking about the eighties, it was a physical thing that
you had to carry with you. So people can know, oh,
like shit, if this thing goes through, I would just
have to carry another thing with me in addition to

(01:07:32):
whatever my driver's life. Right, So it's physical. People can
understand that you don't have to be like a geek
or some like technology wish to understand what this means, right,
just like like you know with things like vaccines, right,
I mean, you don't need to be a doctor to
understand that there's some person now with a syringe that's
going to put it in your arm, right, So you
don't need to be an expert on that in order

(01:07:52):
to understand what is actually happening with digital idea, I think,
like you knows, someone also comes from like a technology consulting.
People don't like people who don't work in that space
like you know, like like you do, like what I
used to do. They don't envision what it actually means.
So what does that mean? So I have to download
another app to my phone? Okay? Cool? I mean no,

(01:08:13):
no dramas you know, what does it actually mean? So
I think I think that's probably why we don't have
as much pushback. The other thing is, obviously you know,
you said that back in the eighties we had an
effective opposition in Australia. We definitely don't have that now.
I think the elections have proven that beyond any reasonable doubt.

(01:08:33):
And not only that, I mean with thinks like you know,
the under sixteen social media band. I mean both sides
were one hundred percent fully on board, and both sides
were fully on board with the fact that, like you know,
one of the ways that will be used to verify
age like for people and everyone's age will need to
be verified because how do you how do I know
that you're over sixteen right or that you're under sixteen?
I need to test everyone right, will be through a

(01:08:55):
digital idea, So I think I think from our perspective,
that's kind of what I've been hammering now for quite
a while now. This needs to be made very very
clear to people right what it actually means in real terms,
because it is very very amorphic. And the problem that
we have is that unfortunately in Australia specifically, but I
think the situation is getting pretty dye in the US

(01:09:17):
as well. With real ID we are running out of time.
We don't have time to basically teach people right how
like you know, how that will impact their life, But
we need to make it very very obvious for them
how life post implementation will look like. And that's why
I think from my perspective that ABC video is is

(01:09:39):
mind blowing. Like you basically, like you know, take that
and you say, look Australia, Look America, look EU. If
you let this happen, this will be your life. And
this is not us exaggerating, extrapolating like you know, conspiracy theories.
This is live this is real life for Indians ninety
nine percent adoption. So I guess for me, I mean,

(01:10:01):
I always like and I'm by nature, I'm like that.
I always like, you know, advocate for the softly softly approach.
I do believe, like in education, I don't like hammering people.
And there's a lot of like fear and negativity that
is already out there right now, so I don't kind
of want to contribute to that. But the problem is
that we've tried other approaches, and in Australia specifically, but
a lot of other countries as well, but definitely in

(01:10:23):
Australia we have not that it just didn't click with people.
People don't still don't understand what is happening. And the
concern that I have is that we are running out
of time. So if we try and like keep educating people,
I mean, this is not even a political matter anymore,
because the legislation is past. It is law right, so
it's not even in that sense. We are already one

(01:10:44):
step further than the Australia Cards. So the Australia Card
we managed like it was we managed to over the
people or the whatever the political system managed to prevent
it before it went through the parliament. This has gone
through Everything is through parliament. This is all legislated fully
in Australia and in the UA for example, I mean
real idea has been legislated for decades. I mean after
nine eleven, I think that that legislation has been put in.

Speaker 15 (01:11:06):
So so's the way I see it is if there
is no ad option, right, so people are no matter
what happens, no matter what advertising campaigns, no matter what stick,
no matter what carrot, no matter what anything, people just
don't sign up for my idea.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
And the reason why I know that this will work
definitely one hundred percent because it has already like we
know that it can could have worked in the past.
So like you know, if you look back just only
a few years ago to like you know, the vaccine mandate, right,
if the vaccine take up in Australia. Initially it was
pretty low, like people were not rushing to get vaccinated,
maybe except Victoria, right, but when it started to be mandated,

(01:11:44):
and you know, you can go to the path, you
can go to the movies. You couldn't like you know,
work in certain jobs, right, you couldn't enter stores. I
think in Wa was it was crazy, like they couldn't
even go into a bottle shop. Right, So that's when, like,
you know, people kind of under duress got vaccinated. But
if people understand, like you know, if people knew at
the time that if they do that, they will suffer

(01:12:05):
severe like you know, health consequences and potentially death, right,
potentially death, Like literally, they need to understand if I
take that, I there is a good chance that I
will actually die. Right. If there was already in their
psyche once the mandates started like being pushed, they would
have reduced the uptake of the vaccine significantly. And if
the uptake remains like is law and remains low no

(01:12:27):
matter what the government tries to do, the mandates would
have collapsed because if only thirty percent, if only thirty percent,
even if only fifty percent took the vaccine, what are
you gonna do. You're gonna lock out half of society.
So that that's kind of the approach that I'm taking.
I don't know, what are your thoughts about that?

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Yeah, So it might be helpful to look a little
bit at what the resistance to this straight, what that
resistance campaign priced of, because there are a few tiers
to it. And as you mentioned, the political landscape here
is demonstrably different, so maybe we can not write it off.
I make a case for still remaining politically active. We
need to support candidates willing to repeal this legislation. Legislation

(01:13:03):
can be repealed. But yeah, let's brush that one aside
from now. But I'm happy to run through a little
bit of what that resistance looked like and maybe draw
some parallels. And I also want to touch on some
quotes that will give us a feel for what the
people were thinking at the era. If you'll allow me
to read some quotes of Cherry Pick from my book,
So okay, the resistance to the Australia cart It was

(01:13:25):
the largest public opposition campaign since those against the Vietnam
War in the nineteen sixties. So it was a large
scale protests that grew steadily over time. Now here's one
of the key takeaways that's still relevant today. The issue
crossed all divisions in society. So it didn't matter whether

(01:13:49):
you were rich or paul, where you lived in the country,
what your ethnic background was with you're a white collar
or a blue collar work, whether you're young or whether
you're old, what your skin color was. There was actually
a term used at the time called strange bedfellows. This
is what Bob Hawk referenced was an eclectic group of
people that came together to that united the nation against this. Now,

