Well I'm going to speak to you about something again. I wish someone had explained to me in my younger years, especially in ministry and especially in ministry in a charismatic, Pentecostal kind of church. Your church and our church would fall into that tribe most days. We're happy to be in that tribe some days, not so much. Some of our times are Pentecostal, charismatic tradition has not served as well and I think in this area too especially. When this came to me from, the idea to speak to people about this came to me from recently, I was invited to speak at a corporate event in London at a wealth management company in London and I do speak at corporate events too and so they asked me to speak on the title was Life Without Limits and it was the picture that the media they had for the event was the picture of a man planting a flag on the top of Mount Everest. Life Without Limits sounds cool, sounds trendy, sounds exciting, sounds look good on a t-shirt, life without limits. Only problem is there's no such thing as life without limits so the news I had to break to them was well I can come and I'll speak at your event but if I speak on that title I'm going to have to redefine it. I'm going to have to explain to the people at the conference that there is no such thing but explain why I think we believe that's true but why it is impossible to be true and I'll reframe it and speak about that if you like and I said I love your, I love your media the man planting a flag on top of Everest but if you take a pygmy and put him on top of Everest he's no taller. It's just a small person on top of a big thing and I have realized building church all my life that you should never put small people in charge of big things. I've got into a lot of trouble doing that and small people are people usually that are emotionally expensive. Just look straight at me right now all of you so maybe like he's talking about you are you here? So I'm going to so I'm going to speak to you about my reframing of the idea and my version of that is going to be called the gift of limitation the gift of limitation I try to work hard on my titles a good title is one that you remember years later like like a song or a book or a movie a good title is one that when you remember the title the content of the message instantly comes back to your recall a bad title is one that doesn't do that to you like faith what are you teaching on pastor faith okay and people open in the meeting they say what did he speak about what did she speak about faith okay what about faith I don't know but it was great and in my communication master class which Donovan mentioned one of the things I teach is that your freshness as a communicator the freshness of what we say is never in the topic it's never in the subject because there's nothing new to say really unless you dig for it about David and Goliath it's always going to be David it's always going to be Goliath it's always going to be Moses that crossed the red seat it's always the same players so if we're going to teach you from these same scriptures that we've taught for hundreds of years we better find an angle the freshness is in the angle not in the topic but in the angle you find within the topic so this is an angle within the idea of limitation and I believe limitation is a gift and I want you to leave tonight with three takeaways to go home with first of all I want to reframe your thinking about limitation as I just said and see it as a gift because accepting the limitations that you can't change and we all have them limits you if you like or frees you or pushes you towards the limitations that you can change secondly I want you to know the difference between limitations of design and limitations of default the limitation of design is why laptops don't make toast but we don't send the laptop back as useless because we know it was never created to make toast some of you were never created to make toast I'm using it as a metaphor now because some of you really can't make toast can you and it's a big issue in your relationship but I didn't mean that so stay with me it's a metaphor and then I want you to finally understand if we have time what I think is the greatest secret limitation of all that nobody tells about most people don't know about but we should if we want to understand the nature of limitation the first time I became aware I suppose institutionally of the curse and tyranny of limitation I suppose in the way that it was put to me was at school at 15 when I went to see the careers advisor and he said to me and I went to a school where you know the thick stupid kids went is how it that was the feel I failed my exams at 11 we all had exams in our country at 11 years of age on the basis of the results that day you're following six years of education went one of three ways grammar school for the kids that passed the test the smart kids technical school for the kids that kind of did average in the test those that failed went to secondary school comprehensive schools they became known as eventually well that's what I went so when the careers advisor sat me down at 15 and said to me kind of one after the other we sit down he said to me what do you want to do for a job and I said to him I want to be a fighter pilot and he laughed at me like you get real that is not an option for you that's an option for the grammar school kids but not for people that come to this school so he laughed in a way that I knew he didn't take me serious so he said no no he said I'm serious what what what do you want to do what would you what would be an ideal job I said I told you I want to be a fighter pilot so realizing that I wouldn't let go of this fantasy in his opinion he said to me well let me ask you what does your dad do what does your dad do meaning whatever your dad does is what I think you should think about doing because this was the day and age of apprenticeships and so if my dad had a certain job I knew he would say to me next well maybe your dad could get you an apprenticeship what does your dad do so he said to me what does your dad do so I said to him my dad is a serial killer I did I should have known then I was destined to be a rebel and a revolutionary I said my dad's a serial killer he said what excuse me what did you say I wanted to say that to him so he couldn't say to me perhaps he can get you an apprenticeship I wanted to shortcut the script I wanted to take the script off him and tear it up and throw him of course he just saw me as rude and as out of control and tried to fix me but I realized at 15 years of age that the system was stacked against me that the system and some of you are in a system and if you're at school you're in a massive education system the education system in this country and in our country and in generally westernized education systems is killing our kids every parent in here more than ever you have to get involved in in nurturing your kids because schools are killing them schools are obsessed with tests and exams that tell you nothing about your child what we're interested in is the flourishing of people it's a big passion of my life to invest in people so that they can flourish because I believe we have a crisis of human flourishing all around the world because natural resources are buried deep in the ground and they're very complicated and expensive to reach so are human resources the best parts of you your particular genius and brilliance is way below the surface and if no one helps you to figure it out if you're not in cultures like this church where our culture is geared towards championing your potential towards helping you get out your brilliance because school won't help you do it so we have to find other places where we get around people that are not going to say to us what does your dad do and stop you there as if that's the limitation of your life what does your dad do so I realize early on that I must not accept nor must you these imposed limitations that are put on us by where you were born the color of your skin your social economic background the education system the system of the country that you're in apartheid that this country came out of was an institutionalized limiting non-believing in people's potential system and thank god that that is over but it's still not over in many people's mentalities we still got a long way to go as we have in america with the whole black white race issues there because I also have a home in america spend a lot of time there so as I got into my late teens early twenties I had a epiphany defining life-changing experience around about 20 years of age I call it I call it the yellow that triggered the green the yellow that triggered the green now I got married when I was 16 and by the age of 20 I had three kids I know told you I was 95 I have been married now for 45 years and have four children and our first daughter uh charlotte who herself is in ministry all around the world and charlotte and her husband now passed to the church that I handed over to them in 2012 um she was born when I was 16 she wasn't planned you know I'm talking about she was five months old before we got married most people caught date get engaged get married we just bypassed all that stuff and just had a kid then my wife and I had twins I know people go oh fantastic no no no come in let me talk to you a little bit because I didn't sleep for three years so by the time I'm 20 I've got three kids I'm living in a council house a government owned house you might call it the projects they call them in America and it had a bright yellow front door because in the council houses the government houses this was how it worked this is how the painting scheme went blue green yellow blue green yellow and the house you moved into was forever that color you couldn't paint any other color you couldn't you couldn't mess with it it was government controlled government pleased government backed up color scheme and so if you moved into a yellow house and thought you know what I'll just change that you realize then you can't all the woodwork all the all the front door the the frames the glass frames were all painted and I'm talking bright canary yellow that yellow that that's the only picture I could find I couldn't find the picture of my house but it's kind of like that so blue green yellow so so we were yellow and I was about 20 and I had three kids and we were broke and I was in a job that I hated but I had to kiss that frog to pay the bills because we had three kids and and we were not doing well and we were struggling in our relationship and fighting and arguing all the time because we just were so young and so stressed out and didn't have any help and I just felt so I felt such a failure in not being able to change that not lifting us out of that and you know I didn't have a good relationship with my dad one of the books I wrote was called I am not my father as as a commentary about that situation with my dad um but I remember feeling about 20 I am a total repeat of my dad that I would not want to be him I don't want to repeat his life but I'm kind of defaulting to becoming like my dad because I feel powerless which my dad felt all his life I have no money my dad didn't all his life I resent my life or my dad resented his life all of his life and we grew up around that moodiness and that aggression