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217: Would you cuddle this revolting robot? - with Robert Llewellyn

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March 3, 2021
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Actor, presenter and writer Robert Llewellyn, famous for playing the part of Kryten in the science-fiction comedy "Red Dwarf," joins us as we discuss robots gone rogue, electric vehicle nightmares, and creepy companions.

All this and much much more can be found in the latest edition of the "Smashing Security" podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by Robert Llewellyn - famous for "Fully Charged," "Scrapheap Challenge," and as Kryten on "Red Dwarf."

Visit https://www.smashingsecurity.com/217 to check out this episode’s show notes and episode links.

Follow the show on Twitter at @SmashinSecurity, or on the Smashing Security subreddit, or visit our website for more episodes.

Remember: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or your favourite podcast app, to catch all of the episodes as they go live. Thanks for listening!

Warning: This podcast may contain nuts, adult themes, and rude language.

Theme tune: "Vinyl Memories" by Mikael Manvelyan.

Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.

Special Guest: Robert Llewellyn.

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This transcript was generated automatically, and has not been manually verified. It may contain errors and omissions. In particular, speaker labels, proper nouns, and attributions may be incorrect. Treat it as a helpful guide rather than a verbatim record — for the real thing, give the episode a listen.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Anyone could come up with a multiplicity of scenarios of utter damnation, horror, end of the world nightmare. There's a child running across the road and there's an old lady walking the other way. She's old, should you save the child? Ah yeah, but the old lady is pushing a pram with a baby in it. And then on the other side of the road there's a man who's carrying a huge box of explosives that will wipe out an entire town if you hit him. You know, like, just calm down, love.

ROBOT. Smashing Security, Episode 217: Would You Cuddle This Revolting Robot?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. With Carole Theriault and Graham Cluley.

ROBOT. Hello, hello, and welcome to Smashing Security, Episode 217. My name's Graham Cluley.

CAROLE THERIAULT. And I'm Carole Theriault.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And Carole, we are joined this week by a very special guest, someone who hasn't been on the show before.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Very exciting.

GRAHAM CLULEY. A bit of a polymath, a bit of a man who's done everything. He's made crazy inventions on scrap heaps. He's dressed up as a robot.

CAROLE THERIAULT. He's had H's on his forehead, made it sexy.

GRAHAM CLULEY. No, no, he didn't have the H. That was Chris Barry who wore the H. Oh no! It's a different guy. And he runs Fully Charged, all about EV vehicles. You know he plays Crichton. Okay, it's Robert Llewellyn. Hello, Robert.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Hello.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I'm very, very flattered that you thought I was the fabulously handsome Chris Barry with an H on his forehead. But I'm the slightly ugly, square-headed machine that looks like a badly chewed rubber tip pencil.

CAROLE THERIAULT. It was a bad joke. I was hoping Graham would give me much more shit for not doing any research, but he didn't. He actually carried me along quite sweetly.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah, no, that's very kind of you. And also, I think there's two corrections I need to make. One is I didn't make anything on Scrappy. I watched—

GRAHAM CLULEY. You oversold.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I watched talented— but yeah, I watched very talented people make amazing things.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I loved that show.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. No, it was great fun.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I did watch Windroar for a bit, but Scrappy Challenge I thought was just—

GRAHAM CLULEY. My son has been addicted to it under lockdown. We've been watching it on All 4, going through the different seasons.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Isn't it amazing that that's possible? Yes. Yeah. Do you get any residuals?

GRAHAM CLULEY. Residuals from that?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I do not get any residuals. It was— it was— I could tell you the bitter, vicious story of it, but it's too boring. But yeah, no, you're back in those days, you've got a buyout and they gave you like £112. Oh, is that for per episode? No, that's for the entire series, every single one you've ever made, you know. Oh, thank you for that, that's great.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I'll go to Starbucks.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah, I'll go to Starbucks and buy a really big cake.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, hopefully things are working out better for you now with— well, Red Dwarf gets revived every now and then, doesn't it? Red Dwarf, we still make it.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I mean, we've There's a, there's a Red Dwarf on the cards. I mean, I can say that now because there's absolutely no— there's no contract signed, there's nothing, but we've all agreed to do it. There is a script, they, they want to make it. So I mean, whether, you know— but this is always the way with Red Dwarf. My wife, who's put up with Red Dwarf for the last 32 years, she goes, oh, you've always said that you're going to be doing it. I said, yeah, but we always have done it. Yeah, but not for years, and I have to hear about it.

CAROLE THERIAULT. She watched every show, or no?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. No. No. She has been in one. She played the mechanoid Camille in one episode. And she was very good in it. Yeah, that was a long time ago.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I can't remember that one. Did you get it on? Did you plug your USB ports together or anything like that?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. We actually, because we'd been together quite a few years, it wasn't a fresh rope. We didn't meet on the set. Right, no, no, no. That would have been quite weird. But we did try snogging with rubber heads on, and it's just not right. It just wasn't good. It didn't work. Nothing, there was nothing there.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And of course, these days you're very much the power behind Fully Charged, which is a YouTube channel. And I don't know what else, but it's all about EV vehicles. I've just bought an EV vehicle in the last couple of months.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I just want to correct you on that because what you're actually saying then is electric vehicle vehicle, because an EV is an electric vehicle.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, yes.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh, goodness. Sorry to be so picky.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It's like saying PIN number, isn't it?

CAROLE THERIAULT. We all need to get an education.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Personal identification PIN number. Yes, that's the sort of thing I'd say all the time. No, but yes, it is. It is not just about electric vehicles. It's about really the energy transition that the world is going through, which is really fascinating and a huge topic. And it is an enormous change, an enormous challenge. And it's not plain sailing. And there isn't one simple answer. But there's a lot going on. It's quite baffling and dizzying.

CAROLE THERIAULT. So first, let's thank this week's sponsor, 1Password. Its support helps us give you this show for free. So coming up on today's show are robots special. Graham, what do you have?

GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, I'm going to be talking about drunken robots on the rampage.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay, scary story. Robert, what are you covering today?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. The hidden cyber risks in electric vehicles.

CAROLE THERIAULT. And I'm heading to Japan to check out the new robots that are there to help us deal with things like loneliness. All this and much more coming up on this episode of Smashing Security.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Now, chums, chums, do you remember being been a student? Do you remember those crazy wild times?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, it wasn't like not that long ago for me.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I just point out that I knew students, I met them, but I never was one. But I know the— I get the basic theory of what studenting is.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh yeah, good, good. I tend to think that if you remember being a student, you probably weren't doing it properly because students— the students who used to be around me were largely drunk. You know, they weren't really necessarily composimentous all the time. Sharing house with drunken students, it was crazy. They would come home after a night on the tiles, crashing into furniture, reeling around, making a mess of the place, peeing in the sink.