(01:14:11):
the Australia Card wasn't defeated on its technical failings, and
there were many that the Senate inquiry exposed. Its demise
came through a visceral cultural objection to being branded and
being punished for non compliance. Now let's go back to
that Channel seven clip you showed before. Do you notice
the opening sentence was something like the opposition said it

(01:14:34):
would block the legislation after it was revealed that some
of the that the legislation contained provisions for five years
in jail and twenty thousand dollars and nine to eighty
five terms as well. This is significant. So when people
started to see the punishments that they were facing, and
again we can apply that today giving to what you

(01:14:55):
just said, that's where some of the rallies startedctually got
some information on what those punishments were. Actually that I
think it was Section eight of the bill was entirely
devoted to punishments. The word imprisonment appeared twenty eight times
in that section of the bill and penalty appeared eighty

(01:15:16):
four times. I manually counted them all. You couldn't even
search in the scanned in PDF. So people objected to that.
So what did that unification look like? Well, there were politicians,
there were authors that were journalists, there were business leaders
that were farmers. There were sports stars, doctors, barristers, musicians,

(01:15:38):
academics and religious leaders. So just an eclectic group all
rally together and spoke out. Even the famous yacht designer
Ben LExEN, who's renowned for designing the Australia Too, that
had just fairly recently at the time won the America's Cup,
he spoke out about it. So very prominent figures across
the gamut of society spoke out about this. Now, let

(01:15:59):
me read you a quotes to demonstrate the kind of
pushback that these prominent figures were putting into the public
domain at the time. So I've broken these into categories
if you'll allow me. So this gives you a bit
of a snapshot of the type of campaign that we need,
I feel now, so individuals to start with. So there
was a massive campaign that flooded radio and newspaper. Now
again I think these are still good forms of media

(01:16:21):
that we can pursue today. Radio is the type of thing,
you know social media, you get the feed that you
choose effectively, so that has limited affected this, especially if
we're all banned from using it from the end of
the year. But radio is the kind of thing people
have in the background and just listen to. You know,
the so called normis still listen to radio when you're
driving in your car now. There was a Sydney talk

(01:16:42):
show host time called John Tingle, so he claimed that
for some weeks during that resistance campaign it was impossible
to get a caller that wanted to talk about anything
other than the cart and we saw this during the
cash band campaign in recent years in this country. I
remember Michael Zucker facing call ins on radio and there
was one chap who called it and said, don't do
this to our country. So radio call ins are effective.

(01:17:04):
Newspaper also, particularly the letters, the letters to the editor,
so they're less they're much less under editorial control, so
if you get people writing in, that was very effectively
used and people still buy newspapers today. I see it today,
So that's also an effective area to start to get
the message out. So one such individual came from Tasmania.

(01:17:26):
He was called Douglas Graham. And there's just one example
of thousands of submissions. His quote to the Australian newspaper
at the time was, if the government sends me an
identification card, I shall return it with a letter to
explain that I do not need it. I already know
who I am. So that's just a random individual. Religious leaders.
So here's an example from Reverend Michael Challon, who was

(01:17:46):
the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese at Perth at the time,
and he was also chairman of the Social Responsibilities Commission.
He actually appeared to the Senate hearing on this issue.
He said, at the moment, our society by and large
operates on the basis of trust. Now and then people
are asked to identify themselves. It is the Commission's expectation

(01:18:06):
that once a universal identity card system is established, that
order will be reversed. So there's a religious leader making
a fundamental statement about the nature of trust in our society. Politicians,
so here are two alp two labor politicians, members of
the party that were pushing this bill who spoke out.
One was an MP Lewis Ken. He said, nothing can

(01:18:28):
be more un Australian than the need to prove one's
identity on the call of an official, be it a
policeman or a bureaucrat. I refused to be numbered and branded.
Now that UnAustralian term was used quite effectively during the
campaign as well. Another one, miss MP John Saunderson. He said,
one can argue that the feeling one can develop with

(01:18:48):
the card is that everybody is guilty and the only
way to prove your innocence is by the production of
cards when you were doing your dealings. Again the Indian experience, right,
what about academics, Well, here's Jeffrey Walker, who is the
professor of Law and the head of Department at UQ
at the time. So his quote is the free and
lawful person recognized by the common law attains legal personality

(01:19:13):
simply by obtaining adulthood and is able to do anything
which is not prescribed by law. The de facto effect
of compulsorily requiring adult citizens to register with the state
is to introduce an additional element which is essential for
their legal personality. Another one, Professor Arthur Miller at the
time said, in the past dictatorships have always come with

(01:19:34):
hobnail boots and tanks and machine guns. But a dictatorship
of dossier's, a dictatorship of data banks can be just
as repressive, just as chilling, and just as debilitating. What
about musicians. Many may know Peter Garrett is later at
his political career, but is originally at the time he
was a musician. Peter Garrett came out and publicly called

(01:19:57):
the Australia card quote the greatest threat Australia has ever faced,
and presumably that includes the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
And he became a minister later on.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
But my goodness, musicians. Sorry with a couple of musicians
legal representations. So here is Justice Michael Kirby. So he
was president of the New South Wales Court of Appeal
at the time, and he's a former chairman of the
Australia Australian Law Reform Commission. So he said, I get
this one again, all applicable to what we're facing today.

(01:20:30):
What is at stake. It's not just catching a few
taxi voids. It's not even the efficiency of policing. It's
not the defense of innocent and law abiding citizens from
law breakers. What is at stake is nothing less than
the nature of our society and the power of authority
of the state in relation to the individual. And just
around out the quotes, I've got a medical representation as well.

(01:20:53):
So we've had recent kind of tastes of what medical
representatives do in recent years, some quite nobly, some quite disgustingly.
But this is doctor Bruce Shepherd who was the AMA,
the Australian Medical Association president at the time. So this
is a quote from nineteen eighty seven. Given thee get
this and I think we should all digest this quite well.

