C [pauses] You are not trying to change the subject by any chance?
T [emphatic] No I am not. Have you ever heard of a mask? Do you even know what a mask is?
C I wore one to the last fancy dress party I went to.
T What did you study at university, Christine?
C You know perfectly well what I studied. You were in the room with me as an eighteen year old when I accepted the place at Oxford to read ancient history. But I don’t see what that has to do with...
T It has everything to do with the subject. I am the world’s richest man - or so you tell me - and I make my money by a system of trading that is unknown on the planet, except to me. It is a highly precise, completely calculated method of working that uses a variety of tools, some of which I am willing to discuss, because they form no part of the crucial elements, which will remain both unnamed and undescribed. But how can I possibly discuss anything of relevance with an interviewer who knows precisely nothing of science, mathematics, statistics or even, perhaps, modern rational thought? I am not talking in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and I happen to inhabit a universe with a few more than four elements. A mask is a computing term with a significant relevance to what you have just asked. But your lack of technical knowledge means you are simply not capable of recognising an answer, even when it is given explicitly.
[a continuity shot briefly pans across a distant shore]
C Then perhaps for my benefit and for the enlightenment of the viewers, you might explain?
T [pauses, leans back, away from the interviewer with a scowl, he continues reluctantly] When packets of data are transmitted by computers, they are identified by addresses. You may have wondered why it is that when you send an email it goes into the recipient’s box and nowhere else? Well in fact, at least in theory, it does go to everyone. But only one destination has a hole which is the exact match of the key that is placed on the front of the message, and only that one point allows the message through. The key on the front of the message matches the keyhole. The keyhole contains the mask that does the matching. Because the other keyholes are all the wrong shape, the message bounces off and is discarded because it doesn’t fit the mask on the entrance.
C Our teenager? And his games console?
T My systems have a way of reshaping themselves to make use of any facilities they find available. They can fit anything that will have them. And they do that by manipulating their own masks.
C They are viruses then...
T No, not at all. They visit, spend a moment of rest with their host, and then go on their way, leaving nothing behind and affecting nothing. It’s like a stroll through a park, visiting only the public places, keeping off the grass and occasionally pausing to sit on a bench. After a short rest, no-one would ever know the bench had ever been used, and it remains completely unchanged by the momentary occupancy.
C But your systems invade other people’s computers and use them as a base for making trades...
T They pass by, do their work, remove themselves completely and then bid goodbye. They behave a little like Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing the doorbell and getting a foot in the door. But unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses, they don’t try to leave anything behind.
C And that is why virus checkers and malware protectors cannot detect their presence?
T In theory they can. But my workers simply don’t hang around long enough to be detected. By the time any software responses have been triggered, my systems have come, done their work and gone. So by the time the checking system looks for them, they have already moved on, and left no trace of their visit. And they do nothing to the host computer, except use a little of unused time. They can come, do their bit and go in between the keystrokes of a quite competent typist. We are talking milliseconds at the outside, and a few milliseconds at the most.
C And in the short time they can make your trade?
T You are displaying your technological illiteracy again.
C I really would appreciate it if you would answer the question.
T ..and I would appreciate it if you would at least frame a sensible one.
[an extended continuity section shows a grimace from Christine Gardiner followed by an expression of surprise; then Cartwright is seen smiling, before there is another panning of the horizon, this time zoomed in on the distant tree-line as a hydrofoil ferry crosses from left to right]
C You said [agitated, raised voice] that these ‘workers’ or ‘systems’ of yours hang around for milliseconds at most. Now I am not the most technically-minded person on the planet...
T [laughs]
C ...but I do know that milliseconds are fairly short. Are you telling me, and I must press this point, that your trades are made in this incredibly short time while your systems have invaded other people’s computers?
T Why did you use the word ‘invade’? And why is it that you ‘must press the point’, as you put it? Who requires you to press the point? On whose behalf are you asking these questions? What gives you, personally, any right to publicise or share any knowledge of how my business is conducted? Why not ask people who make fizzy drinks for their secret recipe for burnt sugar?
C I am a journalist. I make my living by identifying issues of public interest, researching them and then making programmes that seek to inform the world at large about what is happening in their midst. My subjects are always those that may - I cannot say ‘do’ - that may impinge on the lives of ordinary people. The public has a right to know what affects their lives.
T So you are like a self-appointed police, prosecutor, judge and jury on any subject that happens to appeal to you?