CAROLE THERIAULT. You were hiding in the cupboard.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, very delicate little flower that I am. Yeah. Well, drunkenness, it turns out, we found out this week, is not limited to students because robots can be drunk as well.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh God, this is tenuous. This is gonna be tenuous, isn't it?

GRAHAM CLULEY. No, no, no, no.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I can tell. No, no, I'm ready, I'm ready. I'm ready.

GRAHAM CLULEY. You played Kryten for many years, as you've just said, maybe up to 30 years or so.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yes.

GRAHAM CLULEY. In Red Dwarf, Robert. I can't remember, does Kryten have some sort of vacuum or sucking capability at all? Is there an attachment on Kryten?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. He does. I mean, it depends what series you watch. 'Cause there's some bad— He's had various groin attachments. He can carry various stuff. He has an exhaust fan in an area, a sort of exhaust port. So it's got a grill there. He generates some heat, rear end. So that's a slightly alarming thing. But yeah, I don't know about that. But he has been drunk in one episode. He got very drunk. And I can't remember now. I cannot remember because that was recorded in 1989, probably before some of your listeners were born. So I cannot now recall what made him drunk, but he did get very drunk.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm not thinking of Crichton so much at the moment. I'm thinking more of the Roomba vacuum cleaners, the robot vacuum cleaners made by that company iRobot.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Have they been guzzling the beer in the fridge?

GRAHAM CLULEY. No, they haven't been breaking into the fridge as far as I know. Although, you know, there are obviously IoT-enabled fridges, which maybe could be subverted. No, instead, as I remember, the iRobot movie, wasn't it a Philip K. Dick story originally?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I can't remember. Yeah, it's based on a Philip K. Dick. I think so, yeah.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I think so.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Asimov story, wasn't it?

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, one of those, one of those.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. Guys.

GRAHAM CLULEY. But it was— Have we just been outspotted by you, Carole? Is that what you've just pointed out? Yes!

CAROLE THERIAULT. I'm looking it up to make sure I'm not lying or misremembering.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Anyway, it just seemed strange.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yes, I'm right.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So I remember the movie where I'm pretty sure the robots go evil. So I wouldn't necessarily want the evil company making the Roomba vacuum cleaners, but they have just pushed out a firmware update to Roomba vacuum cleaners.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Right.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Firmware update version 3.12.8. And it is causing some problems for users of the i7 and S9 Roomba vacuum cleaners.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay, can we back up first? How would one normally do a firmware update on these things?

GRAHAM CLULEY. Ah, well, yes, exactly. It's interesting. I haven't told you this yet, but I have just in the last week or so bought myself a robot vacuum cleaner. I know.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I can't believe you. You know what I'm going to say, aren't you? So Graham's moved to this flat where he's got like hardwood floors. I said, why don't you get yourself a Roomba? He goes, Carole, that's a ridiculous thing to do. I need the exercise. Why wouldn't I vacuum? Of course I'm going to vacuum.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I can handle this stuff. Classic. Yeah. Classic.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It turned out sweeping just wasn't doing the job. So I have invested a few shekels in— now I haven't got a Roomba. I've got another type of robot vacuum cleaner, which is cheaper, but it has the benefit that it's uploading my floor plans to some server based in China. So they know all their way around my house now.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So, but anyway, this update, which has come out for the Roomba, has caused their vacuum cleaners to spin around, bump into furniture. They're cleaning in strange patterns. People are complaining on the forums. They're getting stuck in the middle of the floor. They aren't able either to make it home to their charger, because what they do is they normally vacuum and they're quite good these days compared to 20 years ago. They do their vacuuming and then they return home to recharge and sometimes to empty themselves as well.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Poop.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And this update has caused them to reel around people's homes as though they were drunk, as though they've taken acid.

CAROLE THERIAULT. You know, you're a little bit speciesist, I think, if I can call a robot a species. There is a pandemic going on. Of course the Roomba's suffering as well. It's probably been asked to vacuum way more. There's people in the house everywhere. It's stressed out.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It's probably got a mask on, so it's not quite sure where it is. Exactly!

CAROLE THERIAULT. Could be that.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Roombas have been under lockdown throughout. They're used to staying at home, Carole. They don't go down the road.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah, they should be used to it.

CAROLE THERIAULT. You're not used to the entire family making mess constantly.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. That is a point, actually. There's going to be a lot more density of mess in the house, 'cause people are in it all the time.

CAROLE THERIAULT. It's probably complaining to its other Roomba buddies, like, "I used to empty once a week. It's now daily!" Yeah.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I'm desperately trying not to constantly harp on about damn electric cars. I don't want to talk about them, but— The Tesla does update over the air and it can do it, and it usually does it at night. So you get in the morning and it goes, oh, you have new software available. And you kind of look at it and it's all marvelous. And 99% of the time it's been amazing. You just go, oh my God, that's better. Oh, they moved that, that works now. I can see where that is, all that stuff. But there was an update for their maps. They use Google Maps in Teslas and it works very well, but they updated them. And there were jokes going around because, The joke was that you put a destination and it would work out your route. It just went ridiculous. It wasn't like slightly off or, well, I could go a quicker way. No, it went completely barking mad. It went all over the place. So there's a road near me called the Fosse Way. It's Roman. It's been there a long time. Guess what? It's dead straight. And I was going from the north part of that dead straight road to the south part of that dead straight road. There's no bends in it. It just goes straight. And yet it was making me turn off and go through obscure villages and down narrow lanes and valleys. I mean, if I didn't know where I was, I would have done this ridiculous journey, would have added 60 miles to it for no reason. And one bright spark in California said, the software is now trying to write Elon in all the routes you take. That's what it was struggling to do. Because it was so bad. They did another update. But I mean, that just shows that updates can go horribly, horribly wrong. They can go wrong.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And in the case of these robot vacuum cleaners, Carole, to answer your question, the firmware updates happen automatically, rather like with Robert's Tesla.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah.

GRAHAM CLULEY. They're pushed out, so there's no interaction from the user.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I think the Roomba owners should feel lucky. I mean, they could've turned into satanic Roombas instead of drunken ones. You know, like you could've woken up with one on your chest, trying to bash in your face or something.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Wow, that'd be bad.