(01:21:14):
This is from the president of the AMA, doctor Bruce
Shepherd said, given the horrific impact the card will have
on Australia, its defeat would almost be worth fighting a
civil war for Wow, that that that report, those few
quotes there. I know I labored and took a bit
of time, but it just gives you a finger on
the pulse of what a quite a cross section of

(01:21:37):
society was willing to come out and publicly say. And
these are people in quite high standing positions in society
as well. So yeah, well we can go on a
little bit to some lessons learned on solutions, but I'm
happy to see if there are any comments on that
before we do.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
Yeah. Look, I mean wow, first of all, I mean wow,
how the may have fallen? Are they may dan like
astelan medical association and medical association now right? I mean
take the vaccine. It's safe and effective and we should
mandate that. I mean that just that that just blew
my mind. I mean I did not know that. That
just blew my mind. These are all good angles. I
think one powerful angle that we can add in this

(01:22:14):
particular aspect because it wasn't applicable to the Australia Card,
which was a physical cut, is the aspect of identity
theft and especially how serious and severe and and basically
impossible to remediate it will be if the digital if
the mya idea like you know digital idea or any

(01:22:35):
digital idea scheme also includes biometric data. Right. So so
I've discussed that with Nicola Charles and she's done a
very good video about it where she says basically, you
can't like, you can't change, you can't take your eyeball
out right. So if some if if there is a
digital or your fingerprint, you can't cut off your finger right,
So if there is a digital representation of your fingerprint

(01:22:57):
or your your retina skin thought somewhere and someone like
takes that, like and it's able to decreep that. I mean,
a digital copy can be like you know, replicated a
billion times at zero costs. Like what do you do?
How do you prove that it's not you? Right? So
this is something. All all those quotes that I think
he said are very very good. I can't see any
like prominent. Unfortunately, I can't see any prominent, like you know,

(01:23:21):
a leader or like you know, someone with prominent standing
in the community coming and saying, oh, this is worth
fighter saving civil war over. I just can't see that happening.
But you know, people come and like people who have
like you know, some authority on the aspect of like
you know, security, cybersecurity technology. It's very hard to find
people in that space who are not captured, right because
they have kind of financial decientives to do to allow

(01:23:42):
that to happen. But coming and saying, look, if you
think identity theft is bad, now you've seen nothing yet.
Because okay, someone like you know, and and I've got
a video. I'll include that again in the show notes
of identity theft like no traditional identity theft and what
was the absolutely devastating implications just simply for someone whose

(01:24:03):
wallet got stolen by a work colleague who assume their
identity right, and it was bad, like I mean he
ended up in jail, right, But I mean, think how
much worse it will be if if it's a digital
representation of who literally they are, like you know, their
their Redina scan and their fingerprint and who knows then
what happens with that, right and all the banks work
on that, right, if someone takes control over your digital

(01:24:25):
idea and there's only one digital idea, there's only one
like you know, centralized database, that centralized database gets taken
over and that's it. It's like you know, the kids
to the keys to the kingdom. So I think this
is this is an aspect that it's difficult for people
to understand, and this is something that I think we
can definitely, we can definitely use those previous arguments that
you quoted, But I think if we add on top

(01:24:46):
of that, and I think the responsibilities for people like
us or like you know, have a technology background and
kind of have the ability to explain things in layman
terms and not in geek speak, right for people to
understand what the actual implications are for this and how
much it's like like by orders of magnitude, it's actually
worse than anything the Australia account could have ever achieved,

(01:25:06):
or any like you know, national ID card in any
country could have been like a physical one, like once
it goes digital, it is like a hundred times worse. Yes,
So I think I think that's that's an angle that
people need to understand, and they need to understand that
they can potentially, like you know, they could lose their home.
Someone could take over the title of their home because
all the title these are like digitized now, I mean
they can apply for loans, they can take their bank account,

(01:25:28):
they can like you know, they can apply like they
can literally take like you know, if you're you know,
you're logging details at work, right, are connected to your
digital idea because it's safe and the government looks after that,
someone can take over like you know, your your logan
accounts if you work for the Australian Defense Force or
if you work for the Signal Directorate or for some
spy age, and I mean the applications are a while, right.

(01:25:49):
So I've discussed that. I've discussed some of the national
security implications as well. I've discussed that before in a
previous person and I'll include that. But I think, and
this is really why I'm really happy to have someone
like you, because I mean, we can explain things also
from the technological perspective, the technological background, or the technological perspective,
what it actually means for people, so they can understand

(01:26:10):
and they can understand what are the actual implications for them.
Forget about cbdseas I don't even want to talk about it.
That's the next step and it's very bad, but we
need to stop it even before the discussion even moves
to CBDCAS. We didn't need to stop it at a
digital IDT. So that's kind of I guess where where
I stand on that. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
if you have any comments on that, Surprisingly.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
I do, Muggel. I think you're right pushing the fear,
because let's qualify that we don't want to be fear
among us. But when there's a legitimate threat, and I
make this case philosophically in my book, when there's a
legitimate case as an active National Service to warn our
fellow fellow countrymen of a line around the around, just

(01:26:53):
around the corner. You know, it's it's a moral obligation,
and it's a it's a legitimate fear of what I'll
make a call? What will happen? Now? I say that
with confidence because it's already happened before in India, and
it's already happened before in Australia. So my gove ID
than my ID system has already experienced a number of leaks, hacks, abuses.

(01:27:14):
There's extensive documentation from particularly one that I quoted my book,
a professor who actually has a video of a replay
attack on YouTube. You can go and look at it. Now,
these things have and will continue to happen. So what
does that mean? Well, early on when I was writing
my book, I quickly learned that this actually isn't a
technology story. It's quite a philosophical story. So identity theft

(01:27:38):
is one that we need to push to the four
of people's minds. Now, you often hear victims of identity
theft describe it as a kind of rape. It's quite
a unique type of transgression against someone because philosophically speaking,
if someone's going around with all the identifying documents and
characteristics that represent you, Then who are you? If someone

(01:27:59):
else is going around taking out loans in your name
that you have to expend your heartbeats to earn money
for and pay back, who are you? You've essentially lost
sovereignty over the cause and effectage linkage of your own behaviors.
And there's an example of that too in the Australia case.
So here's another avenue. One of the ways we can

(01:28:20):
chip away at this is to put under the magnifying
glass the agencies that will run it. So, as I
mentioned before, it was the Health Insurance Commission at the
time who was gifted this godlike authority to run this program. Now,
there was a prominent court case going on at the
time that was constantly referred to, constantly referred to in

(01:28:43):
the media in public discussion. It was called the mcgoldbrick case. Now,
the mcgoldbrick case involved the hi C divulging certain medicare
details of a doctor's patient to the police. Now that
was one of the guise of prosecuting him for a
time alleged illegal abortions. Now, the police used that information

(01:29:03):
that the HIC provided them from the Medicare records to
approach two young girls as part of that investigation. Now,
the way that they approached those girls, it was done
in a manner that exposed their abortions to both their
employers and their parents. So that was something that really
struck home as a visceral violation, a breach of trust,
a breach of identity, and it was a very effective case.