C [angrily] I am none of those things, of course. My interest and the public interest are one and the same. I am merely a journalist trying to get a story.
T ...and tell it for a profit...
C Of course. I am professional, but no-one will buy my work unless the story is worth telling. I will remind you that you agreed to make these programmes. No-one has forced you...
T But what interests me, Christine, is why you? A brighter producer might have sent someone with technical, financial or trading knowledge - a specialist - someone who might have been able to frame sensible questions about how I operate...
C And I am still waiting for an answer to my question on milliseconds!
T [shouting] Precisely. You seem blissfully unaware that the modern processor completes billions of cycles per second - they have done so for years...
C ...and so?
T ...and so a few milliseconds is more than ample time for my systems to do their work several times over. Anyone with the slightest technical knowledge would have known that.
C But our viewers may not have known it, and it is my duty to inform...
T But it is not your duty to bore them!
C It appears that I got the answer I wanted out of you in the end.
T You should be in possession of all the facts before you pursue a line of questioning. This interview needs someone with technical knowledge.
C But if anyone else had suggested these interviews, you would have refused, just like you have refused all other media contact.
[edited cut: continuity shot of Christine Grainger in close up, smiling]
C So let’s recap, if we may. Your systems, as you call them, gain access to any computer that might be connected to the internet, use some of its time and resources, make a trade and then move on. Is that a fair summary?
T [nods]
C And you do not consider that to be in any way an act of theft or a breach of privacy?
T Nothing is being taken, so there is no theft. And there is no breach of privacy, since my systems are not interested in anything that is already stored on the computer. They bring with them what they need, use it and then leave, clearing up after themselves as they go.
If that is a breach of privacy, you could accuse the electricity company of the same thing, since their power supply is entering the computer all the time.
C ...but the computer would not work without electricity...
T [laughs] Technical issues again. You seem not to realise that it is perfectly feasible to use the power transmission network to carry communications data as well as power. It merely depends on how you choose to modulate the signal.
C We are perhaps getting beyond what our viewers can follow...
T You mean you are beyond what you can understand.
C [interrupting] But what I - and no doubt everyone watching this interview - still don’t understand, is why you don’t use your own systems to make your trades... Why use other people’s computers?
T [pauses] Now that is a better question.,. and I am not sure whether I can answer.
C ...for lack of technical knowledge?
T No. We are in danger of entering the realms of trade secrets.
C [dismissively] You must have known that this would be one of the first questions, an inevitable follow up to our examining the fact that as a matter of course you do invade other people’s machines? It is something that everyone has been asking, ever since your run of success began. Why do you not just use your own resources? Why piggy-back on other people’s computers?
T Muslims don’t piggy-back, Christine.
C [smiles wryly] Just answer the question.
T [pauses, scratches his right arm, his left reaching across, just above the elbow; he then folds his leg under his body to raise his posture] The answer is a single word: randomness. [remains in shot during an extended pause]
C [off camera] ...randomness...?
T It’s an essential part of my system. It wouldn’t work if it was not random, or as close to random as it can possibly get, given that it has to operate in the real world.
C And using other people’s computers allows you to attain this ... this randomness?
T As close as is possible.
C Let me be clear. Are you saying that your trades are made completely at random? Because if you are, then surely you should have answered ‘yes’ when I asked if you were the luckiest man alive?
T Again, you show you have no concept of the framework of the problem we are trying to discuss. You are applying syllogistic reasoning to a position that is decidedly fuzzy. The situation we are dealing with is not black or white, not even black and white, but formidably grey throughout. Without giving a course in Brouwer and Gödel, I can’t illuminate further. It might shade to black here, white there...
C ...and when that happens it indicates where these opportunities for trading might arise?
T [long pause during which his gaze focuses] You know more than your questions indicate.
C [off camera] We were addressing the concept of randomness.
T The trading is not done merely at random. Its execution appears to be random, but eventually it is not. Put it this way, we know where we are going and we know the road to take. When we set off, how fast we are going to walk is, as yet, unknown, so the overall result of our journey has yet to be fixed.
C And when will you know such detail?
T It builds up as we progress. We collect data as the process unfolds, randomly, and then we monitor how we make progress towards the destination, constantly checking, of course, that we are still on the right road.
C I don’t understand...
T I am not surprised.
C So what role does randomness play?