GRAHAM CLULEY. That's scary.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Scary.

GRAHAM CLULEY. That would be bad. Well, now—

CAROLE THERIAULT. It's spewing, it's emptying its contents on your face.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, that would— You could pay good money for that.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Stop! I'm not gonna say— I'm not rising to the bait.

CAROLE THERIAULT. My job is to push.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So there are Roombas now— Sorry. —who've been updated. And they think they found additional rooms. So they're getting confused with their maps, right? So they're thinking they found a room in your backyard or across the street. So they are actually trying to get out the front door in some cases. So it's possible they might trundle out there and go down that Roman road you've got near you, Robert. So there's some problems. Homes have been left uncleaned. They're not making it back to their bases to recharge, and some are just barely working at all. There's one guy up on Reddit, and I'll put up a link on the show notes, who's created a time-lapse video of his Roomba stumbling about, careering aimlessly around his floor for about 15 minutes before eventually just giving up, a little bit like a woodlouse. He filmed it for 15 minutes? Yes, but he sped it up for the benefit of us.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Was he holding his phone the whole time?

GRAHAM CLULEY. So it's not that exhausting, Carole. I don't know what your fitness regime is like, but it's not that hard to do. So what can you do about this? You're wondering, what can you do about this if you, if you are suffering? Learn to vacuum like a normal person. Yeah. Well, what you could do is you could lodge a support ticket with iRobot, the makers of the Roomba. Right. And you can ask them to roll back the update and they will then tell you that they've done it and close the ticket.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Why wouldn't they just roll it back for everybody? Hang on a moment.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, they tell you that they've done it and close the ticket, but they haven't actually done it. So what people are finding is they ask them to do it. They say, yep, we've done that. Thank you very much. And it never actually rolls back. And so people ring back every couple of days and they kept being told, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll happen in the next 24 to 48 hours. But it's still happening week after week after week. And people are getting a little— I don't know if you come across this phenomenon of people getting a bit grumpy on the internet.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I've heard about it. I read about it in the Daily Mail. I've never witnessed it.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Can you imagine being a Roomba support person though? Like, you're not paid enough to deal with this shit. You're just not paid enough. Like, why doesn't the CEO and the C-levels come down and take the phone calls?

GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, you know what Roomba's support team are doing? What? They're making jokes about the situation. So one user went on Twitter and he tweeted the iRobot guys. Says, I've just paid $800. They're about £1,500, right? These Roombas. Yeah. They're a lot of money. And he says, look, it's done a half-assed job cleaning, and all it's doing is circles. And the company replied, we'd love a chance to turn your experience around. And it's like, not very helpful. No, not the time for gags.

CAROLE THERIAULT. But not a huge drama. You know, it's not like if your car sends you to Belarus.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Instead of bellend. Well, we'll come to that in Robert's section, maybe. Yeah. So some people are being rolled back. Some people have managed to roll back to fix the problem. Unfortunately, they then are being automatically rolled forward again to the latest broken version. So the problems persist. But I think this is— there are other problems here, right? There's the problem of automatic updates which can be broken, haven't been tested properly, being pushed out without people's permission. And that can obviously be a nuisance. They say they're going to fix this over the next several weeks, but there are other concerns with robot vacuum cleaners. I wrote, I think it was late last year, about some researchers. Re— re— they're like crackhead researchers. They're crazy, these guys, right? And they found, even though robot vacuum cleaners don't have microphones on them, there's a way to eavesdrop on conversations remotely with them. What they can do is they can use something called LiDAR. Have you heard of LiDAR?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah, Robert. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Most modern cars have LIDAR on them, right? As a sort of guidance tool. Yeah.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So it doesn't rely on it being daylight. So it can work at nighttime as well. And it's like, it's like a laser pulse. And this is what robot vacuum cleaners use as well. What these researchers found was they could actually bounce the laser off something like a trash can or a paper basket, a metal paper basket. Near someone who's having a conversation and pick up the vibrations and can tell what people are saying from that. All from a robot vacuum cleaner. Because you're an idiot!

CAROLE THERIAULT. Like, you do this show, it's 217 episodes!

GRAHAM CLULEY. Sometimes laziness overcomes.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. But we've got a dustpan and brush that you can stand up and use. And my wife and I are obsessed. We just constantly— because I used to have a dustpan and brush and I'd get down on the floor and I'd knead it. And this, you stand up and you go, and that's it.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, that sounds—

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I'd quite like one of those. Those. It's so easy.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Here we go, Graham and his cleaning supplies to help deal with the Rona loneliness.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It's never had one update, it always functions in the way— I mean, you know, it's just— no, it's just for that kind of sweeping around a kitchen floor. We've got stone floor in our kitchen. Yeah. And it's usually covered in carrots and bits of rice and God knows what else. And, uh, you know, and that's so easy to sweep it up with. That's brilliant.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, who needs a Roomba?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. But I did— yeah, I don't think our house just wouldn't It wouldn't not deal with the Roomba, no. I just think of them as American. I've seen them in American apartments, you know, friends who've got exquisite polished floors that, you know, you just think, oh God, yeah, it's not gonna work in our house.

GRAHAM CLULEY. If you had one, it would just be spewing up carrots everywhere. Yeah. What's a carrot here?