(01:29:25):
Now what made it worse is that the hi C
actually claimed at the time that what they had done
was within the provisions of their act. So that further
drew into question putting trust in these government departments even
when they act within the bounds of legitimacy. So that
scared people even more about trusting officials. And later there

(01:29:46):
was evidence in the court case that came out, actually
I'm not sure if it was in the court case,
but evidence came out that the disclosure from the HIIC
predated any possible official authorization. So yeah, that was again
it's it's effectively undeniable now that we will lose sovereignty
over our identities. And the India case again shows the

(01:30:08):
fraud that they claimed that it would solve just relocated.
You know that often these monolithic identification systems don't solve
for fraud problems or solve identification problems or problems in society,
They just shift them to other areas. So yeah, a
couple of thoughts there. One final one in the Australia
Card before we move on, is a government leaks. There

(01:30:29):
was a trust, a group of people who came together
later formed in the Australian Privacy Foundation. It's still active
today that came out of the Australia Card campaign and
there was a period, there was a wiki leaks type
period during that resistance campaign where the APF would every
Sunday of every week release some you know, ultimately fairly
innocuous government leaks about how the operation of the austral

(01:30:51):
Card will work in the rubber meets the Road case.
And what that did is it put it forced the
Minister responsible into the back foot so constantly in the
media he had to address these leaks, which were fairly trivial,
but it kept it in the public focus and it
really got people thinking about how the scheme would work
in reality. So yeah, and we can move on to

(01:31:12):
some other lessons learned it if you'd like to, or.

Speaker 1 (01:31:14):
Yeah, so I guess the next thing I wanted to touch on,
and I'm cognizant of time, so I mean, if you
still have the time, I do want to touch on
the subject of, like you know, obviously you've covered the
idea of self sovereign identity and decentralized identity in your book.
If you think that, like you know, this could be
a potential alternative or potential solution or potential compromise or

(01:31:35):
anything that is related to I guess our current predicament
in Australia, but also in other countries where this agenda
is obviously going to be pushed through, then I think
it is worthwhile discussing that. So I guess it is
up to you if you think that that's worth expanding on.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to look again, we're talking about
you just mentioned time there. I mentioned earlier in our chat.
What is your sovereignty worth? Your freedom worth? Certainly worth
another half hour talking to you from my perspective, So
let's do it. Just to wrap up on that solutions thing,
and unfortunately we didn't get too far into it. For
those interested, I've got a front page article coming out

(01:32:12):
in the next edition of The Light. The Light Australia newspaper.
So that's on exactly this topic. That's how I see
the landscape at the moment, and I discuss four pillars
of possible solutions that leverage the type of background discussion
that you're talking about here. So you can have a
look at that. It looks like this. That's the Light Australia.
It's WA based to the current issue. You can download

(01:32:36):
for free. It's issue seventeen. I've also got four yep,
if you're interested in the background, like obviously, well that's free.
There's stuff on my website. I make it as free
as possible. So yeah, SSI. So when I started writing
this book, I originally called it the Case against Digital
ID and I talked to a colleague of mine and

(01:32:57):
he said, you might have some trouble selling that as
an absolute position. And what he meant by that is
we now live in an age where a lot of
our lives is online. That's the one thing in Bill
Shorten's video I actually agree with, right, we need a
way to cleanly facilitate trust in the actual strict definition

(01:33:17):
of the work online and what that means again, I
devoted a whole chapter to that in my book is
the ability to become comfortable exchanging good services or information
with people we've never met before, or entities we've never
met before. Who are you know, remote remote from us
and you know, pseudo anonymous. We need that as a

(01:33:39):
component of our economy. But you know, the web two space,
the kind of internet space that came around in the
late nineties, as you referenced before, was never designed to operate,
you know, it's kind of run out a runway. It
was never designed to operate with the level of technology
and the kind of commercial and economic activity we have now.
So we need something, and I think our efforts here
will fall flat on their face. Make an outright claim

(01:34:00):
that digital identification is bad? So what do I mean
by that? Digital ID is typically conflated with what we're
talking about here, the specific case, centralized government controlled digital
d Now, it turns out that that's too long for
a book title, but that's effectively what we're talking about here.
So okay, so what what are some alternatives? Well, it
turns out, in the process of researching my book that

(01:34:23):
there's a whole area of mathematics and computer science that's
already fairly well established with alternatives that remove the centralization
component of identification. It turns out that identification is actually
quite an obsolete tool as well. When we're asked to identify,
has anyone actually ask themselves why is that?