which became violence and drinking in him and I thought I can see the beginnings here of me becoming a repeat of my dad and and one morning I opened the curtains to to get up and you know start the feeding routine and then set off to walk to work I worked in a carpet factory and I was going to set off to work I opened the curtains and there's a guy on a ladder painting my house bright yellow a council workman a government employed painter painting my house yellow I opened the curtains he did the worst thing or the best thing he could have done I opened the curtains and he went winked at me like good morning I'm painting your house I'm doing your favor aren't you glad I'm painting your house but it had a different effect in me it woke up the incredible hulk in me the passive dr. david banner version of me that have been going along with this life I didn't like that morning something happened you you've all had and will have moments like this sometimes you can't see them coming sometimes the way they arrive is a bit odd a bit weird it's hard to explain to someone something just happens you see something feel something experience something and something just goes off inside you what you got to do then is not calm down last thing some of you need to do is calm down you've been too calm down for a long time what we need what we need you to find is this person inside of you because everybody has one every single one of us has the equivalent of an incredible hulk angry I'm done with this I won't have this anymore person in us mine had gone to sleep and that morning the council painter woke up the incredible hulk in me and I turned to my wife and I said right that's it I'm done with this the guy's paint I don't even have the power to determine the color of my own house never mind do I want it painting today it's yellow it's been yellow for years and the man winked at me how rude how cheeky he winked at me I said to my wife and I'm ranting as she is feeding the babies and I'm ranting about the painter and she said to me well what are you going to do about it I said I'll tell you I'm going to do I'm going to get out of this crummy job I'm going to get a job that pays me more money and I'm going to start saving we're going to buy our own house so she said to me go ahead and make my day so I was so angry and I kept that anger alive in me and I went out and started to look for a job and I thought I'm going to get a job in keeping with my strengths I talked about that so with your strength I hadn't figured out by then what all my strengths were but I knew I could talk the gift of the gab some people call it so I thought you know what I'll get a job selling stuff my idea being if I can get a job selling stuff as a salesman I'll get a car as well and we'll have transport because we have no transport we were in the church that I passed it for 30 years but we didn't live in the city we were getting three buses every Sunday morning with our kids taking them to church every Sunday morning for years and we didn't have a car so the idea of a car that was provided with the job to me was an ideal scenario so I went long story short I got a job as a salesman I started saving for the first two or three years and I saved up enough money to but to get a deposit on a house to get a mortgage to buy a house and I was the first scanlan ever the first scanlan ever to own our own house it was kind of a it was kind of a no big deal to people that have always owned their house but but it was it was precedent setting it was it was barrier breaking in our family as is some of the things that you have and you will go on to do in your life and and for me to buy our own house and to take my little family to our own house I don't remember in the first week I painted my front door I tell you now it was not yellow and so this has to happen I think in some shape or form in life for all of us and it needs to happen for us corporately and organizationally and politically and in so many ways we need the equivalent of something like the yellow that triggers the green something in your life that makes you feel okay I'm done with this I am I'm so done with this and it wakes up this other part of you that has been passive for too long this is how we begin to figure out the difference between limits of design and limits of default let me speak to you about limits of design and limits of default so that you can understand the gift of one and the non gift of the other limits of design is stuff that you were born with so the physiology the DNA the biology the limitations that God gave you so you're never going to be Beyonce and you have to accept that you're never going to be Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or Mo Farrow or whatever figure you aspire to you have to accept these God given limitations if you can accept the limitations by design you were designed not to be able to do that stuff it then frees you to not waste your time trying to make a limitation of design into a strength because you can't do it and then we wish we wish people would tell that to these people that go on Africa's Got Talent or whatever you call that show here these talent shows when these kids get on stage and they interview their friends and parents before they get up and they say oh she's gonna blow you away I'm telling you now she's he's unbelievable oh man and then and we all know don't we what's coming then the kid gets on stage and it's a train wreck and when the judges say what we all know they get offended and how the parents get offended and the slam the door behind them cursing the judges that's that's not accepting a limitation by design and if you'll accept limitations by design you will not spend seasons of your life trying to make toast when you're a laptop trying to be trying to be Beyonce when you are beyond a doing that oh what happened just then it's been a long day for me so limitation by design is something you were born with and what people say to us which is why this life without limits thing gets loose hey you can be whatever you want to be no no no no that is bad advice to tell a child to tell anyone you cannot be whatever you want to be you can only be whatever your strengths allow you to be if at first you don't succeed try try again no no no if at first and second and third and fourth you don't succeed you need to stop and check am i trying to do something that actually i'm good at because people try try try again and don't succeed and think the answer is to try more and you'll spend years of your life trying to get good at something that god never made you good at because it's a it's a it's a it's a limitation of design you were built not to be able to do that and if you can figure out what those are then you are free to focus on limitations of default limitations of default are the things that you should not accept in life the things that society that the careers teacher put on me limitations of where you came from your background as i said the color of your skin or a system that stacked against you or some identity that you shouldn't have accepted or anything in life that says to you you can't do this and you should question it and lean against it and push it limitations of default are up for grabs limitations of default and the all over our society all over our society and relationships are the ones you should say i don't think that's true about me i don't accept that i don't i don't i don't want to settle into just becoming that person i'm gonna push that a little bit i'm gonna see whether or not i can actually change that i'm gonna see whether i can go for that these are limitations by default default means this is the danger of default default is like autopilot on your life so you kind of don't know it's happening you just bob along for years accepting that that's not an option for you accepting that you'll never be any good at that accepting that you shouldn't really aspire to that people like you really don't aspire to that and default is this autopilot going along in life accepting this stuff and what you have to do with with limitations of default is you have to take manual control of your life you have to take you have to take your life off autopilot setting and grab the controls for yourself and start flying your life manually start saying i refuse to accept this about me that my family and friends and sometimes family and friends are the worst at putting default limitations on us because they can't see you any different to how they've always known you and you must never ever be loyal to an old version of yourself you can't do that that's a default setting ask just the way i am just the way he is just the way we are we kind of always been like that yeah hello then maybe you need maybe you need a yellow to awaken your green for you to break that containment because millions and millions and millions of us live our lives in these contaminants that we don't know we have because it's a limitation not the god chose not a design one you can't change those but it's a default one and we think that we think that they're the same because people tell us you'll never amount to anything you'll never be able to do that i don't think that's possible i don't think that can happen in a place like this a town like that a country like this and we think that that is somehow a limitation of design so we leave it alone it's a default one you have to figure out the difference and then start to push against the ones that you should not lie down under you're okay i know that some of you are lacking a few bible verses tonight to make you feel this is kosher and from jesus but you'll be okay i want to mention this last few minutes what i think is the greatest secret limitation of all the greatest secret limitation of all it was worth coming just for this tonight and the sick the greatest secret limitation of all is what i would call our belief systems our belief systems belief systems are something i'm fascinated by and i've studied psychology for about 15 years now because i wanted to understand people better than i did because people can be interesting weird strange random complicated scary and i wanted to understand people i think anybody that works with people at least owes it to yourself and them to try and figure people out because most people are too lazy to figure themselves out so i thought i better figure themselves out for me so that i am not all the time dealing with weird stuff that i can't explain and i get discouraged and fed up and think i'll change my job because you've got to figure people out so psychologists teachers the belief systems are the hard wiring of what you believe problem is that the belief systems are established by the age of eight so whether you grow up to be a stingy person or a generous person is decided by the age of eight whether you grow up to be a risk taker or a plate safe person is decided by the age of eight whether you grow up to be a forgiving person or a person that holds grudges and you don't forgive is decided by the age of eight these belief systems that are embedded into us in the most formative season of our life childhood because kids don't learn like you're learning now not in your head taking a note kids just learn by monkey see monkey do don't they kids just pick stuff up and you say to kids where did you