CAROLE THERIAULT. When a house is too immaculate, you just wanna take a Sharpie to it. You just do.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. There's something in me that just makes me just like. I think I'm slightly more mature than you.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I don't need to do that. Robert, why don't you tell us about your expenses in the world of cars?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Well, I mean, it is bizarre, isn't it, that all the modern cars have got so much software in them, so much stuff that can be updated. I mean, absolutely right, a software update in a car now that we drive, it can be annoying because it sort of messes it up, or if it goes wrong, you know, that's annoying, but it's not kind of necessarily dangerous. But once we are literally talking about autonomous cars, I've been in two Level 5 autonomous cars in experimental controlled circumstances.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So let me understand, because I'm not a car nerd.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. What does Level 5 autonomy mean? Basically, in theory, I don't think it was Level 5, actually it was Level 4, they were saying it was. So it can drive anywhere. And what are you doing?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Are you lying out in the boot? No, you're just sitting.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. No, it was actually a Nissan Leaf. It was a regular street-going car. And there was someone sitting behind the steering wheel, but in the entire journey, they never touched a pedal, anything. The steering wheel completely controlled everything. And that was on like freeways, dual carriageways, roundabouts, pedestrian crossings with kids running out, scooters, busy streets with buses pulling out, quiet suburban streets, you know, and it was faultless. It drove faultlessly. But all the time it was doing that, and this was an experimental vehicle, the dashboard was covered in screens that were showing you what the car could see. So it not only sees in front of you, it can see behind behind you in one specific circumstance which they'd set up to demonstrate it. A vehicle was coming from our left as we were going along the street, and our car slowed down for no reason that we could see as human beings, but it knew that the other car was going— it was registering the other car, so they were talking to each other. We couldn't see the other car, it's behind the building, but it knew it was there. So our car slowed down because he— it estimated that that car wouldn't stop at the junction, it would carry on, and therefore it was a hazard. So it slowed down, and in fact the other car did stop with a very nervous young man who had to drive it every time someone was doing this thing, just in case he got it wrong. You could see him, he sort of waved at us rather sheepishly, because he had to kind of pelt it down this road and then hammer, put the brakes on really hard. So all those things were extraordinary. But I mean, the two aspects of it that I thought, this is going to be a while, when we got back to the base where it started, he opened the back of the car, and it had what I would consider a kind of small server farm going in the back of it. And it really did make a lot of noise. And it was very hot in the car. So it had heated seats. Yes, it definitely had heated seats, particularly the back seats would be very hot. A massive amount of servers and flashing lights and thick wires going, big bunches of wires all going in. So the control system for this car to be able to do this and the amount of technology it had on it was energy sapping to the extreme. So the particular Nissan Leaf we went in, I know the car well, would normally do in a city, say 150 miles in city driving like we were doing. And with all this stuff at the back, it would to do 40. Wow. And so it's using a staggering amount of electricity to run this thing. So there's no question that will shrink and get smaller and lighter and cheaper and less energy consuming, you know, as the technology develops. But at the moment, it's such a monstrously complex task. You know, when you see these multiple screens with thousands of images on them all the time, and they're all flashing red, green, green, green, and it will see a little kid It's amazing and incredible the amount of cameras on it, the amount of sensors, LiDAR all over it, all that stuff. We saw a kid on a scooter with his mum, but a kind of 10-year-old, and he was wobbling a bit. He wasn't on the road, he was on the opposite pavement, but the car went, oh, that looks, that doesn't look good. It set off alarms and we slowed down. I mean, it's got to deal with so much stuff that as human beings, we don't even, if I'd been driving on there, I might've registered him, but I would've gone, oh, he's all right. He's that side of the road. Someone else will knock him over. It was extraordinary amount of computing. Power is needed.

CAROLE THERIAULT. You know how, like, in this country, the seagulls are getting worse and worse and more vicious, right? Yeah. So if they came after the car, the Nissan Leaf you were in, and just literally dive-bombed it, emptying their innards all over all the sensors, you'd be in trouble, no? Or is there so many of them, it's very—

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. There is a lot. It would have— you'd have a very large flock of seagulls, and the car would be completely white, I think. But, you know, I mean, there's— but the other aspect of it is Because anyone could come up with a multiplicity of scenarios of utter damnation, horror, end of the world nightmare. There's a child running across the road and there's an old lady walking the other way. She's old. Should you save the child? Ah yeah, but the old lady is pushing a pram with a baby in it. And then on the other side of the road, there's a man who's carrying a huge box of explosives that will wipe out the entire town if you hit him. You know, like, just calm down, love.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So this is the trolley car problem.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. The trolley car. And if you mention the word trolley in front of people who work in autonomous vehicles, they generally try and bite you in the face and have to be arrested because it drives them mad. I said seagulls, Robert! Seagulls is good. Seagulls is fine. I was trying to be funny. You didn't mention trolleys.

GRAHAM CLULEY. But it raises interesting questions, doesn't it? Because it's the software which will decide how the car should respond rather than the driver. And so, you know, what's the legal implications of that?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah, hugely complex. And the insurance. Yeah. I mean, I think the most convincing scenario I've heard, which is actually a Volkswagen development that I've ever heard, this was a few years ago and they haven't done it and I haven't heard any more about it. But they suggested that the notion of autonomous cars with people in them not driving is ridiculous. And it's going to be 100 years before we reach that point. You've got to redesign a city. In a sense, to suit it. But the notion of an autonomous car with no one in it, i.e., we don't own cars— this is the scenario that appealed to me. So if there's no one in the car and it's driving down that road and there's a child jumping out, there is technology that can do this. The car literally destroys itself. It rams it into the wall at the side. There's one option I've seen that someone's got. I think that's Volkswagen. Someone's got a patent for explosive bolts that fire out of the bottom of the car and sink into the road. So it just stops dead. It will wreck the car. That's how bad liability is. Yeah, if you're in the car, you would die. So they cannot do it with anyone in the car. It can do from 30 to 0 in a thousandth of a second. It just is like it's hit a brick wall. So it will always sacrifice itself to save a human life, which it can do. Then it's got the more choices if there's no one in it. And then when you— well, so the idea is you're at the supermarket, you come out, you press your jelly phone or, you know, your temple, because you've got an insert in there from Bill Gates that came with your COVID vaccination. It was free, you know, whatever it is, or your phone. Phone and you call the phone and this car drives up to you empty, no one in it. The steering wheel folds out, you get in it, you drive that. From that moment on, you're responsible. Your insurance covers you. They know it's not their car, it's your car. You have to look after it. But when you get to where you're going, you get out of that car, get your shopping out the back, close the door, and it drives away. You haven't got to park it, insure it, MOT it, do anything, refuel it, plug it in. It does all that. So you only have that car for that period of time. That you can see— I can see that happening much sooner.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And that could really be world-changing. That could change cities because, for instance, you don't need car parks.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. You don't need car parks. You don't need streets with cars parked on them. You have your streets back. Yeah, no, it would make a huge difference. And it's always kind of when you understand that, and this is a presentation I saw probably 5 years ago, the notion of private car ownership, which we've all grown up with, it's normal. If you look at it for more than 30 seconds, I suggest don't look at it. It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I agree with you.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It's just bonkers. You know, I've got a car just out behind me where I'm sitting in my studio now that's been there for 3 days. I haven't touched it, used it, been near it. I mean, why? Why would I? Nothing to do with it, you know. And that's stupid. I'm paying for it. It's expensive. It's a leased car. I have to pay the insurance. You know, bonkers, bonkers way of doing it. But it's really useful if I need to pop down the shops, get a bag of sugar or some organic tofu, which would be much more likely for me.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I think you're scared to get in it because you're worried about Elon Musk being bonkers.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. He's gonna send me on the most absurd bridge.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, he's just too crazy, apeshit bonkers. And you're thinking, you know, can we trust him?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Imagine getting into one of these super, super driverless cars, right? And you get in and then it gets the first bend, doesn't hit the child, right? Stops at the red light. And I'd be like, all right, we're rock and rolling here. This guy knows how to drive. I'm gonna kick back and relax. Like getting in a train, you just immediately would kind of trust it.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah, I mean, a plane basically flies itself. The pilot's just sitting there looking cool, you know, wearing mirrored shades. I mean, that's their main— but I mean, they do take off and that. But I mean, I've been in the, in the old days pre-9/11 in the front of a 747 over the middle of North America with Craig Charles, in fact, from Red Dwarf, because the pilot was a Red Dwarf fan. So he showed us around and there was no one flying it. There was no one sitting in the seats. It was flying itself. You know, they let Craig sit in the front, which I thought was extremely dangerous.