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
You know? I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
I don't identify myself to my neighbor for any other
reason than just to call out names over the fence.
You know, why is identifica Why is everything in society
predicated on identification? We don't do it just for fun.
It's because it's a proxy. It's a jumping step to
obtaining that level of crust that I talked about earlier,
that confidence in exchanging good services or information. So the

(01:35:05):
technology we have available today can either save or enslavers.
So the flip side of that coin is it is,
at least in the technical sense, not yet in the
social sense, quite possible to almost eliminate identification entirely and
still have that fairly smooth functioning. In fact, I would
say even better functioning interactions online because we can just

(01:35:29):
jump now with technology to the trust stage without the
stepping stone of identification. It's the identification characteristics that are
actually quite dangerous. They're the ones that lead to identities
for aud and all the other things we've talked about.
So I mean SSI, or self Sovereign identity as it's called,
is something that you could devote days talking about. So

(01:35:49):
I'd like to throw a few pointers out there for people.
I don't want to scare people off with two techie
sounding stuff, but I want to hear just give the
impression that there are alternatives here that will allow us
to flourish as a species and use technology to reduce
friction in our interactions rather than introduce it. So let's

(01:36:11):
start with one of the characteristics of self sovereign identity
it's claimed to be. Basically, it makes the same claims
as many of those videos you said before, but one
of the big differences is when a government representative or
a smiley face on a video says it's secure, as
I mentioned before, you can immediately write that off because
that you have to trust someone else who you've never
met about that security. What SSI does is it flips

(01:36:34):
the ownership of that which identifies you. So whenever you
have to sign up for an account or open my
Idea account or a Google account or a Gmail account,
the identifiers that go with that, they're created by the
service provider. They're not created by you, so because of
that inherent characteristic, you don't own them, so you can't control.

(01:36:57):
What SSI does is it allows you to generate your idents.
And there are various kind of technical ways that this
is well established technical ways by the way that that's done.
So because the genesis of the identifier is done on
your device, you know the sovereignty, you know the data provenance,
the provenance back to its origin, which is something a
centralized system that issues you and number can never claim.

(01:37:20):
So in that regard, it is secure because it's physically
in your hand. This is the kind of the air
gap thing you were talking about. But SSID is not
just a technical framework, it's a social framework. So it
removes a lot of the problems, the technical problems with
centralized systems. But it also and again I go into
much of the philosophical reasoning, and I even propose an

(01:37:42):
entirely different way of structuring society based on trust and
reputation rather than identification in my book. But it needs
to operate in tandem with trust frameworks or governance models,
or basically an agreement within society that we will behave
in certain certain ways. So it can all certain things,
but it's not a panacea, you know. And the other

(01:38:04):
two points I'll raise about SSI before maybe running through
it a little bit more is you don't have to
understand how it works to use it, and the same
way you can just turn on your smart TV. I mean,
who knows how a smart TV works? A very small
percentage of the population, but you can still use it.
And there are many companies already producing lovely products that
actually have to buy in the compete in the free

(01:38:25):
market with competitive products for a smooth user experience that
uses SSIDE technology under the Horden, you don't need to
know how that works. And much of this too, it's
not new technology, as I said, it's well established. It
relies on public private key encryption. If you've ever gone
to a bank website, the little padlock in your browser,
it's the same thing that you rely on. Now. A
lot of the mathematics behind it comes out of the seventies.

(01:38:46):
There's nothing new. It's very battle tested stuff. So what
SSI does is it better models how we treat identity
in the real world. So in real life we have
many identities, right, so when you go to the airport,
you're a traveler, and your identification is typically in the
form of a passport. You don't hand over a driver's

(01:39:07):
license or anything else as a kind of standard exch
exchange there. So you're a particular profile at the airport,
but when you come home, you might be mum or dad.
You know, that's how you identify. It an entirely separate
set of behaviors and expectations apply, And I mean this
is what we call a contextual situation. Identity is very contextual,

(01:39:29):
and in the real world that results in a sense
of safety. It feels safe that you can leave your
passport at home, for example, because you don't need it
in the context of what you're going to do today.
But on the internet, the identification on the Internet is
not contextual. So we still have many kind of identities,
but they bleed out into each other. So as I mentioned,

(01:39:50):
for your social media profiles, your phone number, your email account.
Even though we might choose what our email is, you know,
mad dog at hotmail dot com or whatever. Apologies if
that's a legitimate dre, I just made it up. Hotmail
is actually issuing that to you. Even though you can
kind of choose sometimes what it calls. You know, if
you don't pay your phone bill, your phone, your phone
provider will just terminate your service. And then you know,

(01:40:12):
any two factor aw for or anything else that you
use that as an identifying characteristic goes away because it
wasn't created by you. So if we don't have context
on the internet, so we don't feel safe, and that
bleeds into a lot of problems that are out of scope.
But effectively, what SSI does is it it applies a

(01:40:32):
general engineering concept and that's called the separation of concerns.
So what that means is any entity in an architecture
should do one thing. You know, it should have a
well established set of inputs and outputs. It does one thing,
and it does it well. And if there's a responsibility
for some other spinning cog in the system, that's done
by something else. But what's actually happening with the social

(01:40:53):
media companies and with all the accounts that we have online,
is these entities are actually doing more than one thing.
The issuing identifies, there issuing credentials, they're verifying, They're doing
lots of things. So what SSI does is break those
down into separate components and allows us to be very
granular with the information we share, and there's a bunch

(01:41:14):
of a bunch of kind of real world examples that
I go into into the book. But hopefully that wasn't
too techy or beyond the scope of everyone's one's interest.
But I make the case that SSI, along with a
more reputation focused change in our culture, has potentially remarkably
positive prospects for our future. We don't need these monolithic

(01:41:35):
systems one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
Look, I think as far as like you know, the
nuts and boards of SSI, I don't think we're going
to get into that now unless it really want to,
because it may go over people's head. But I guess
my question is more of like something from our layman's perspective,
like you know, why why do we need that? Why
can't we cut? Why do we need the digital idea
in the first place? Like why do we need it
at all? Why can't we give the system that we

(01:41:58):
have now we have logins, we two factor authentication, passwords,
starting a password manager, and like you know that and
that's it, Like why why do we even need this
new thing that, like you know, people need to learn
how to use, Like you know, what's the benefit compared
to what we have now.

Speaker 2 (01:42:14):
Yeah, well, first of all, there's not really much learning
to use because these things will be issued to the
public in very beautiful, consumer friendly ways, right, So there's
there's not much of a hurdle there. But effectively, as
I mentioned before, we need these sorts of things because
we've reached the end of the runway with the way
the internet currently works. The only way we've managed to
kind of limp along is by adopting this non contextual

(01:42:34):
approach that leads to all the problems that the opt
starter breaches. That that's all these sorts of the problems
that we're told that we need the government to centralize
everything for go away. Naturally, when when we look at
these sorts of technologies without the cost and risk of
these intermediaries, the centralized intermediary. So, and it allows a
more granular approach to how we reveal ourselves on the internet.