get that from and the answer is from you and because you don't remember telling them to behave that way you don't think you're responsible for it but kids don't learn by telling them this is what to do or not to do kids learn by example and by atmosphere and by the default autopilot mode of the home they're in so you can tell the kids all day you i could do a i could do a lecture in here on mumps and do a brilliant multimedia presentation on mumps you'd have a notepads filled you'd be a genius on mumps but if i've come in here with measles you leave here with measles knowing everything about mumps because people catch who you are people catch what you have not what you say you have or what you say they should have and this is how kids pick up and people pick up default mode beliefs so these belief systems we all came into this room with tonight and these things were decided way upstream of where you are now and now you're not eight maybe now you're 38 or 48 all you know is i've got stuff in my life that i don't even like about myself and i don't know what to call it i just feel threatened in certain situations or i feel insecure around people or i'm i'm cynical all the time i always have to sort of bring someone down a peg or two i always have to have the last comment or i'm a very nervous person or i'm kind of um overconfident and i kind of over talk and over share the over sharing thing over share and there's these fault lines in our lives and it's cost your jobs and it's cost your friendships cost your opportunities but we don't know to call it and usually they are these default mode belief systems that we don't know that we had for instance three million plus Hebrews came out of Egypt but they died in the wilderness not because they were slaves physically but because they were slaves mentally so they had a slave mentality they had a victim mentality because oppression breeds victimization oppression breeds victim mentality and your country knows a whole lot about that so do other parts of the world so these these generationally established slaves couldn't get over the fact that they were free and so still behaved like slaves though they were free and it was that belief system that cost them get into the promised land so this is how real this is these things can be life or death and no one tells us that's why it's a secret no one tells us that these that these social economic cultural regional racial gender whatever they may be belief systems are deeply embedded in our lives and because um because we have two minds we have a conscious mind and a subconscious mind we all know that what we don't know is the ratio the ratio is that our conscious mind is only 20 percent of our thought life 80 percent of your thought life is subconscious how scary is that 80 percent of where your thinking comes from is below your consciousness it's where your beliefs sit and those beliefs are controlling all outcomes this is why you can go to the gym in january you know that new years resolution stuff i'm gonna get fit lose a few pounds go to the gym in january and by february march at a stretch you go in less often or not at all or the treadmill someone bought you for christmas so that you can work out at home you are on it religiously dedicatedly every single day until about first of feb and by the end of feb you just use it to hang your clothes on because your 20 head said this is good i'm gonna do this but you didn't know and no one told you that your belief system sat there saying no freaking way are we doing this and what you don't realize is this and what we don't realize is this with this issue you cannot have a behavioral change without a belief change it will not sustain but we try to change things by behavioral modification all the time never realizing that we default back to the wrong behavior because what's feeding the wrong behavior is these deeply subconscious belief systems and these belief systems are controlling all of the outcomes in all of our lives here tonight this has been good for me as a leader and a pastor because it makes me more realistic about what's possible in a service like this my expectations have totally changed on what's possible in me talking to you for 30 minutes i kind of downgraded years ago what i believe was possible you'll never hear me saying ever i stopped these years ago hey i'm going to tell you this is going to change your life tonight because that's over promising and i don't decide that you decide that so when people say in a when i'm in a meeting and people say i'm going to tell you this will change your life i say to myself i'll be the judge of that because you will and i will i might say something to you and say guys this is really really important but i don't hear what happens next which is what goes on inside your head because there's two voices in this room there's what i am saying to you then there's what you are saying to you about what i'm saying to you and what you say to you is by far the most powerful voice in your life let's get the band back up here i should have said that some moments ago when you say that gives people hope we finished seriously i've been in some meetings where i wish to god the band would have got up sooner from a life flashing before me on the third hour thank god for these kind of churches where we realize people have lives outside of the church and families and jobs and stuff so the band can come back up now thank you when you don't say can the band come back up and they get up it's like they're always saying okay get off so we all have here tonight you've all come with these subterranean subconscious default belief systems i don't know what they are for you jk rowling that wrote harry potter was interviewed on tv a while back and she's now multi multi millionaire worth hundreds of millions married two kids and she was telling the story about she was trying to write the seventh edition of harry potter but her house was chaos with the kids and school run and school pick up and family around and stuff in the home and she was behind on the deadline and panicking and her friend said to her joe you should go and rent a hotel suite buy a flipping hotel go and buy rent a space and go and write there don't try and write at home go and buy a space rent a space and go and write there then come home and be mom and then go back and write in the hotel go and rent a hotel room rent a hotel suite and and jk rowling said to a friend but that would be such a waste of money so expensive to which your friend went you didn't just say that to me did you you didn't we get to say that not you and when when jk rowling said i heard myself say but that would be so expensive is that it's only she said it's only then i realized that the broke single parent that wrote the first harry potter in a coffee shop in erin borough where she went to keep warm because she couldn't heat her flat when she drank two coffees a day because she couldn't afford more than two and she would sip it slowly so the owner didn't throw out and she would sit for the warmth in the coffee shop typing the first ever harry potter she said it's then i realized when my friend said that to me she said this then i realized that the broke single parent version of me had not caught up with the multimillionaire version of me that's a belief system that locks you and anchors you in an old mindset even though your whole surroundings now say that all that should have changed so this is the greatest secret that keeps people limited these belief systems that prevent you progressing even though you want to and you know you can and you should and you do the equivalent of going to the gym the equivalent of trying to improve yourself and you default back all the time to the person you don't want to be the chances are you have a belief system and the only way to change it is you have to reprogram that subconscious jukebox gotta put new tunes in there and it's hard work it's hard work personally and corporately and a lot of people quit because it's so hard work and the longer you leave it the tougher it is but i gotta tell you those belief systems are where your default limitations are coming from i'm gonna identify them find a language for them least if you go home tonight saying i wonder what would be my belief system ask your friends what would you say would be possibly one of mine can you help me get in the neighborhood even aware that i might have an internal default limitation that's just stopping me progressing because you know what your natural ones are they're easier to spot maybe these default ones are tricky and so i'm just shining a light on them in the hope that it may become aware to you that you have one or two or three that you can identify tell you if you can change just one of those for the rest of this year you can work on one and reprogram one belief system it will completely seriously it will completely release your life to a whole new level and give you a lot of more options that you don't have right now because you don't know what it is that's holding you back because you want to change you want to do that and you try but you keep being dragged back it's probably a belief system that's limiting your life and that's one of the best kept secret the devil has but it's not a secret anymore because i just told you amen come on let's stand together all across the room well father we thank you so much for this amazing idea that you had at the beginning to use us to use ordinary people to represent you in the earth and we feel privileged to have met you that you even glanced in our direction still is amazing to us let alone that you would include us and use us and believe in us and get stuff done through us and so we are here tonight always in awe of your grace and your inclusion of us and i just pray tonight for everyone here those listening later to the download online that you will help us to get intentional about this issue of limitation help us to figure out our default mode limitations help us to find the courage and the wisdom to identify and to navigate our way through the complexity of this limitation issue and i pray for change and progress and upgrades and breakthroughs for us as we become aware of our self limiting default modes and the green as it were wakes up inside us and i pray for and enough is enough moments for us in these weeks and months ahead as we start to tackle and change things that we shouldn't have been living with for as long as we have and we thank you for your divine assistance help partnership belief in us as we attempt massive things in our lives that people tell us we can't do and our forefathers never beat but on our watch in our time and our turn we are committed to not default to our ancestors our forefathers helplessness victim mentality fear insecurity small mindedness Lord we refuse that every generation has to make a choice about these things which used to step up and to stand out and to speak up and to take manual control of our lives in Jesus name thank you father let me ask all across the room while eyes are closed if you're here tonight and you've never ever given your life to Jesus who gave his life to you 2 000 years ago so this moment isn't about God making his mind up about you that happened way back this is down to you now never given your life to Jesus i wonder