GRAHAM CLULEY. That does sound very dangerous. Well, he's quite good at breaking props, you know.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. That wouldn't happen now, but it was great. We had a long chat with the captain. It was fantastic. But yeah, I think that certainly the cybersecurity aspect of fully autonomous cars, I think, is a challenge that the human race has to deal with in quite a profound way. Because that isn't like, I've lost the money in my bank, or, oh, my password's been stolen for Facebook. That is a car that can kill me. Yeah, yeah.

CAROLE THERIAULT. You fuck up a Roomba, who cares? You fuck up a car, oh no.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. You fuck up a car, you're in real serious trouble. An autonomous bus is delivery. That's the way before cars, delivery vehicles. They're already in existence. And I mean, they're— it's such a brilliant idea. So the last mile delivery, lightweight, super small thing. It's got 5 boxes on it, opens a box when it gets to your house, you take your packet out, it zooms off somewhere else. You know, very, very environmentally incredibly sensible way of dealing with things rather than big trucks that haven't got— I've got hardly anything in them. You know, those sort of things are brilliant, but they're— and they're going to be with us way before we go in autonomous cars. I mean, that with the stuff we've seen been in that area is very impressive.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I think one thing that concerns me is that historically automobile companies haven't cared that much about security. If you compare them to like financial industries who have had a long history of needing to guard something, but here we've got like the—

CAROLE THERIAULT. Not many cars have crashed though.

GRAHAM CLULEY. No, it's not so much about crashing. I'm thinking these are the ultimate IoT devices. Yeah. And what we are seeing are researchers who found ways to remotely hack into vehicles and sometimes take take over steering, set off alarms, unlock them. So the automobile companies, and I think they are, but they really need to invest strongly in cybersecurity to make sure that hackers don't cause mischief.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I know that my, for instance, I drive a Tesla Model 3, that's my regular car, and that sends everything that I do in that car to a thing somewhere, a cloud, which is a big warehouse with a load of computers going Anyone that has got access to that knows everywhere I've been. I made a very cheap joke at a very polite after-dinner talk with lots of elderly gentlemen and ladies about my Tesla. And I explained about how the tracking works and all that. And I said that the people at Tesla know where all the best brothels are in Gloucestershire, which was my little joke. But it didn't really go down very well with that audience.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So, Carole, the whole world has been waiting. What have you got for us?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Social companion robots. Okay, I don't really know what the name of these are. Like social robots or companion robots. These are like— Sex robots. Well, I'm not really going into the sex robot area today. More like those that help us communicate or ease loneliness or help us around the house like a Roomba. Roomba, right? Right. And since 2020 and the Rona nastiness, the demand for robot companions has absolutely skyrocketed. Seriously? For real, for real. In Japan particularly, right? Of course. Huge demand for more like human alternatives to assistance. So rather than having a Roomba, you'd want something with a face, I guess, right? That would maybe go, "Yum, yum, this is delicious, all this dust," you know, or something.

GRAHAM CLULEY. I have stuck googly eyes on my robot vacuum cleaner. Very good. Give it some personality.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, have a friend, right? So, okay, so what I thought we would do is go through a few of, you know, the latest robot, got a little smattering of companion robots. Both of your jobs is at the end of this, you have to choose a robot that's gonna be your companion because you guys in this fictitious world are very, very lonely. Family and you need some love, some digital. Definitely, right? Definitely. So which one, which one of these 5 is going to meet your requirements? We're going to start off with Charlie. Okay, now Charlie's not on the market yet. Charlie's just coming, so you can check. There's a link.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Okay, I'm gonna click now. Here we go. Oh my God, there's some— oh, here's Charlie. Okay, okay, there's a little, little guy. Oh, he's cute. He's just a little guy.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Cute little red nose. He's got a little bow Yeah.

GRAHAM CLULEY. This Japanese lady looks very lonely. Yeah. Oh, he's wiggling his feet and singing a song to her. Yeah.

CAROLE THERIAULT. So, so this is Charlie and Charlie's been built by Yamaha and its quote is more chatty than a pet, but less work than a lover. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And so Charlie sings his responses to you. So you might say to Charlie, Charlie, tell me something interesting. Right? And Charlie might go, "Well, well, balloons burst when you spray lemon juice." And then you're supposed to be thrilled.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Alright. Baboons first? What's that? Baboons?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. No, balloons.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Balloons. Oh, burst. Oh, burst. Balloons burst. Burst.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Balloons burst when you spray lemon juice.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, Charlie looks really irritating, I have to say. But I don't know what else you've got lined up.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. He does look quite irritating.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's number one. Okay, now do you remember Aibo?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yes, I do remember Aibo.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah. Oh, the, the dog. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Now Aibo kind of died and they discontinued it. It was actually launched in 1999 and then it discontinued after that. And more than a decade, I think about 18 years since then, it's back. Wow, it is back. So check out Aibo. I'd like to know what you guys think. Is this, is this what you need at home to make you feel—

GRAHAM CLULEY. so Aibo used to look like K9 And now— Oh, okay. It's like a— Yeah, it's like a little puppy.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yep. It walks too.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh, that is quite cute, actually. Really? No, actually, it's a bit frightening. When its eyes are theoretically, in inverted commas, shut, it does look like it could easily just explode and kill you.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It walks like it really needs to do a big poo. Oh, God.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It does look like it's desperate to go out for a poo.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It looks stuck.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Doesn't it look like it needs a poo? That's exactly what I thought too.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Looks like it's been, it's been very well trained and it won't do it in the house.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh my God, I remember when my child had a full nappy back in the day. It's that sort of stance of like, what have you got down there? Okay, oh, that's helping do exercises.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. That's very good.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Watching her play guitar. Okay.