(01:42:59):
So I'll give you a brief example. You know, a
classic one is you know you have to show your
driver's license at a pub or a bottle shop to
prove your over eighteen. Well, this is already fairly inefficient
and leaks information in the real world you know, you'd
typically show your driver's license, which which has all sorts
of extra information about you that the person you're showing

(01:43:22):
the verifier then gets to see. But that's even worse
than the online case. There's all sorts of stuff that's
leaked about us. What SSI allows you to do is
prove to someone who's interested a verifyer that you just meet,
you meet some criteria without revealing the underlying information that
was used to determine that criteria. So in the bottle

(01:43:42):
shop case, what is actually being displayed on the driver's
license is someone's birthday, and from that they derive the
knowledge that you are over or under eighteen. So the
birth date is a sensitive piece of information that has
needed to be leaked to derive something else that's totally
removed with SSI. SSI can mathematically prove to a verifier.

(01:44:05):
And again it's beyond the scope of this discussion, but
there are real world examples I can kind of go
to if we need to to kind of show how
that works. That simply, it's the green tick that Bill
short and talked about it, except it to green tick
that relies on mathematics, not politicians. So it's much more attractive.
It just says you meet the criteria being over eighteen,
not how old you are, not what your birthday is.

(01:44:27):
Look at the educational space or the job space at
the moment. If you apply for a job, say you
know it might require a degree from something, you could
potentially reveal your diploma or your degree to that employer,
but again you've leaked kind of when you went that course,
what the issuing institution was. There's all sorts of other

(01:44:48):
stuff there. If you apply for a job that requires
a certain level of education in law, say, or whatever
the job is, you can hand over that green tick.
You can say yeah, I have a degree in law
without revealing what the institution was when it was obtained.
You know, this is now by negotiation between the applicant,

(01:45:08):
the job applicant, and the employer. So that may appear
on an app where an employer may send a request
to you to look at these certain granular characteristics. You know,
they may want to see what the issuing institution or
university was and when it was and you say, well,
I'll tell you who gave me the degree, but not
when I earned it. All of this is now at
your fingerprint at your fingertips, and you know that that's

(01:45:29):
the case again because the information was birthed on your device,
it's not being relayed by someone else. There are many
really exciting things that facilitate this. There's actually many sub
economies that come out of this that I touch on
in the book. But yeah, we are just to answer
you go back to your question. We are just destined

(01:45:50):
to see more of what's been happening. You know, we're
solving a problem with our global infrastructure by doing more
of what created the problems in the first place. And
we need to remove all that friction and personal risk
and SSI I make the cases a potential solution of that.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
Okay, yeah, no, these are actually really good examples. So
I guess, like you know, I can translate, like you know,
your examples to something that I guess we can relate
to what we discussed previously. So in the Australian context, obviously,
we have the under sixteen Social Media Band Right Bill
and the government is going to use that, like you know,
to push their digital idea like that my id scheme

(01:46:28):
to prove that, like you know, you're over over sixteen
in order to access social media. So one way potentially
ss I can defend that in a sense is that
we said, oh, well, there's actually a competing system that
is better, that is more privacy respecting that doesn't actually,
as you said, doesn't reveal the day date of birth,
but just tells that the provider that is now like

(01:46:48):
legally obligated starting from December to make sure that you're
over sixteen. It just gives them like a kind of
like a yes no answer. Is this person over sixteen?
Yes or no? And that's all they need to know.
They don't need to know your date of birth. Right.
So so you know, if people and and and this
is something that like you know, then you can say, okay,
well there's like instead of having to go with my

(01:47:09):
ID the government scheme, there's five different ways that you
can do that, and they can compete with each other,
like as far as like security and how easy to
use it is, and all of these will be acceptable,
right and and and if there are alternatives, I guess
it also creates a bit of a problem for the
government because they can't come and say, oh, look, you
can only use my ID right in order to prove

(01:47:31):
that you're over sixteen in order to access Facebook. Or
Instagram or whatever, because then it's monopolistic behavior by the government.
It's it's it's illegal, and there's like commercial interests that
are trying to compete with the government and they will
probably soup because they've invested money in, like you know,
creating and promoting their own system. So I like that angle.
I think I think this is definitely something that's worth
the considering, especially in the Australian context where like you know,

(01:47:52):
the legislative stope against the train has already left that stone,
so that the legislation is in place. The next step
is enforcement for the under sixteen are social media band
that that's going to be start to be enforced in December.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
Right, Yeah, Just to piggyback on what you said that,
it's there's one other benefit to this type of technology
as well. You get complete visibility over who's requesting your credentials,
So it actually flips the relationship that the centralized systems produced.
In the centralized case, it's the government that knows everywhere
that you've used your identification, it leads a digital trail.

(01:48:26):
But with SSI imagine, imagine you have a privately produced
app and it's like a Cryptocurrency Act, potentially you can
pick whichever one you want. You know, there might be
free ones, there might be it's completely open to you
because it's it's it's an open playing field. Imagine you,
you know, for argument's sake, you navigate this under sixteen
Social Media Ban using SSI hypothetically and you get a

(01:48:51):
pop up saying, you know, Twitter or ex Corp is
requesting dot dot dot dot approval deny, and you go, okay, well, yep,
I was just on there and that's me. But then
something else pops up saying.

Speaker 11 (01:49:04):
You know whatever, you know, gym's mowing or whatever it is,
is requesting dot dot dot and that has to come
to your app because again the identifyer was birthed under
your control and it's never left your device, And you go, what, no,
I so you.

Speaker 2 (01:49:19):
Have complete visibility over who's requesting what, which is just
not possible with current technology. So that's another level of comfort.