would you want to do that tonight is this the right time and the right moment for you maybe you once prayed a prayer lifted a hand and prayed a prayer but you weren't ready you did it to keep someone else happy that happens a lot did it for your spouse did it to keep your friends happy because you thought if i don't lift my hand it's a deal breaker so tonight i want you to listen to because this is about you for you deciding for you not for anyone else that i i want to make this decision i want to make this stand tonight god i i give you my life i want a new beginning i'm stepping up and i'm stepping out come on if that's you tonight will you lift your hand where you are when i've seen your hand you can take it down you're just saying yeah that's absolutely me tonight come on someone here someone over there come on over there over there fantastic come on who else just keep lifting your hands someone there down here there there fantastic anyone else just lift your hand where you are come on anyone else someone there over there over there fantastic everybody look at me a minute let me just say listen lifting a hand is only one way to come to christ it's not the only way if lifting a hand doesn't suit you then don't lift your hand don't let our methods stop you find whatever way works for you we don't care how people come to christ we just care that you do and we care that our methods don't stop you so listen if you're not offended that we ask you to lift a hand we're not offended that you don't it's a win win but those that did lift a hand tonight we honor you we celebrate you we thank you because it's a tough thing to do sometimes but if you're in your heart thinking i would like to do that but i would like to do it in a different way we don't care find someone speak to someone but let today be the day where you do the equivalent of that somehow in your life is what this moment is all about i'm going to say let's give a huge applause to the ones that did lift a hand i'm going to hand back to pastor donovan thanks everybody for having me go strong thank you blessings thank you


Good afternoon sir. Thank you. Yes, how are you? I am fine sir. You are coming from Noida? Yes sir. How is Noida? Sir, it's alright. It's great sir. You are liking Noida? Yes sir. It's a fine city sir. Aine city? Yes sir. Not congested? Sir, not as much as other places in the NCR sir. But when you start coming out, come to Delhi? Yes sir. You are blocked traffic, all around traffic? Yes sir, exactly. So, Noida in itself is alright. But when it gets connected to Ghazabad or Delhi, I find things congested sir. Tell me some important schools near your locality. Sir, Kothari Public School in sector 50. And one is Ramagya Public School also around sector 50 where I stay. And sir, DPS Noida sir. DPS Noida is a famous school there. APJ Public School. And some hospitals? Sir, Kailash Hospital. Fortress Hospital. And a Neo Hospital is a small hospital sir. But yeah. There are some nearby. And some apartments? So, Mahagon Apartments are very close to my home. And sir, Gaur city? Which Gaur city? So, Gaur city, Noida extension sir. That is far off? That is far off from your place? Yes sir, around 10 kilometers sir. So, when you are asking near to your locality? Okay. So many will be there around? Okay. Okay. Your father is working where? Sir, Prayagraj sir. Development authority in Prayagraj. Prayagraj. Okay. Now, Noida, see you have seen some Nala near sector 34. Station, railway station, this metro station. This one Nala. See it. Not seen?  Okay sir. And you have Noida authority, you have district collector there. That is whose responsibility to ensure that everything is done properly. Sir, Noida authority is being responsible for it I guess. And there is no corporation there? Municipal corporation? Sir, I am not sure sir. Should there be a corporation in this authority? Sir, apart from the authority you mean? Sir, yes sir. Should be there? Yes sir. But why it is not there then? What is the status of authority, Noida authority as far as this local self-government is concerned? Sir, it was created through a law. Okay. UP Industrial Development Authority Act. Industrial Development Act 1976. So, sir, it derives its powers from there. So, it's different from governance structures. So, does it have a status of local body? Sir, local body? No sir. No? Sir, you mean in the sense of urban local bodies? No sir. No it doesn't have? No sir. What are the flagship programs of this government? This NDA, previous government and this term. Previous term and this term. Some three, four important ones. It's a few important ones. So, mainly in the social sector, the use of DBT. Flagship programs. So, programs I think mean Avasi Hojna, PM Avasi Hojna and Swaj Bharati Hojna, Swaj Bharat Abhyana. And sir and make in India for, pushing for in manufacturing in India. Start-up India. So, I think. What is flagship program? So, flagship means. Sir, something that is defined, something that is. Okay. There are two sections of IPC which have been held void, violation of constitutional provisions by the Supreme Court. Can you name those? And what constitutional provisions have been violated by those sections? So, section 377. That is violating what? Sir, it's violating right to privacy and freedom of expression. And. 497. 497. So, I'm not sure what it is about. I'll see. Sir. Yes, sir. Mathematics as an option. Yes, sir. What do you bring on the table as a administrator with such an option? Sir, mathematics. Sir, it brings logic and rationality in decision making, sir. But isn't that common in everything else also? Any other engineering subject? Logic and rationality is same. Sir, mathematics also comes at an intersection of science and art, sir. Sir, it also, on the one hand, it relies on logic and rationality. And it also relies on elegance and beauty, sir. Can you elaborate elegance and beauty in mathematics? So, many theorems. So, for example, Pythagoras theorem has a lot of proofs, sir. But some proofs are very long. And some are, like, just a picture long. It's just a picture that displays how. If we have to name three major contributions of India to the subject of mathematics, what would it be? So, firstly, I think Aarabhat. Aarabhat, the invention of zero. It has helped in, sir. Today, we use zero as in computer programs. And apart from that, it simplified many things. It acted as an identity in mathematics. Next. Sir, Brahmagupta, I think, Brahmagupta did a lot of things. And his discovery is a certain astronomical discoveries he made with the help of mathematics, sir. And sir, Ramanujan, I think, is the most recent and one of the biggest mathematical prodigies of India. Okay. Civil engineer. Yes, sir. Two big buildings are being demolished in NCR region. Yes, sir. What technique would they use to ensure a controlled demolition? Which parts of the structure would they target? Which part of the structure? The structure would they target for a controlled demolition. Sir, I am not sure. They are going to use an implosion. Yeah. The building is not going to affect the building side by, nearby. Yes, sir. So, what part of the structure of the building will they target to ensure that it doesn't slip over or, you know, it implodes itself? Sir, I am not sure about it, sir. Okay. What do you think about this demolition and also there was a massive demolition in Kerala also, a few years back. You are familiar with this? No, sir. I know about the demolition in Noida, sir. Right. There was a encroachment and Supreme Court had ruled in favor of demolition of certain buildings in Kerala also. Okay, sir. You are not familiar with this, right. NCR region is highly prone for an earthquake. Yes, sir. It is an earthquake prone region. Yes, sir. The construction methodology in terms of structure is adopted in NCR region compared to other regions. Sir, the difference? The difference. So, I am not very sure, sir. We constantly see instances of buildings collapsing. We have seen that happen in Gurgaon now, in Bombay, etc. So, what do you call tests or what inspections do you do before after a building is constructed to check whether this is structurally strong or not? I don't remember, sir. You have done civil engineering? Yes, sir. Right. Okay. One of your hobbies is reading nonfiction. Yes, sir. What do you read? Sir, mostly history books, history or philosophy or science-based books, sir. Can you name the last three books that you have read? Sir, last I read 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yolma Hari. And then I read The Difficulty of Being Good by Gujarat Das. And I read Cost Moves by Carl Sagan, sir. Okay. In 21 Ideas for the 20th Century, Yolma Hari talks about democracy. Yes, sir. Can you tell me what is his interpretation of the future of democracy? Sir, he believes that democracy is based on what people feel about politics. But he says that given the information technology revolution and biotechnology revolution that is being very disruptive and causing a lot of change in today's century, in the 21st century. So, democracy is said to undergo a change. So, firstly, the feelings of the people can be manipulated by politicians and by corporations. Should we ban promotion of politics and politicians in social media? Because if social media has such a disruptive tendency on politics, should we ban social media? There was a request by the Congress Chief also that Facebook should be suspended for political campaigning. Sir, no, sir. It has its positive effects as well, sir. It allows very easy campaigning for independent candidates who cannot afford a lot of on-ground campaigning. It helps them. And apart from that too, sir, it's a very good, maybe not for political campaigning, but to familiarize people with various political programs and various social schemes, it can be a very good medium to social media. But, sir, at the same time, when it comes to elections, it has to be a bit transparent when the way social media is used. I guess the Election Commission also has generated some guidelines regarding the same. Okay. You mentioned Carl Sagan. Yes, sir. He's also perceived as a scientist and a philosopher. Yes, sir. Why is he perceived as a philosopher? What is the important contribution to philosophy? Sir, as far as I understand, the way he views the cosmos, he has philosophy to take on it as well. So, he says that, the main line which he says is, we are star-stuff. One line is that, we are star-stuff. So, this shows that our existence is such a rare possibility that we have to cherish it. Every human creation, every creation of life form has to be cherished because it is so rare, it is so rare in this universe. And so, apart from that, he believes, and so, one more sense, sir. He paints a picture of Voyager 1 viewing Earth from Saturn, sir. He says that Earth is so small and yet, over the centuries, we have been fighting for a small portion of this pale blue dot. So, that exposes our folly, sir, he says. That that is exposing our folly over the centuries.  