Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World Page #8

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95% of the work, when I used

to do this in the past,

is research and finding out about

the human element and gathering information

and emails and their personal

emails and the conference

that they were just at

and who spoke before them

and that person's email address

so I can send that person

a rigged PDF attachment

that may look perfectly normal and forge it

because I just spoke with

this guy so I'm gonna open it.

And nothing happens on my computer but in

the background a little Trojan is dropped

that starts communicating

that allows me access

and then I, you know,

gather more information.

I grab his contact book,

I find the people that know the information

that I'm interested in exploiting,

and then I send an email from him

with the same type of attachment

and eventually I have what I want.

People are the weakest link in security.

People. Not the technology.

Now through this special

TV offer you can receive

a Motorola flip phone with Cellular

One service for just pennies a day.

Now everyone can enjoy the freedom

of a personal cellular phone.

You can make a call anywhere...

Or get a call anytime.

So I'm living in Denver, Colorado,

incidentally I'm not living

under the name Kevin Mitnick,

I'm under the name of Eric Weiss.

Why Eric Weiss?

Because at the time I

was a federal fugitive

I was hiding from the FBI

and my idol was Harry Houdini

and that's Harry Houdini's real name,

so I thought I had a sense of humor.

So I call directory assistance,

I get the number to Motorola.

I'm now talking to the Vice President

for Research and Development

for all of Motorola Mobility

and I go "Hey, this is Rick over

at Arlington Heights"

because I found out they had

an Arlington Heights facility.

"I'm looking for the project manager

of the MicroTAC".

And the VP goes "Oh, that's Pam.

She works for me,

would you like her extension?"

I go "Sure, give it to me",

and he gives me the extension.

So my next call is to Pam

but I don't get her,

I get her outgoing greeting

on her voicemail and she told her callers

that she just left on a two week vacation,

the date she's returning, and if

you need any help whatsoever

please call Alicia

at extension blah, blah, blah.

So of course my next call is to Alicia

and she answers the phone

and I go "Hey, Alicia,

this is Rick over at Arlington Heights.

Did Pam leave on vacation yet?"

Of course, I already knew she had.

And she goes "Yes" and I go

"Well, before she left,

she said that you could help me get a copy

of the MicroTAC source code.

She said you would help me out".

About five minutes later she

goes "I found the source code".

You know, she gave me the release number

and she goes "but there's a problem.

Rick, I'm gonna have to talk

to my security manager

about what you're asking me

to do. I'll be right back".

And I go "No, wait, wait!"

'cause I didn't want her to talk

to any security manager

because obviously they'd

figure out what's going on.

About eight minutes later

she comes back on the line.

I'm nervous, thinking they

hooked up a tape recorder

and that's gonna be Exhibit A

in the court case later.

And she goes "Rick?" And I go "uh-huh?"

and she goes "That IP address

you gave me to do the file transfer

is not inside Motorola's campus,

it's outside,

and because of that I

can't transfer the file

because we need to use

a special proxy server to do so

and I don't have an account".

And I go "Uh-huh", you know and I just go

"Alright, thank you very much" and she goes

"Wait, wait, I have some great news for you".

I go "what?"

She goes "My security manager gave me

his personal user name and password

so I could log onto the proxy

server to send you the file!"

Motorola had a bunch of

security, technical security,

but it only took me 15 minutes

with a good gift of gab

to get the crown jewels.

So that's how that worked.

But you didn't sell it. It was curiosity.

- No.

- It was a sport.

Trophy.

This is Taurus, the

concept that has evolved

from the work of these teams

of scientists and engineers.

They believe the huge space colony

could be built before the year 2000.

Constructed almost entirely

from ore mined on the moon,

the Taurus colony would become

home for 10,000 people.

Ideas of creating colonies

outside of planet Earth

have been around for a long time.

The problem of water,

air and shelter looks already solved.

In fact, nothing looks inviting out there.

There is a private company, SpaceX,

which is pursuing this idea

in practical terms.

Here rockets are being

assembled for the transport.

The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk,

is not just a dreamer.

He made his fortune with PayPal,

he's building Tesla electric cars,

and is now constructing

the largest factory

for batteries on this planet.

After setbacks,

he's now successfully launching rockets.

For the first time in the history

of Earth, in 4.5 billion years,

the window of possibility is open for us

to extend life to another planet.

To the best of our knowledge life

exists only on Earth.

You know, there's a good argument

that it exists elsewhere

but we've seen no sign of it.

I think it's important

for us to take advantage

of that window while it is open

and to establish life

on another planet in the solar system

just in case something

goes wrong with Earth.

Um...

And, uh...

You know, there could be either

a natural or manmade disaster

that knocks the technology level

below that where it's possible

to travel to another planet.

The key to establishing

a self-sustained large civilization

is getting the cost-per-unit-mass

low enough that there's

an intersection of sets:

the set of people that wish to move to Mars

and the set of people that can afford to

move to Mars inclusive of government aid.

I mean, right now we can't

even get one person to Mars.

- So, clearly...

- I would come along.

I wouldn't have a problem.

- One way ticket.

- That sounds great.

- I'd be your candidate.

- Okay.

I do think we'll want to...

offer round trips because

a lot more people would be willing to go

if they think that if they don't like it,

they can come back.

But how would we talk to them

who chose to stay?

Who would tell them the

outcome of the World Series?

Mars is actually a comparatively easy

internet thing to establish,

at least for local internet because

you wouldn't be living everywhere on Mars

so you'd really just need

maybe four satellites

to have global internet coverage

because of how sparse

the civilization would be on Mars.

And then some relay

satellites to get back to Earth.

Particularly when Mars

is on the other side of the sun,

you'd need to sort of bounce it

off a relay satellite,

you couldn't communicate directly with it.

The skyline of Chicago.

It looks devoid of its inhabitants.

We have to assume that nearly everyone

has left for a colony out there.

Are you lonesome tonight?

Do you miss me tonight?

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