Speaker 1 (01:49:28):
Nice. Okay, so I guess the last point I want
to touch on it, and again we're not going to
get into the technical details. If people are interested in that,
I'll include some resources into show notes and maybe we'll
have a follow up conversation but I guess what thing
I want to kind of clarify, So the government my
ID system is clearly ready to go, like you can
sign up now, right the competition, I guess the SSI solution,

(01:49:52):
Like you know, if, like, if we were to present
that as a potential alternative instead of using my ID,
but there's actually nothing that people can sign up up
for now because everything is still in development, then we're
kind of back, like you know, square one. So you know,
if there is an argument to be made to the government. Okay, government,
you've already legislated that you want to prove that everyone

(01:50:12):
is obviously sixteen. That's fine, But there are alternatives to
using your like you know, your proposed solution, which is
my idea. Do we have something that people can sign
up for now or we'll be ready to go by
December in Australia.

Speaker 2 (01:50:25):
So we have to be careful here of putting the
cart before the horse. So I know there's a tendency
to go. We just want to download the alternative app, right,
let's get gone with that. That's not the case because
as I mentioned before, it needs to go hand in
hand with the fundamental cultural change as well. An app
alone or any sort of you know, technological system won't
change things. We first, we first need to develop that

(01:50:48):
same awareness, that same cultural pushback that I mentioned, you
know in the Australia. That comes first downstream from that
is a private market recognition that there's a target market here,
and then release the dogs of the private market right
because then they'll be profit to be made in that
and providing the best solutions. And so let no, it's

(01:51:09):
not the case that something's ready to go now because
the public hasn't voiced that this is an important issue
yet to the extent that's why. So so yes, I'm
fairly confident something like that will come, but that I
didn't get into some of the details, some of the
other details there that possibly irrelevant. But the mass scale
this is important to us over my dead body type

(01:51:29):
thing needs to snowball. And these things are not linear
too for those who are losing hope and I know
decembers around the corner and no one really knows yet
what's going to happen or what sort of cheat codes
there are and that system. But these things can be exponential,
and again we saw that in the Australia case after
the double disillusion election is when everyone lost their hair,

(01:51:51):
you know, so it can feel like all is lost
until the eleventh hour, and I potentially see that's where
this is going to go, especially when we start to
see some of the inevitable abuses that come from people
who have an aggregation of power that's typical from these
massive identification systems. Anyone interested in this sort of stuff,

(01:52:12):
I've got information on my blog on my website and
including a panel discussion that I was on with a
private company that's building SSI based not only architectures and products,
but ecosystems that involve that financially incentivize private business to
adopt SSI. So back to your previous point about large
institutions and banks will jump at the savings that can

(01:52:35):
be had. Absolutely, that's actually been research, and the CEO
of this particular company goes into some of the detail
of the research that he's done for his company on
that he confirms effectively what you said, Michael. He said
the banks and others of a sufficient size will jump
at this because they don't want to handle identifying information,
but they have to be it has to be commercially viable.

(01:52:56):
So there's a layer of economic incentse is that are
being built upon SSI technology that marry with the required
social and cultural change. It's really a fundamental evolution of
our society. We're talking about. Technology can only do certain
things in alignment with where we want to go as
a people. You know. So, yeah, it's a lot of

(01:53:18):
spinning plates there, but I still have a lot of
reason to be confident.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
Okay, No, that's actually very very valuable. Definitely send it
to a I'll included in the show notes. But I
guess one thing that maybe, like you know, I'm kind
of thinking, Okay, what takeaway, like practical takeaway we can
leave people with, especially in Australia, especially in a very
specific situation that we have here, which is legislation has
already been passed. Deadline for enforcement is I think it's tentative,

(01:53:47):
but it's probably going to start in December. The election
has already happened, the government that pushed that through has
been re elected. Right, So it's kind of very very
doom and gloom. But I guess my take away from
what you just said, and correct me if I'm wrong.
What I'm thinking is, Okay, one viable thing that, like
you know, people can do right now. Specifically in the
case of the social media band like under sixteen year

(01:54:08):
old right and the age assurance, a verification that will
be required in some way or form. Right. People can
push back in the sense they're gonna say, Okay, that's fine,
We're happy to do that, but my idea cannot be
the only option. We want other options, So you cannot
do that. You cannot say, okay, my idea is the
only option now all of a sudden and again, correct

(01:54:30):
me if I'm wrong. I mean, that's what twenty seven
million people right. That creates a massive demand right to
a commercial entity, right to put at least an MVP,
like a minimum viable product between now and December that
at least can serve just this specific function of verifying

(01:54:50):
is this person of a sixteen year old yes or no?
Like literally a one or zero answer? Okay? That is
something that literally just the bare bones. Other functionality can
be added on later. But if there's a demand for
that and people say, look, we want that, and there's
significant pressure, like you know, from your position or from
like you know, our minor parties or whatever, saying okay, well,
look fine, do you legislated that that's fine, but at

(01:55:11):
least give people options. The government cannot have monopoly on
that right. That is a potential thing that in the
context of the social media band build, which is legislated
and going to be enforced between now in December, this
is potentially a change that we can kind of have happened.
I mean, I don't know, what do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:55:30):
I love that. It's clear why you have adopted the
term actionable truth. It's got to be actionable. So just
to riff on that a few points on that, there
are a lot of spinning plates and they're already there's
already in the public domain, a bunch of you know,
proposals as best as they can be given the fact

(01:55:50):
that we don't know the implementation details yet about potential
ways around that. You know, the go to one is
using a VPN and what effect that that might have
for example. But I'm going to go a little bit
of a different path here. I think a few important
takeaways from here are very simple, and one of them
is mental preparation. So we've got a fight ahead of us.