Last question. UP election, one of the most important part of the campaign was that UP has changed. What are the changes that you have observed in the last 5 to 10 years in UP? So, people feel a bit safer in UP now, sir. Earlier, decoyties and chain-snatching, these were frequent incidents, sir. People feel a lot safer about them now. Apart from that, the delivery of social services is a lot better now. People do not have to rely on caste-based associations or direct relations to access funds and access benefits from the government. Sra, why is so low on CGP 5.32? What is the reason? Sir, I didn't know any better when I joined engineering, sir. I felt that I was not mature enough to know that, sir, what it entailed. And when I got into IIT, sir, I also found a whole new world to explore. And unfortunately, sir, however good civil engineering is, I found my interest lacking in the subject. Okay. Tell me, you talked about Ramanujan. There was a film on him. Can you tell us something about that film? Sir, I haven't watched the film, but I know that in The Man and the Infinity. Anything else about the cast, directors? Sir, Dev Patel was casted as Ramanujan. But I did not know anything. Okay. You also talked about Section 377 of IPC. Yes. And you said it has been declared unconscious now. Yes, sir. To the extent that it violates the rights of LGBTQ community. Now we are making a qualified statement. Yes. And it is not about community. Okay, sir. The court is talking about individual rights. Yes, sir. Right to privacy is not given to the community. It is given to individuals. Yes, sir. So in the first instance, you did not make a qualified statement. You said it has been declared unconscious now. I agree, sir. Okay. And public funding of elections, because you talked about elections and you said private independent candidates, you don't have that much money to run their campaigns or social media is quite useful to them. Do you think elections should be public funded? Sir, it can be partially funded, but complete funding of elections publicly can have certain negative effects. So firstly, we cannot be sure whether it will be substituting the already being used money or it will be complimenting it. It will be supplementing it. If it ends up supplementing it, it is of no use. Don't give me this. Just tell me, if you were saying it should be partially funded. Yes, sir. So what kind of funding you are looking at? Suppose in a particular constituency, because of government funding, there are 100 candidates. Everybody wants to take money. So how do you check this? Can you repeat the question? Suppose in a particular constituency, there are 100 candidates, everybody wants to fight elections because he or she thinks that the government will give us money. So how do you deal with this, even if it is partially funded? Sir, they can be cut off criteria. Such as? Sir, I can't think of any right now. Okay. You have lived in Noida and you know Delhi.  You must have faced. Yes, sir. So firstly, I think it is pollution. Here in water pollution, sir. And another is the growing slums and the problems of the migrant community in NCR. And sir, other is traffic congestion, sir. So offer some solutions to all three. So for traffic congestion, sir, the government is doing rapid rail and rapid transport systems. I'm not asking what the government is doing. I'm asking you, how do we solve this problem? Do you have any solutions? Sir, I think for even for short travels, people are preferring bikes and cars. So for that purpose, I think green spaces and footpaths can be widened and can be better maintained, sir. So that people do not rely on cars for even small grocery shopping. Firstly, that. Secondly, sir, so there's also a lack of last mile connectivity. For example, people use metro, but it's sometimes far from their homes and they have to rely on cars to get to the metro station and then they take the metro. So sir, small shuttle services, siting services from metros to small distances, like paper or premises, can also help for transport, sir. So for the problem of migrants, sir, I think, sir, there needs to be coordination among states, the originating districts and the region of NCRs. So they need to coordinate about the socioeconomic background of the people migrating to the cities and their particular problems. And so accordingly, they should be given sufficient say in the governments of these cities. They often find themselves politically almost disinfinitized. We will talk about air pollution, sir. Air pollution. So I think traffic itself will solve a lot. And so apart from that, I think most have been cosmetic changes that have been introduced. They have been successful, sir, but in the long run, sir, I think it will all depend on how people perceive it. We need, firstly, it is not a political issue in the NCR, sir. So are you saying that air pollution is a question of perception? Sir, no, sir, because it is a slow killer, we do not often perceive it as an immediate danger, sir. So many people perceive it as not as important. Okay, my last question to you. Should we go for NCR as a state? Maybe no, sir. Why? Sir, NCR as a state would be a very populist, first of all. Very? Populist, sir. It will have a large population. And second? What is the problem with that? You have to put this. Sir, but it is not as dense, as densely populated as the NCR. And so secondly, sir, the surrounding states will also lose on a very productive area, sir. Anything else? It is not that I can think of. Thank you. At least a deliberate of the ideation of common NCR, NCR as a separate state. There are some practical difficulties in terms of, you know, states will not agree or there will be huge protests, but at least can you bring out some positives of it? Sir, coordination would be very easy, sir. For example, sir, in the COVID crisis, there were many check posts and border closures because the states were preventing each other from availing medical services in other states. Pollution has been a problem where states continue to blame each other, sir. Okay. Why do you want to join the civil services? Sir, firstly, sir, I have personal ambitions. The civil services enables me to have job satisfaction, it is a diversity of work. And secondly, in most of my life, sir, for the past seven or eight years, I have noticed a certain amount of contrast in my life and what I see around me. And, sir, I feel a bit burdened by it. I have never had to think about my next meal or health emergencies, but I have seen people suffering because of snake bites. And not snake bites was not the issue. The issue was the absence of health facilities near. And so when I was working in NSS in IIT, I worked for an Indian internship in Uttarakhand. Sir, I found that students were willing to learn, but they did not have adequate facilities. I find that administration can help a lot in this regard. Okay. You are also giving some other exams engineering services? Not right now, sir. Any plans to give? Sir, I believe that I will be able to qualify this exam itself. If I am not, sir, I will try for state administration, sir. Okay, all right. But there is a perception that the law and order situation has improved in UP in the last five years. Yes. Have you personally felt so? Yes, sir. In what sense? Sir, I have had relatives who had things stolen from them. Sir, earlier, the female members of our family used to feel afraid of going out. And that was not just a perception, sir. There were such incidents. But now, sir, while the government has been a bit high-handed, but overall the effects have been positive. Any effect on the data also? So, I cannot recall, sir. Okay. Can you compare Noida and Gurgaon? Sir, I have not been to Gurgaon a lot. But from what I can see, from what I read, sir, Sir, Gurgaon has a drainage problem. Noida does not have as big a problem of drainage. And... In terms of infrastructure? Infrastructure. Sir, Gurgaon has certain infrastructure that has attracted the IIT services in the IIT industry to Gurgaon, which has not been the case with Noida. And... Have you followed the news of structural safety issue in some apartments in Gurgaon? No, sir. You haven't heard the news? All right. Any news on demolition in Noida? Yes, the supertick towers were demolished. So, what techniques are they using? Side demolition. Okay, all right. Sir, can you bring out the impact of social media on youth? And do you use social media? Sir, I have minimized the use. I find that in small quantities, it is helpful. Sir, it helps articulate our thoughts. It helps express our thoughts. And, sir, it democratizes our media, sir, which was earlier very one-way communication. But at the same time, sir, I find that overuse of social media can have issues like a lack of attention. People are losing their attention. And so that is why they are losing patience to read books or things like that. And so secondly, there's also a crisis of identity, I find. People are comparing themselves. People are judging themselves by what other people say about them. So that is a negative aspect. But a controlled use can be beneficial for everyone. Okay. Recently, my Japanese Prime Minister had visited India. Yes, sir. Any significant announcements or whichever made? So, I think, sir, I'm not very sure about the very specifics. But I think broadly, both were concerned about the Ukraine situation. And both lead emphasis that the situation should be de-escalated and pre-peace should prevail. Apart from that. So both reiterated, I think, the importance of co-ord and multi-dimensionality in the Indian Pacific. Any announcements on investments and infrastructure? So I can't exactly recall the specifics. Okay. What do you think is the objective of visit of Chinese Foreign Minister to India? And which other countries he visited? Sir, he recently visited India. Sir, I think he also realizes that it's better in the short term or in the medium term to have peaceful relations with India. For China, I think, sir, they are very concerned with their coming struggle with USA. And they see the world in that perspective itself. And for that, they also see that India did not want a two-front disturbance in their countries. Okay. Anything with related to RIC access and all? RIC access. Russia, India, China access they want to create? Yes, also about that. They also, yes, they feel that this is the right time maybe to create dissensions in co-ord and discredit the importance of co-ord and comparing it with NATO and a military strategy. NATO, yes, sir. And so they also believe that, again, they're viewing the world through their prism of China versus USA. And for that, they believed, again, India should not be an hindrance for their ambitions. And given that India is a bit concerned, India has been neutral in the Russia-Ukraine crisis. They believe that given America's complaints against India, complaints against India about not being very outright against Russia, this is the right time to get India on band weekends. Last question. So you were telling that civil engineering, you did not like that steam. Now, given in the hindsight, what you would have chosen? Which steam? Sir, probably pure science is mathematics, sir. Mathematics, yes. Siddharth, your interview is over. Thank you, sir. For all you have done well, just sit down. Current affairs, I think you need to work on this. If super tech, you don't know. And Gurugama structural building issue, you don't know. And being a civil engineer. Sir, actually, I have not revised civil engineering at all. And I was very concerned about facing four or five people at the same time. So I wanted that experience to be... You don't have a lot of time. You don't have time for that. 7th April is your interview. That's right. There is no compromise about current affairs. So civil engineering and current affairs cannot be compromised. There are three or four questions. In the news, it's not something that... And everything is coming in newspapers. Super tech thing is coming for the last, I think, seven, eight months. Even yesterday, every day. Agast, the order is issued by the Supreme Court. In super tech building, you said it has been demolished. No. It is yet to be demolished. 