CAROLE THERIAULT. All right, so yeah, so there's Aibo. So it's a kind of robotic dog. I don't think that's very cuddly.

GRAHAM CLULEY. No, no, it doesn't. No, it looks like hard plastic.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay, next one. Next up is Lava. Okay, so this is a— this robot is the size of a small toddler with big round eyes, huge eyes, yeah, and penguin-like wings that flutter up and down every time. And it has apparently 50 sensors, probably more than the Tesla has.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It probably does, yeah, yeah.

CAROLE THERIAULT. And internal heating because there's so many sensors.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It probably comes naturally No fan. Yes, the big eyes are very cartoon-like, aren't they? Sort of. Yeah, like, and it's got a sort of bobble hat.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh my God, but its eyes can turn into cameras. Like, it looks like a camera all of a sudden.

GRAHAM CLULEY. What is that thing coming out of its head?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh my Lord, you press it, you press its nose and it records. I see, you punch— if you press its nose, you know, you've got it. And then you've got to give it a cuddle because you've just punched it in the nose, but then it records things. That is quite freaky.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Why is she stroking it?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, yeah, because so people buy clothes for these things, these Lovebots. It's been around for a year or two, and they buy clothes for them and they put them in their car and they bring them everywhere they go and they hug them and love them. And apparently it's going to be ideally a companion for— like, I would not give this to my grandmother and say, here, I'll see you in a month.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. No, you'll be fine with Lovebot. No.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Is this popular in Japan, this, this thing? Yes. Do they let Japanese people out of the country? Like, these sort of things.

CAROLE THERIAULT. So the next one, okay, therapeutic robot, okay? Comforting communication that warms your heart the way animals do. Check it out.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh my goodness, well, that looks like a little creature.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, I can see a little tail coming out of a— oh my God, oh Lord, that is frightening.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It doesn't have a head, it's just got an ass. It's basically a walking— or an appendage.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh my God, it can come It's a penis.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh my Lord.

CAROLE THERIAULT. It's a wagging tail. It's a wagging tail on a pillow.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It's a very hairy— She can't walk down the street with that wagging like that.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. That looks wrong. That looks like she's done something really seriously wrong.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It looks a bit like a Tribble from—

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It does. It's very Tribble-like, isn't it?

CAROLE THERIAULT. They call it Kubotherapy. Wrap yourself with fuzzy love.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So this thing doesn't have eyes. It's like a cat without a head, isn't it?

CAROLE THERIAULT. It's like a circle. With a tail, a cattail attached to it. And the cattail actually mechanically moves and fluffs and—

GRAHAM CLULEY. Why would you need a robot with a mechanically moving tail?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Because it gives you warmth. And warms your heart the way an animal does. My cat did not need to have a face, it turns out.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. But it is— there's something about it. It was the sequence when it wakes up in the morning. And there's only one word I can use to describe the way the tail rises up, and that is it becomes— it's erect. It becomes erect. It's the right— it's the correct term to describe it. It's not like I'm not trying to be smutty. It gets an erection.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Morning glory.

GRAHAM CLULEY. First thing in the morning. I remember those days as well, Robert. Long past us now.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. A long, long time ago. I can remember I read about it now, but yeah, but that is extraordinary. That is the weirdest one somehow. That one takes me out even more. I've got one last one. Is there one more? Oh my God.

CAROLE THERIAULT. I've got one last one. Now this one I actually left Japan just to see what our European counterparts are doing. Oh yes, yes. So please click on the link. I have no words.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Okay, okay. Okay, let's see. It's called the Flat Cat.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Flat Cat, okay.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Your next robot is a pet, okay. Okay, and it appears to be— Oh my Lord, it's coming.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's terrifying. That is quite frightening.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It's sort of arching up. It looks like a piece of— It looks like a cat that's been run over. God, that is just wrong. It's been under a steamroller.

CAROLE THERIAULT. It can't be real, can it? I can't be real.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It's just bizarre. That is the weirdest—

GRAHAM CLULEY. It's like a hairy slug. It's like a slug.

CAROLE THERIAULT. It's literally like an envelope inside. Or a peach worm.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Fuzzy.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It does not make me feel relaxed in there.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Can you imagine that thing running around your house? Like kind of crawling like a Chucky doll? Where are you?

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh my Lord, it moves in it.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, it just kind of twists in, but it swells.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. It sort of looks like it could be— if it was a creature, you think this is its death throes, it's in agony.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, so give it a hug.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Not reassuring what people are doing. If anyone remembers that Doctor Who story from the '70s, the giant maggots, it reminds me.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Anyway, there you go. Those are great.

CAROLE THERIAULT. That's what Japan's up to. So, um, yeah, this is—

GRAHAM CLULEY. yeah, this is what's North Korea up to? Yeah, no one knows. No one knows.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Maybe keep it quite quiet.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Those are funny. Those are bizarre. They are really odd, aren't they? I mean, it is that— and I, I look, it's just hard to quite understand what that— well, you know, that you can have some sort of relationship with a, with a little machine like that, you know, which is the theory that we're told. I'm slightly suspicious of the kind of journalism, you know. In Japan, they have relationships with machines. And you go, really, do they? Are they just telling us that because, you know, that gets— they can sell more stuff? I don't know. It just seems your lockdown was serious.

CAROLE THERIAULT. You couldn't even go outside at all, and you live on your own, and you're there for whatever, months and months on that. I actually think I'd probably start talking to my coffee mug.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. So, oh yeah, no, I've spoken to our dustpan and brush with a long handle. I mean, I've I've had quite long conversations with it.

GRAHAM CLULEY. This is like having a relationship with a piece of carpet. I can't— wouldn't you prefer something with a face?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Anyway, Graham, your birthday's coming up, so—

GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, all right. Okay. Right?