(01:56:13):
We need to condition ourselves to the fact that the
ease of use and access of the Internet in Australia
that we've come to know and love is to some
extent coming to an end. It may blossom again in
wonderful ways that exceed its usage today. But we need
to prepare for difficulty. And if you're willing, if your cost,
you know, we talked about the two hundred and fifty

(01:56:33):
dollars WA government payment. If your cost is not being
able to scroll Instagram for a few months or whatever
that looks like, then you know, then you kind of
get what you pay for. I suppose you need to
come right with the idea that there's some difficult times ahead,
that it will be inconvenient to stand up against these systems,

(01:56:56):
the kind of resistance that self sovereignty demands. There is
potentially knocking at our door right and some mental preparation
is very important. My upcoming article in the paper I
mentioned in the Light Australia goes into this a little
bit more. Also, we need to be aware that we
don't have a fully fleshed out solution here. It's just

(01:57:16):
not know how these things work. We don't know how
all these spinning plates will land. And I've got a
good example of the example of why that shouldn't stop
us from trying back in the day when there was
human slavery that was economically relied upon for agricultural harvesting,
for example, you know, and society got to a point

(01:57:36):
where there was some recognition that slavery is morally wrong,
but we can't really do anything. We can't take on
emancipation because the economy would crash. Right, So that doesn't matter.
If you come up up against a moral point, it's
your obligation to act on that moral point, even though
you don't have a fully fleshed out alternative. Now, it
turns out that liberating human labor, particularly servitude, from the

(01:58:01):
corn fields, prompted the free market to ultimately produce these
amazing machines that run on you know, liquefied dinosaur bones
or whatever, that harvest the fields far more efficiently that
humans could. But no one knew that at the time,
you know, when people were in chains harvesting fields. No
one could have imagined that there would be tractors going
around harvesting. But that only came around because we said,

(01:58:22):
we don't know what the solution is, but we know
what the path we're going down is wrong. And I
would apply that same thinking to where we're at now.
You know, we don't necessarily know what technologies will liberate
us from this, and we don't have to know. We
just need to reject what's coming down the pipe. And
as you said before, signal to private business, Hey there's
a market here, and see what unfolds. So that's a

(01:58:45):
bit of an unconventional take on what we could do.
I think there's a bit of mental readiness that we
need to do. We need to accept the fact that
not having a fully fleshed out solution is perfectly normal
and we should proceed anyway with our resistance. And lastly,
I think we can all play a small part or
a major part in starting to nudge that you know,

(01:59:06):
horse before the cut approach of the cultural change that
all of this is predicated upon. And I make a
case for this and my writing and articles as well.
We need to make identification taboot. We need to ostracize
those who demand it trivially, and that can be in
every little interaction you have, from requesting you know, do
you want you want an emailed receipt with that at

(01:59:28):
Bunnings or whatever it does, and every little interaction, you know,
we need to make people feel embarrassed and awkward for
asking any identification related questions. And that's the rubber meat
the road thing where these enforcement institutions, whether they be
state based or private, we'll just it will be a
degree of self policing placed upon social self policing that's

(01:59:48):
imposed upon those who will ultimately be at the helm
of enforcing this on the road. So it's time to
start making people who are playing with fire here uncomfortable.
Identification is off limits in the same way you don't
ask a later if she's pregnant unless you're sure, or
comment on a lady's weight gain these sorts of things.
You know, there are taboo things in our society and identification,
particularly for bureaucratic reasons, needs to fall well within those goalposts.

(02:00:11):
And we can start doing that today.

Speaker 1 (02:00:13):
You're here, No, I agree with that, and I think
I would add to that, like, you know, we need
to signore that not just to businesses, but signal that
to the government. Why why why do I need to
do that? Like I haven't done anything wrong? Why do
you need who we need to ask?

Speaker 2 (02:00:26):
Who we need to ask? As I mentioned one of
those quotes before, how it's UnAustralian to ask, you know,
at the demand of a bureaucrat or a police officer.
Because at the end of the day, all these people
have their own homes and mortgages, and they have families.
They're raising children who will live under these systems that
post such an existential threat make them uncomfortable. I would
go as far as saying and tell it's our moral

(02:00:47):
obligation as a national service to start making people feel
uncomfortable about this, because societies are defined by that which
they will not tolerate. So Tucker Carlson line and I
just think it's so appropriate.

Speaker 1 (02:00:58):
Yeah, look, I think, yeah, that's definitely something that I
think the conversation in Australia need to switch, and people
need to be a bit less less passive in the
sense that, like you know, governments can get away with anything.
So I mean it applies to healthy it applies to like,
you know, digital life, it applies to really any aspect.
So I'm fully on board with you on that. I think, Look,
I think this is a good place to end the conversation.

(02:01:20):
But before we do that, I just want to see
if people want to, like you know, have any questions
or anything that they want us to discuss given we
are alive just before we wrap this up. So we're
just going to check now through all this so that
our live streaming page and substeck and rumble and see
people have any questions. So if you do have any
questions that you want us discuss live, this is your

(02:01:41):
chance to do so now. So I'm just going to
give that a minute or two to see people have
any questions, and if not that we are going to
end that on this Let mes see. Okay, nothing here
and and nothing here, all right. People people are saying

(02:02:04):
that this was a great presentation, so yeah, I appreciate that. Right.
This is the last last chance for action for questions,
basically asking now or forever hold your piece, so I
don't want to keep all any longer, all right, So
one final check. No, I think we're good. That's fine.

(02:02:26):
I think we're good. So we're gonna end it on
this note. Call, I really really appreciate you coming on.
I'm going to send out the recording shortly after like
so once we're done here and uh, including the show notes,
all the links that you mentioned obviously to your book,
to some of the conversations that you mentioned around SSI
to the to the to the articles that you've already

(02:02:47):
written in UH in the Light Australia, so people can
check that out as well as your website. I'm just
going to put that, UH people can know where to
find you. And yeah, I think we can. We can
end it on that note. I appreciate you coming on
and I look forward to treading again.

Speaker 2 (02:03:07):
Yeah, my pleasure, Michael, and really appreciate your time and
your tenacity on this important topic. I can really see
your passion and it's great to share the fight with you.
You know, there are moments in history where people have
the lesser nobility, so to speak, called upon to perform
feats are the greater purpose. And I just feel like
that relates to us all right right now. And we've

(02:03:29):
been so divided as a nation and as a people
over the last years, and I think.

Speaker 1 (02:03:33):
This is absolute nonsense, Aboufortunately.

Speaker 2 (02:03:36):
There's silver lining of this, as we saw in the
Australia card cases. This is an opportunity for us to unite.
This affects all of us. You know, let's let's let's
actually rally around something positive and you know, give the
next generation something like what we inherited. So yeah, I've
got all the time in the world for conversations like this.
I really appreciate your time and putting it all together.

Speaker 1 (02:03:58):
Thanks for coming on, Paul, and it'slling dude's pleasure.