22nd of May is the date. 22nd of May, yes. And there is NCLT order declaring super tech to be bankrupt. Gurugama, there is a building collapse. That is why you are a civil engineer. So it's important for you. Flag seat programs. What is flag seat programs? What are the major programs that you should be knowing? Then you have NOIDA. You are staying in NOIDA. What is the structure of NOIDA? What is local body, municipal corporation? These things you should know. Except that they have municipal corporation. That is, status is local body status. There is no need of corporation there. As per the constitutional provisions, industrial authority also is having status of local government. Then on the question of traffic management, air pollution and all, traffic management, you said roads should be there, and pathways should be there. That is your credit problem for traffic. Solutions. He was asking you solutions. Traffic. And if you are having more green space and all, then there is no space for vehicles. So I mean spaces for cycles to move. I mean spaces for cycles to move, so to promote two wheelers, cycling and... Anyway, then you said something, although high handedness of the government. That was a bit... Don't use these words. Okay, sir. It has improved all the high handedness of the government. Your clothing. Listen, so that you put not this type of gaudy colour, at least this is your shirt and tie. It should be light colour, plain, tie and all. Sir, I should change my shirt also, sir? Shirt also. It's very destructive type. Okay, sir. We are having the same thing. Sir's colour is plain. Something like that. Light, slightly light. Okay, sir. And you'll be sharing also. You should have shared and come. Okay, sir. One is that since you went to IIT, sometimes there is one IIT professor in the panel, retired or serving. So they can ask you about IITs per se. Okay, sir. What is IIT and is it good to have too many IITs and all? What is the structure of IIT? Which IIT was set up the help of some foreign country and all? All this. About IITs, you should be knowing. There could be questions regarding that. Your low CGPA, anybody can notice. Yes, sir. So you should be ready for proper answer. So what else can I say, sir? I don't know because I don't understand science. Say something about your healthy shoes or something. If you had healthy shoes. This is to say that you were not interested and it took time and all. You can say some healthy shoes or some family shoes. Or you got into a lot of cultural and both activities. Yes, sir. So that... I also use time in some other productivity stuff. So that... And then 6 and 497, sir, I had asked you. This is about adultery. Okay. And that specific thing was there. What Supreme Court has done? Why it was healthy, violated? Yes, sir. It showed that... Both these... The moment somebody asks you about this 377 or 497 of IPC. Both these cases have their... The verdicts have their roots in Putta Swami verdict. Yes, sir. So right to privacy also. You should be knowing. Because of that verdict, these two verdicts were facilitated. So you should be knowing the chain. Okay, sir. And then I asked about Noida and NCR. NCR, because sometimes what happens, whatever you have said, while answering the questions posed by one panel member, the other panel members are listening to you. And they will take down certain points and pick up some points and ask you questions. So whatever you are saying, it should be very well thought out. Okay. Because you can expect further questions on that. Sir, I was very unprepared today, sir. No, because once you say something, like you say something about NCR, further questions on NCRs. So whatever you say, it should be very well thought out answer. Expecting that there could be further questions. Yes. And you know the difference between NCR and NCT. What is NCR? Capital Territory of Delhi. Sir, that is Delhi itself, the state of the beauty of Delhi. And NCR, you know, is the wider regions of the world. The moment, Pridhava goes up to Meret and... Shahan, Shahan. Haryana also goes up to Rottak and all those things. And NCT, then NCT Act, you should be knowing about it. Article 239A, 239AA, all these. And this current Supreme Court verdicts on Tassel for power between, or rather control over bureaucracy between Delhi and center, or LG and Delhi government. That's what we're clear to. Thank you, sir. I think my primary concern is you passed out in 2018. You don't have work experience, civil engineering with a combination of low CGTN. I had a student in 2018, very similar profile, not IIT Delhi, NIT. And he was eventually asked by the panel, if you construct a house, will you call somebody else to do it, or will you do it? So, because they asked him basic questions like, what is the cement mixing ratio? Practical equations also. Exactly. I have seen in the past, I was somewhere with IIT professor in the panel. And he asked exactly questions like this. So, sometimes you can ask questions very specific. Speak to some people on the ground who construct buildings and who do practical things on civil engineering. When they ask practical application of your knowledge. And Gordhama Building Collapse and Noida Supertech proposed demolition. You should be knowing the kind of technology that is used for such demolitions. What are the safety measures that are required to be taken? These are obvious questions for you. I think you did well. Just focus on current affairs and some civil engineering, at least the news which is there. So, what was extremely bad about part of this? I think yes. So, you didn't even this, Noida thing also. Noida and Gordhama. Gordhama. That's something. I like what you said about Carl's area. I think that was reasonably good. Carl's second and philosophy. That was good. Okay, on the rest.


What's up my loyal subscribers Isaac here, and I wanted to make a quick video as always real quick about the importance of Checklists now. Why should you have a checklist right now the human mind is notorious lean? Notorious The bigger joats Notorious because the human mind is notorious for gain of our share, right? It's notorious for crass name for no staying aligned.  It's gonna be sick. You're like, all right. I guess I'll come down Let me go get some meat. So you go buy some meat You go to the barbecue There's a few drinks there. You stay there the whole night. Have a good time then drive back home Then you realize you didn't do anything that you're meant to do That's the story of life. That's the story.  So how do you stay on track, right? Well, it's real simple, right? You write yourself a checklist You make that a habit you make it a habit every day, right checklists with three or four things on it Just to make sure you get the things done the most important thing, of course is gonna be number one on that checklist, right?  Trust me you're not Create waves in your life, right? Things are gonna change for real if you stay consistent with it, of course. So here's my checklist for today Excuse my writing. It's freaking It's horrible, I know but it's like read Real quick. Look at these chickens here. Can you see these chickens? Can you see these? That's the that's the secret. That's the secret there guys. You got you got chickens. Yeah, that's the secret You got chickens, right? Again, that's how you do a little video. I went back to what I was saying. Here's my checklist says read Ideas for video buy new shirt Meditate so important and video. Well, this is not the video that I was talking about. Obviously This is just very impulsive.  There's times when I've just freestyle and that's those are the days I usually just go impulsively to barbecues and spend the whole day having fun in Some salty pork and all that.  Do what I want If you guys enjoyed our video, make sure you like subscribe and get your checklist ready for tomorrow.  Kill it today guys. Anyway, peace more stuff coming out soon


and headline news update. Good afternoon, folks. Steve Rhodes coming to you live from the shores of sunny Delray Beach, Florida. This is your 1 p.m. update and currently we got all the U.S. indices trading to the upside. That was 544 points. The S&P 58, NASDAQ 10137, Russell 37, Semi is 46. Everything is up a little over a percent, nine tenths of percent inside the NDX 100. Gold is off 29 bucks. Silver is down 21 pennies trading out of 22.69. Hey, let's go take a look at our nine panel market update charts. We begin by taking a look at the ES mini upper left hand side. Now, in this case here, what do we know up at the ES mini this week? First of all, its change in trend never occurred. Why? Because price was unable to get below, close below its weekly TAS market profile. That's at the 43.12. So you can't bust them down. What's a market try to do? Bust them to the upside. Now, you've got a brand new daily profile that did take hold. We looked at that yesterday. Price is trading above the center of that profile. That's at 44.26. That suggests to run to the top of the profile 44.83. The confirmation of that message of moving to 44.83 will only come if we see that spot volatility close below its 50 day exponential move in average. The exponential move in average is at 1864. Price is still at 1881. So kind of conflicting signals here, right? As long as the spot volatility remains above that 50, rug pulls can happen. Actually, the NQ, nice, powerful. And by the way, the ES and the NQ, the YM, they each generated currently by patterns yesterday as a result of their bullish reversal candles. Now, if this is just a counter trend rally in the NQ, it went down, Tesla rejected the bottom of its weekly profile. If this is just a counter trend rally, where the rally would end is at 15332. The high today is 15338. So what's the 15332 level? Because if the NQ can close above that, then that signal will suggest to move back to 15557. US dollar index. This has generated a sell the D point right now, but it's got support. It's pulled back pretty hard, but it's got support down at the 92.78 level. That's the bottom of a new profile that is attempting to form as we speak. Gold down 29 bucks. But just testing the bottom of its daily profile support 1749. Like we crude, you've got an A to B equal CD to the upside. The target's a 7616 level. Natural gas has found support at the bottom of its daily profile. That's after generating, I believe that was a TD9 top out there and a 30 year treasury bond. It's been consolidating really since July. So nothing new there. Folks, stay tuned for the Trader Zed Show. But if you're off to start Thursday, have a terrific one. But join me tomorrow morning, 8 to 9 a.m. We're going to record the show during that time period. We'd love to have you in the audience live. Stay tuned for the Trader Zed Show, folks.