CAROLE THERIAULT. I'm not gonna get you the $3,000 one, okay? Ibo, that's how much that one is. So I'll get a cheaper— one of them might be yours. You're welcome. Imagine security at your fingertips on any device. That's what 1Password offers—seamless syncing across all your computers and mobile devices so you can store and access unlimited passwords from anywhere at any time. Only you have the keys to decrypt your data and sensitive info. 1Password doesn't know it, doesn't share it, doesn't sell it. With cool features like Watchtower, which alerts you to any weak passwords, to Travel Mode, which allows you to hide certain vaults from your devices while on business or personal trips. Protect your whole family and get 50% off when you sign up for a 1Password family account. Check out 1password.com/switch50. That's 1password.com/switch50. Make your home a 1Password household.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And welcome back, and you join us at our favorite part of the show, the part of the show that we like to call Pick of the Week.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Pick of the Week.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh, do I say Pick of the Week? Pick of the Week. Beautiful.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Pick of the Week is the part of the show where everyone chooses something they like. Could be a funny story, a book that they've read, a TV show, a movie, a record, a podcast, a website, or an app. Whatever they wish. Doesn't have to be security-related necessarily. Better not be. Well, my Pick of the Week this week is not security-related. It is a TV show. I recently discovered that somehow or other I have a freebie Apple TV subscription. I think maybe they gave it to everyone under lockdown and I just never noticed, but I stumbled in there and I discovered some TV shows and I thought, oh, this looks interesting. And I found a TV show called For All Mankind made by Ronald D. Moore. You may remember he was the guy behind the revived Battlestar Galactica TV series. He also worked on Star Trek in the 1990s. And the premise of the The premise of the show is that Russia has beaten America to the moon. And because Russia gets there about two weeks before Neil Armstrong, it makes the US compete in space rather than what actually happened, as we remember, is they got really bored and just stopped. Well, like Olympics?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Space Olympics? That kind of competing?

GRAHAM CLULEY. No, no, no, no, no, not competing. No, no, not something like that. But the space race. Began. So we had the two superpowers who were thinking this is the future, and so they put lots of resources into space rather than Vietnam or furry hats or whatever the Russians were doing. So it asks the question, what if the space race had continued? And it's a drama series set in 1969 and then the '70s, and it's mostly set in reality, and there are real people portrayed. And it's not like Star Wars or something like Just fake news. But it's a plausible alternative history. So, women astronauts setting up a moon base.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yes. Oh yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, but they—

GRAHAM CLULEY. but no woman has walked on the moon, right? But under this scenario, people did begin to go to the moon. More people went there, and they sent all kinds of different people. Ted Kennedy becomes president. John Lennon doesn't get assassinated. That's great. It's quite interesting. The second series has just begun, but they're releasing them episode by episode, and that's set in the 1980s, and things are hotting up. Shoulder pads. I think it's quite fun, and I quite enjoy it, and I've had a good old binge.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh, I'm going to watch it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, anything you hear that's available that no one's seen, they're all in. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, done. Okay, it's on my list. Okay.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And that is why For All Mankind on Apple TV is my Pick of the Week. Excellent. Robert, what's your Pick of the Week?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Well, I've changed my mind because I was going to do the car that I've been driving, but if people are interested in that, they can see— they can watch it on Fully Charged. The Volkswagen ID.4, a very impressive vehicle. But I'm actually in the middle of reading, and, and I found reading during lockdown quite hard, and I don't know why, because I'm a normal, quite a busy reader, but it's been somehow— it's been harder. But This book has got me, and this is a book written by someone who I would have nothing in common with. I wouldn't— there's about like one— no area of my body would be in agreement with anything she's ever thought or said. I can't bear her, except it's fascinating. It's called A Diary of an MP's Wife. I think it's a bit of a bestseller. It's by a woman called Sasha Swire, who I've never heard of, and her husband is a high-flying cabinet minister and an MP, and I've never heard of him.

CAROLE THERIAULT. And where did you pick this up?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Well, my wife got it, so it was one of the books she'd read, and it kind of was on a pile next to my bed that I— and she said you should read it. And I've just not been responding to anything like that, and I suddenly started it. And because it's a diary, and it's a fairly contemporary one, it basically covers about the last 10 years, it is a fascinating insight into basically how unpleasant politicians are, how fragile Britain— including her husband, including her husband, including her, including every politician politician you've heard of. The ones that she really loathes are Gove, Michael Gove. Understandable, yes. Um, but Boris Johnson, she— there's a, there's a thing she wrote that I think was published at the time in something like The Spectator. If, if he ever becomes Prime Minister, the country is doomed, she wrote. This is someone who's known him for years. How many children has Boris Johnson got? Do you know about this?

CAROLE THERIAULT. It's like 4 or 5 or something.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh, the fact that on Wikipedia it now 5 or 6, and they don't know. No one knows. And there's one— I'm not even going to spread the gossip, but we know someone, unfortunately. We actually know someone who knows him, and there's more than 6. That's all. So that's— ah, it's just the most odd thing. And he's our Prime Minister. Yeah, he's meant to be a trustworthy guy. Anyway, so it's a fascinating read because it is the kind of stirred septic tank of the Tory party. And she calls— she refers to Dave as David Cameron. Yeah, went around to Dave's in Notting Hill. You just go, oh, you vile, scummy people, I hate all of you. But I'm still reading it, you know. So it is—

CAROLE THERIAULT. are you full of expletives as your wife's trying to read her book beside you and you're—

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. she's like, just stop, I read it, I've read it, I know how bad they are. God, these people are so awful. But she's quite honest. I suppose you've got to give her the benefit that she is quite honest and doesn't sort of— it doesn't pull her punches. So she's very rude about it. And then because it covers Brexit and the terrible trauma of what Brexit is now for all of us, but within the Tory Party for the last 30 years— I mean, I always— I think if you're not in that world and you're not an obsessive member of the Tory Party, you forget, you know, that 20 years ago I was just going around doing stuff, whereas the Tory party was screaming and hating each other because of the European Union. I'm going, oh, get over it, love, it's not that interesting. But they were very interested. And so Cummings— oh, she doesn't like Cummings. So every now and then you get to a page, you go, oh, she hates Cummings, that's good. And then she's really nice about someone else who I think is absolute scum and says what an amazing person he is. Oh God, it's like reading Grazia for politics. Yes, yeah, yes, it's very, very bitchy, very gossipy. And, and you can't— and the annoying thing is I know half the— there's quite a few of them, you know. So the search and such as other minister or something, never heard of her or him, don't know who they are. But then, um, poisonous little cow, I think, is the description of, um, Priti Patel, you know. So she doesn't— and she's— her husband is still an MP today, and this book's out now. Of course, all— they're all reading it, they all love it. Amazing. Yeah.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Anyway, people will love that.

GRAHAM CLULEY. That's a great pick of the week. It does sound rather good.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah. Diary of an MP's Inside and Outside Power by Sasha Swire. S-W-I-R-E. Her husband is, I think, Hugo Swire, which of course is just a classic Tory name. Such a name, yeah. How do you do? I'm Hugo Swire, I'm your MP. Oh fuck, are you really? What a fucking disaster. I better go. Yeah, sorry. Anyway, there you go, that's my pick. Brilliant.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Carole, what's your pick of the week?

CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, mine's very deliberate. Delicious. Mine's very delicious. Get your pens at the ready, okay? It's a movie on Netflix called I Care a Lot. Yeah, right. Have you seen this, any of you?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yes, I have. Yeah, no, I loved it.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, I loved it too. I loved it too. Okay, so Graham, Graham, Graham, so the plot: Marla Grayson, okay, she's played by Rosamund Pike. She's a professional— oh yes— court-appointed guardian for elderly wards, you know, so like maybe someone's losing their marbles and there's no one to look after them, so she'll get minded, but actually she is basically running this horrific racket and, um, kind of basically managing the money in a way that I might say completely unethical, although barely legal. She seems to fly them through the legalese fairly simply and kind of, you know, has judges.

GRAHAM CLULEY. So maybe her, her company is given a lot of money to look after these elderly people. She just manages their money.

CAROLE THERIAULT. So let's say, you know, soon, soon you're gonna, you know, soon, Graham, right, you're an older man, and you may want to appoint me, and then I would be in charge of all your cash, all your assets, all your time, all your— and then I would be able to make decisions on your behalf. And I'd be like, no, he definitely, definitely needs to wear diapers. He definitely needs to wear diapers all the time, 24/7, something like that. Anyway, it is a fascinating movie because they're so bitchy. They are so bitchy, the girls. And it's kind of rare to see— what did you think? What did you think, Robert? What did you think of it?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I thought it extraordinary. And I thought it was scary too. They're scary and frightening. And you think, God— and I know that it was based— I don't know, I mean, the story isn't based on true story, but the scenario is there are people like that who control old people's lives, who take over, take all their money, sell their house. Yeah. Sell all their belongings. You know, their relatives who are trying to protect them haven't got a hope in hell of doing anything about it because they, they know how to work the courts. Yeah. You know, really frightening, uh, kind of frightening scenario. And yet done charm, and she's got to be beautifully dressed, and she's— yeah, she's so cute. Yeah, she's gorgeously dressed. Oh my God. And her eyes just— they just ooze care. Yeah, I'm here to look after you, you know, all that stuff. She's great. No, she's very, very good. And it is a sort of— it's a silly plot in a way, that kind of— there's bits of it that you go, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, but you sort of forgive it. No, I thought it was really good, really enjoyed it.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Peter Dinklage was pretty gorgeous in it too, I thought, especially at the beginning. She was playing the son of the— Oh yes, yes.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Oh God, he's extraordinary. No, he's extraordinary.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Anyway, I think they could have maintained that comedic heartbeat they showed at the beginning a bit through the film. But otherwise, seriously, it's kind of fresh. It's fun. It's fast-paced, beautiful clothing, kind of—

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. She just won a Golden Globe, hasn't she? Rosamund Pike, I think, for it. She just got given a gong of some sort. No, it got mentioned, definitely.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, do we know if, um, The Queen's Gambit got— It did, yes. Hey, congratulations, because of course Garry Kasparov is listening.

GRAHAM CLULEY. It's both for the actress and, uh, for the show. Yeah, they did do well.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yeah. Can I do a one sentence, slightly long one sentence? I'll do it really quickly. Rosamund Pike anecdote. It's one of my favorites. Okay, so we're, we're with the same agents. When I say that, it's a very big agent. Agency, and the bit that she's involved with is the posh bit, and I'm with the sort of lower, much lower rank. Anyway, I was delivering a script to my agents, and they have a sort of reception desk, and I know the two women behind the reception. They go, 'Hello, Robert!' And there's this gorgeous baby sitting on the, on the, on the sort of on the front of their reception counter, and he looks up at me and puts his little arms out and goes, 'Da da da da da da,' and he's dribbling. And I'm a sucker for babies, so I this. I got, oh, hello. And then he reaches his arms up and I kind of look to my right and I say, is it okay, can I give him a cuddle? And the mum says, yeah, yeah, of course you can. So I kind of pick him up and he's putting his hands in my mouth and we get— this is very pre-COVID, probably 5 or 6 years ago. I'm doing a little, giving him a little pat on his back and he's all gorgeous, all that stuff. So then I put him down. As I'm putting him down, I then turn and his mother is Rosamund Pike, and I nearly dropped her child at that point. And so, and I said to my— I said something like, oh, fucking hell, it was you, sorry. Such, such a bad, awkward, difficult moment. She was delightful and just smiled, and you know, she is utterly stunning in real life. I bet. And it was, it was one of those things where I just don't understand how I got that far holding her baby. But she was talking to the other receptionist, she wasn't kind of paying much attention. Anyway, so yeah, there's my Rosamund Pike story.

CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, that's one degree of separation. Yeah. Wow. Anyway, I recommend it. I Care a Lot. Yeah, I Care a Lot on Netflix.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Watch it. Well, that just about wraps it up for this week. Robert, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm sure lots of our listeners, if they're not already following you online or watching Fully Charged, they might want to do so. What's the best way for folks to do that?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. I suppose, well, I mean, the Fully Charged show on YouTube is fairly easy to find. Our web page is clever. I didn't even know you could do this, but our web address is fullycharged.show. Just that, nothing else.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Brilliant.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. So yeah, through that you'll find all the nonsense that I'm up to. Yeah.

GRAHAM CLULEY. And you can find us on Twitter at Smashing Security, no G. Twitter allows to have a G. And we're also on Reddit, so just look for the Smashing Security subreddit up there. And And don't forget to ensure you never miss another episode, subscribe in your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Google Podcasts.

CAROLE THERIAULT. And big fat thank you to this episode sponsor, 1Password, and to our wonderful Patreon community. Thanks to all of them, this show is free for all. And for episode show notes, sponsorship information, guest list, and the entire back catalog of more than 217 episodes, check out Smashing Security. Smashingsecurity.com.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Until next time, cheerio, bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye.

CAROLE THERIAULT. That was good.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Very sexy. That was very sexy. That was a Rosamund Pike bye-bye.

GRAHAM CLULEY. Do you do a lot of voiceover work?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Uh, I I sort of not that— I haven't done that much recently. I have done in the past, yes, and audiobooks and things like that, loads of them, but not, uh, but not 0898 numbers. 0898.

CAROLE THERIAULT. That's why, that's why you're not reading, because you're not getting paid, you see.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN. Yes, it does help.

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