6 Minute English – Cloud of suspicion

Dec 042014

Rob and Finn talk about the security of pictures, documents and videos people store online. Several celebrities have recently found that nude pictures they kept for themselves on icloud have become available in sites around the internet, and the FBI is now investigating the case. Do you store personal items online? Are you sure that these can only be seen by the people you want to see them?

_______Show Transcript______

Rob
Hello I’m Rob. Welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m joined today by Finn.

Finn
Hello.

Rob
Now, Finn, could you give us a smile, please?

Finn
Oh, OK, hang on…

Rob
Say cheese!

Finn
Oh, are you going to take a picture of me with that smartphone? Hang on; just let me comb my hair a bit.

Rob
Finn, Finn, Finn, you look fine. Don’t worry about it.

Finn
This isn’t quite right. I just want to… have you got a mirror?

Rob
No I haven’t. Just hold it there, OK? Hold it there (he takes a picture). Nice.

Finn
OK, let’s have a look.

Rob
Right. I’m gonna save that now… OK, that’s it: it’s gone to the cloud!

Finn
Really?

Rob
Yes. we’ll be able to look at that later on my laptop.

Finn
Ah, the cloud! You don’t mean the one in the sky, of course.

Rob
No.

Finn
You mean the huge computers where companies like Apple, Facebook and Google store their users’ pictures, videos and documents. You know, I’m a little suspicious about the cloud.

Rob
Are you?

Finn
Well, I just don’t want lots of people looking at that picture. Mainly because my hair doesn’t look quite right.

Rob
You’re so vain. Gosh! It’s too late now. But you look fine so you can share it with the world.

Finn
OK.

Rob
Think about those poor celebrities who’ve had their nude pictures leaked online.

Finn
Leaked – now this refers to pictures that were being kept hidden being made available to the public. They were leaked to the public. Actress Jennifer Lawrence, who starred in the Hunger Games movies, was one as was the singer Rhianna.

Rob
This incident has made people discuss the issue of privacy on the internet. Privacy means being free from public attention. And in this programme you’ll hear useful words for giving your opinion on this subject.

Finn
Yes. The celebrities were very angry.

Rob
They thought they could keep their pictures private because they were in the cloud protected by a password – a word or sequence of numbers that only they knew and which is required for them to gain access to what is stored in their name.

Finn
The US federal police – that’s the FBI – have been investigating this to find the hackers involved. Hackers are people who understand a lot about computers and use flaws – or little problems – in the software to gain access to a computer file, or network, illegally.

Rob
Today we have passwords for everything. And we have so many devices – like smartphones and laptops and computers – so I’m going to ask you a question about smartphones.

Finn
OK. Very good.

Rob
According to research, how many people had mobile phones in 2013? Was it:

a) 1.4 million people

b) 14 million people

c) 1.4 billion people

Finn
Across the whole world?

Rob
Yup.

Finn
I think this is got to be: c) 1.4 billion people.

Rob
Well, you’ll get the correct answer at the end of the programme. Right. Let’s talk more about privacy online. People are more and more concerned about it. Listen to the advice internet expert Oliver Crofton gives us. Which word does he use to describe how you have to be when putting things into the cloud?

INSERT
Oliver Crofton, expert on the internet
I think ultimately it’s about being slightly savvy on what you put into the cloud. If you have a private or sensitive photograph, or a contract or some sort of document that has public interest and that people will want to try and get, just think twice about putting it into an environment such as a Cloud, of which you don’t really have any control over.

Finn
He says people have to be ‘savvy’ – now, that means well-informed and quite shrewd, you know, thinking carefully about things. He advises us to be very careful before putting documents and pictures onto these websites owned by big corporations.

Rob
Yes, because he says we don’t have any control over their computers – you don’t know how secure your documents are.

Finn
Yeah, you know Rob, I can see why people are suspicious of these things.

Rob
Well, let’s see what the BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones has to say. Rory explains howsome cloud companies are offering to make the cloud more secure. Which word does he use to describe this kind of security process and it also means ‘identification of the user’?

INSERT
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent
Many cloud companies now offer an added layer of security called ‘two-factor authentication‘, where users have to enter a code sent to their mobile phone as well as a password to get into their accounts.

Finn
OK, the word was ‘authentication’ – now, that’s confirmation that someone is who they say they are. And the company actually uses two steps to do this.

Rob
Yes. After you try to access your account, they send a code – probably a series of numbers – to your mobile phone, so it’s an extra bit of information that only you know.

Finn
We really all should be very careful about how we protect our computers, and our tablets and our smartphones, things like that.

Rob
Talking about smartphones, let’s go back to my question.

Finn
OK.

Rob
I asked you how many people had mobile phones in 2013. Was it: 1.4 million people, 14 million people, or 1.4 billion people?

Finn
And I said 1.4 billion – the big one.

Rob
And you are correct!

Finn
OK!

Rob
Yes, by the end of 2013, about 1.4 billion people owned and used smartphones and by the end of 2014 this number will increase by 25% – this is according to the research company eMarketer.

Finn
Wow! What a lot of phones, Rob!

Rob
Indeed. Well, our time is up so let’s remember some of the words we’ve explained today.

Finn
They were:

cloud

leak

privacy

password

hackers

savvy

authentication

Rob
That’s it for today. Do log on to bbclearningenglish.com – there’s no password – to find more 6 Minute English.

Rob
Bye for now!

Finn
Bye.

Vocabulary and definitions

cloud – huge computers where companies like Apple, Facebook and Google store their users’ pictures, videos and documents
leaked – passed on to the public in spite of being secret
privacy – free from public attention
password – a word or sequence of numbers that only the owner knows and which is required for them to gain access to what is stored in their name
hackers – people who understand a lot about computers and use flaws in software to gain access to a computer file or network illegally
savvy – well-informed and shrewd
authentication – confirmation that something or someone is what or who they say they are