They gave us direct, basically accident VFR, they gave me new squawk, flash, and then they gave me direct. Point to Tome. I used to be a part of a low-rating town. I went to set up for the attack and did some of this building up pretty quickly. I made the attack, like, Simon delivered. We went and battled with 27, I think it was 27's jet. I think 16's, sink, fine. Probably I just got for range entry. Yeah. It took a while for them to get situated. I kind of had to talk them into, like, confirm, you know, follow my coordinate.


Yeah, the talk that is symmetrically and asymmetrically marked cryptography by Alex Ruyukov and Lil Perin. Lil is here to present the work. Thank you for the introduction. So yeah, this is what I did when I was in Luxembourg. I'm not there anymore. I'm also not related to our program chair. There is a slight difference. I'm so nervous in here as far as I know. All right. So in this talk, I'm going to talk about a wide variety of subjects within symmetric cryptography. And I'm going to argue that they are all particular cases of the same general idea. So I'm going to talk about white box crypto, big key encryption, password hashing functions, key derivation functions, time locks, and possibly others. And see what they all have in common. We also explain what they are if you are not really with them. So first I'm going to argue that this is about efficiency and specifically inefficiency of a primitive. Then I'm going to describe some modes of operations which allow us to build such functions and then present a particular case of one function we designed ourselves. So when you're building a new, say a new block cipher, you want to have, you want to have an efficient implementation and to measure the efficiency of this implementation, you look at several metrics. I'm going to simplify here, but basically what you look at is the time it takes to encrypt one block, which you may measure in a CQ cycle, sorry, in seconds. You're going to look at the code size. So that's the size of your implementation. Do you need to store tons of information in your source code to implement your algorithm or not? And you also need to look at the RAM consumption. So that's the huge also majority of just invites. And it's the information that you're going to generate every time you receive a new input. So suppose that you have some, a given algorithm, a fixed algorithm, and you're just going to make various implementations of it. So you have a certain amount of time, certain amount of memory, certain amount of code that you need. Then you can use some tricks in your implementation. You can enroll the groups and your code is bigger, but your time is a bit smaller. You can use some pre-computations. You can use underfly computations. So instead of storing information in the code itself, you really just read it every time. It's going to be slower, but your code is smaller. So you have this kind of trade-offs. So these are the kind of trade-offs we think about when we design a new algorithm, a priori. But in fact, what we have found is that many algorithms from asymmetry crypto are actually designed to be inefficient on purpose around one of these three axes. So for instance, there are algorithms which we are going to call time hard, which are slow on purpose. So I'm not going to talk too much about possible parallelization here, but basically it's algorithms which are intended to be slow. The idea is often to just slow down brute force. So PBKDF2 is a key derivation function which basically just iterates a hash-based MAC thousands and thousands of time. And the idea is that if you are putting a low entropy password through this function, which is from a set which could be brute-forced, then the time it costs, the time it takes to brute-force it is multiplied by thousands of thousands. So the aim of having a slow algorithm is to frustrate brute force. But these algorithms, you want them to just be slow. You don't want them to take tons of RAM. You don't want them to take a huge code size. So this is time hardness. You also have what we call code hardness, which is an algorithm which takes, which requires a very large implementation. So to clarify the distinction we made between code hard and memory hard, which is the next slide, in code hard the information that you need to store does not depend on the input of the function. So you have your implementation of the function. It requires huge amounts of data. But this data does not depend on the input of the function. It's at rest. It's information you're only going to read when you evaluate the function. So an example of such a code hard function is XT2, which was presented at crypto 16, which is used for big encryption. So the idea, very roughly the idea of big encryption and XT2 in particular, is to frustrate key leakage. The idea is that you are using some encryption on your computer, but there is some malware in your computer which might just send the key you use for encryption to whoever is your favorite boogieman. And the idea then is that if you make this key huge like gigabytes, then it's much harder for this malware to just exfiltrate the key. You can assume that your systems and your network administrator might notice that you're suddenly uploading gigabytes of data. So to prevent this kind of key leakage, you might want to have an algorithm which uses a huge key. This is big encryption and XT2 does that. So XT2 is basically a, you can think of it as a kind of hash function, which requires huge tables to run properly. And if the adversary has even just half of this big key, they can't do anything with it. So that's code hardness. Again, you will put that line, this function, fast. You don't want it to use as a run. You just want it to be huge. You have memory hardness after that. In this case, the idea is that the function has a small implementation, but on every input it gets, it generates a ton of data which it needs to store, so to write and then read in RAM. And that's memory hardness. An example of this, so it's more recent. The example of this is Argon2, which is the winner of the password hashing function. We also have balloon hashing, which is even more recent. And that's the aim of N. So both of them are intended for password hashing. The idea in this case is that since the function requires this huge amount of RAM, it's going to make it harder to build dedicated ASICs to efficiently run the function. So, for instance, if you just have a function which is code hard like ppdf2, what you can do is just build dedicated chips, which are going to run your hash days very, very fast. And that will allow you to kind of offset this slowdown through hardware. The point of this is to prevent that. The particularity of memory hardness is that since you need to write this information to memory every time you run the function, it can't be arbitrarily fast because it takes time to write. You need to generate and then write the data to memory. So in this case, you want the code to be small, you want the memory to be huge, but the time you can't make it arbitrarily small. You want it to be as small as possible, but you can't make it arbitrarily small. All right. And so this was just what we call symmetric hardness. Then we can go further and introduce asymmetric hardness. So asymmetric hardness is the idea that you have two functionally equivalent algorithms. So for even input, they will give you the exact same output to both of them. The difference is that one of them is run hard, run hard, both hard or time hard, and the other is not. And what separates whether you can evaluate the efficient one or not is the ownership of a key. So you divide the users into basic users and privileged users who know a secret key. And the privileged users can evaluate, so we denote the FK, which is an algorithm which is functionally equivalent to some hard algorithm F, but FK is not hard. So time hard, road hard, run hard. We say road hard is to be higher. So obviously, you don't want the adversary to be able to recover K from the division of F, because then for this adversary, the function is actually not road hard, the adversary just recover K from F and then evaluate the efficient one. So this is asymmetric hardness. So this, what I just presented is like a new way of thinking about these different areas, but you actually have algorithms which fit in almost all the niches of this table. So you have time hardness, you have which can use for key derivation, you already have function, for memory, again, for password hashing exists already. For the symmetric, those hardness, you have the encryption, which is called IHC2 and WAIL, which I'm going to very briefly present later. For asymmetric hardness, we have the time loss, which is based on the RSA log. I'm going to go into more details about how it works later. But the idea of time loss is that you would have a piece of information that you encrypt with some guarantees that it cannot be decrypted before a certain date. So that was for the time loss. You take your information, you want to really release it eventually, but you don't want to release it now. So what you do is you release an encrypted version of this information and you know that the key cannot be derived before a certain date. For asymmetric memory hardness, we, as far as we know, are introducing the concept and we will introduce also a function which provides this. So how can you be used? We don't know. Hopefully you can figure something out. And asymmetric code hardness is what some recent white box algorithms have tried to achieve. So the idea is that your implementation of the function needs a huge amount of space, but there is another party who knows a secret key and who wants to be able to evaluate the same function. So in this case, it's an exciter. Without storing these huge tables. So that's recent iterations of symmetric white box cryptography are really about asymmetric code hardness. So now that we have this nice unifying view, can we do anything with it? And in particular, can it help us design primitives with either of these six forms of hardness? Yes or yes? So the idea we had is to combine secure primitives, symmetry primitives we know and trust. So Ketchak permutation and AS and combine them with the small functions which give us the form of hardness we want. So anyway, so yeah, we have these small functions which we can combine with the primitive. The primitive gives us the security and the small function gives us the hardness and we're going to figure out how we do that. So in order to be a bit more formal, we introduce a gain which is lifted actually from a definition of white box crypto from last year's Asia Crypt. But first let's clarify a bit what the aim of the adversary is in this context. So we have a function f which is row hard. So it goes hard memory hard time hard one of them. And what the adversary wants is to be able to evaluate this function f without paying for this price without paying for this hardness. So what they want to find is a function f prime which is not row hard but which is equal which is such that f prime of x is equal to f of x with a high probability. It's sufficient perhaps for the adversary for this to be true half of the case or with probability to the minus 20. So that's the aim of the adversary. And also the resources needed to come up with f prime even f should not be too high like if they need to reinforce AESD say we don't care this adversary is too powerful to be involved with it. A generic method against this which does not depend on the form of hardness is to just take f of f the function f which a prior a prior is public and just evaluate it on a bunch of inputs and store the results in a table. So this will give you a function which has a huge good hardness but which might still remain practical. So this is the generic adversary we want to bother ourselves against. So we gave the name it's the 2 to the p adversary and it's another adversary you basically can store 2 to the p blocks of information. And also we are not giving this adversary an unlimited amount of computing power. So what we don't want them to be able to do for instance is to like break an RSA key or recover an AESD etc. We want this adversary not to be infinitely powerful but we don't want this adversary to be able to find efficient approximations of our row property function. And then we play a game with this adversary and so we can find a more formal definition of our row hardness which is here and again this is basically lifted from the work of Pierre Valençouk and his friends from Penn which was presented at Foster's Egypt but it's generalized in all forms of hardness. So the idea is that the challenger has chooses a row hard function f which is made public so the 2 to the p adversary gets it and then tries to find an approximation f prime of f which is not row hard. And then the challenger picks an x uniformity at random and sends it to the adversary and the adversary wins if his approximation is correct on this x. Note that the adversary does not control x because otherwise there is an obvious attack the adversary receives f he concludes f of x and then he wins so he does not control x. The way we suggest building primitives which are both secure in the cryptographic sense and row hard in our sense is like this. So for a block site it's the same in each case so you take a small function p which is row hard possibly asymmetrically if you want to and you use it basically as a fister function inside either your block site or your sponge function and your sponge updates limitation. So p is a function just blocked here so since we are just touring engineers we want it to plug and it has to be again code hard type hard whatever you want. You have to iterate these several types so if again if you do this for asymmetric code hardness you basically end up with the construction which was introduced last year but you can do this with any form of hardness asymmetric or asymmetric. You can do it also with sponges for sponges we add requirements that both the input and the output of the plug need to fit inside the capacity inside the inner part of the sponge otherwise you might get issues since the adversary can actually control what happens here. And so the small functions you can use to build whatever hard function you want are here so if you want a function which is super slow you just take your hash function and you iterate it multiple times on your input you can't make it any faster as far as we know. For asymmetric I'm going to explain in more detail how it works but this is basically a time lock memory you have argon 2 if you wanted asymmetric you have geodon which I'm going to introduce soon. For the code size you can have just a huge table of random stuff and if you wanted asymmetric instead of random stuff you use the outputs of a block cipher where you have these most of the input and only various small parts of its input. So for this function if you want to evaluate it fast you just evaluate the block cipher and if you don't have a secret key you have to store the huge table as with asymmetric code hard. So you take any of these functions and you combine it with those operations before and you can build any of those. So we have described a code hard hash function which is functionally pretty close. I mean what it aims to achieve to xk2 it works completely differently but it's designed for basically the same as xk2 and it's a symmetrically code hard hash function. A steeper is an asymmetrically dying hard block cipher which is a block cipher which can be fast or not depending on whether you know an RSA private key or not so everybody can just evaluate the block cipher but if you want to be able to evaluate it fast they have to know the RSA private key and we can actually tune the speed difference between privilege and the basic users. So this is great. The problem we had when we started working on this was that we had all the functions in lag but for asymmetric memory hardness there was a big gap in our table it was the only one which couldn't be achieved so we tried to design an asymmetrically memory hard function and we started from s script so this is s script the way it works is you have your input x and from x you generate a huge array of data by just hashing x again and again and again and you have to store all this in RAM and the reason you have to store all this in RAM is that you then make a second loop where you take the last entry here and then you hash it along with some entry from the from the previous table so you generate some index in the table here which is basically the value here modulo the size of the array you concatenate your hash you store in your hash that is necessary and then you repeat this and the idea is that if someone doesn't store all this information they're going to have to re-compute a lot of it every time since h is one way so this function is memory hard because of this then you just take the last value you concatenate to the length you want and that's your output so this is s script well-known memory hard function what we did was basically force the basic users to store the food table just like in s script but do it in such a way that privileged users can actually compute any entry in the table in constant time so without needing to store anything and the way we do this is using this time loop I mentioned before which is based on RSA and the way it works is that you have so your usual RSA group and the basic users only know the public key and the privileged ones do the factorization of your modules and the evaluation of the function is raising your input x to the power 2 to the power eta or eta is some parameter so you have to do eta squareings and what happens is that the basic user can only evaluate this function in this way they have to do eta squareings while the privileged user can first reduce 2 to the eta modulo this thing and then return x to the power that thing which is much much faster as eta increases and so what we do instead is that instead of having force to the hash function at the top we have force to this RSA time loop so the basic user has to store the array just as before because if they need the previous value they it's exactly the same as with s script but for the privileged user they don't need to store anything they just every time they need an entry they just raise it to the appropriate power which they can compute quickly using the fact that they know the factorization of n so since they know the factorization of n they can compute this value here efficiently and then x to the power that thing efficiently as well so we went from how do you store all of this to basically nothing one downside of this is actually a downside it inherits from s script instead if a user wants to divide the memory usage by k they only multiply the running time by k what you would like is that they multiply the running time by k to the power something where something is strictly greater than one as you have in organ 2 and balloon hashing that the main strength they are more memory harder in some sense than s script the downside is that we couldn't fit this kind of trick into neither s script nor either organ 2 nor balloon hashing but nevertheless this is a symmetric memory hardness which is what we set out to achieve so we're pretty happy about that we actually implemented it the information is not online but if you want it I'd be happy to send it to you the problem we have is that RSA is much slower than a call to a hash function so in order to so if we just use the same structure as in s script we can only fill one megabyte of RAM in about 10 seconds for basic users and previous users don't store anything so what we had to do to make it much much more efficient than fill one gigabyte in about the same time for basic users is to set eta to be equal to one and basically change so in s script the length of the volume which generates this and the length of the volume is here are the same it's not the case anymore if we want it to be fast we have to reuse a lot the length of this whole compared to the other one so it has to still be long in some sense otherwise some attacks become obvious but it should be if we make it shorter we can gain hugely in terms of efficiency we can fill one gigabyte in 10 seconds and again for previous users the time is basically the same but the RAM consumption is it's zero of course that it's very low so yeah the conclusion is that whatever you want in here you can have it thank you so thank you for your presentation you mentioned at some point white box you can you remind us with the connection between your construction white box so yeah so you have lots of algorithms which have been published recently so again age records you have this boggy cipher and white block block cipher you also have space block cipher etc so the aim of these algorithms for these block ciphers is to be such that you have again two classes of users they won't don't read that but basic user and the privileged user the privileged user can just run the algorithm in using a small implementation while the basic ones have to store huge cookup tables and have huge implementations of the program and have to use that huge implementation of the program to be able to evaluate the function so the functionality is probably anyone can evaluate the block cipher but if you don't know how these huge tables were generated you have to store them if you know how they were generated you don't need to store them so the implementation is much smaller the code size is much smaller so it's for the code size yes it's for the code size it provides a solution for the code hardness exactly so as I said come where this this version of this view of white box cryptography is basically what we call asymmetric code hardness okay thank you