T Let me put it like this. Suppose I reckon a stock is going to move. The price is going to change, but at the moment I have no idea which way. It might go up or down. So let’s make several, near simultaneous trades in that one stock. Some of the trades assume a rise and others a fall in the price. So we make the trades - all hedged, of course, so at this stage the outcome is close to neutral - and then we assess the results. A trend may become obvious. Then you know your next trade and, irrespective of whether it goes up or down, you make money.
C And all this happens in milliseconds?
T Yes, absolutely, and much more besides.
C And where is this analysis, this assessment of the trades made?
T. By whatever computer the particular module happens to be visiting at the time. And, incidentally, I give nothing away if I say that there might be millions of active modules dashing about the world at any instant. They breed like flies, you know. [smiles]
C They are surely not alive?
T [laughs] No, but they do reproduce.
C Would it be accurate to say that you seem to have created a vast computer, being the sum of all the resources your systems inhabit at any time?
T Well, I suppose we got there in the end...
C Touché, I suppose. [pauses] I still don’t understand...
T You can’t understand, because you have no concept of the underlying ideas.
C So who does?
T Only I do.
C ...and would you be willing to explain?
T I can’t do that either because you cannot conceptualise the explanation. [pause] Imagine that you thought the earth was flat. You have no concept of a globe and the world as you know it has edges where you can fall off. Imagine then what it would be like to have never even considered another possibility. Now if you saw me set sail into the sunset going west and then return from the east some time later, you would inevitably assume that I had steered a circular course. But in fact I have carried straight on all the time. If I tell you what I have done, you neither understand nor believe me, because what I am saying appears to make no sense, because it contradicts the framework within which you think.
C [laughs] So your trading system works on a flat earth...
T Chris...
C Christine...
T All I point out is that you do not have the intellectual equipment to understand.
C I get the feeling I am being patronised.
T I am not referring to you personally, Christine. I am referring to you as the local representative of the rest of humanity, which collectively cannot understand my systems because they are unique. No-one apart from me currently understands them.
C And you will offer no further clues?
T Why should I?
C Because that would be a way of convincing people that your success is not a result of trickery or criminality.
T I have already said that I break no laws, so criminality is not an issue. I have already said that, like everyone, I need a share of luck to achieve anything in life, even continued life, itself. As for trickery, it rather depends on who might feel tricked.
C What about all the investors who lose money?
T [laughs] You are not about to blame me for the fact that some investors lose money? I did not invent the idea that stocks go up and down, or that some people lose money when they trade.
C But you have surely made a lot of your money at the expense of others?
T It’s not a zero sum game. Here you go again, dropping your syllogistic sinkers while you float on a sea of fuzz. If it were a zero sum game, where every dollar of profit was equally a dollar of loss for someone else, then your criticism inevitably would apply to anyone who traded the markets and not just me. But your assertion is wrong in every respect. [pauses, but continues to mumble in order to hold the initiative] Let me try to illustrate the problem. Suppose no-one knew anything about thermodynamics. No-one alive has any idea of the concept of entropy. People can make fires, boil water, cook their food and burn their dead. But they can’t make steam engines because they always either blow up or have no power. I come along, armed with my knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics, whose existence no-one else on the planet can even imagine. I can design and make a steam engine. It has more power
than anyone can imagine possible, but because they have no concept of its essential operation, it seems to work by magic. And all this is possible because I understand entropy when no-one else does.
C [smiles] And that’s how your trading system works, like a steam engine?
T Now you are being facetious. It was an illustrative example of the intellectual leap required, that’s all. [pauses for some time, remaining on camera, he appears to begin speaking three or four times, only to stop himself, when he does speak he is assertive, displaying a confidence not yet seen] My model was originally called interaction analysis. I now use the term event theory, because the scope has widened. It’s a statistical process that allows me to apply knowledge of a population to help me predict - within known accuracies - the existence of the particular. Most statistical models, you see, work the other way round. They collect data on the particular and then try to conclude things about the population, which is assumed to display idealised characteristics. My systems can describe populations in a real, non-idealised world and show how they oscillate around a position predicted by the idealised model. So the eventual result is as current theory predicts, but my systems describe the variations which eventually sum to the expected values. I can thus live in the world of the particular and thus understand how these miniscule interactions eventually give rise to the predictable. And that’s as far as I will go.
C Interaction analysis... Event theory... You make it sound very simple - at least in theory it would be simple if I understood anything of what you were saying.
T Simple it is, but it arises out of three decades of research...
C And unpublished research, as well...
T I knew from the start what the potential of my ideas might be.
C So you kept it all to yourself...
T [nods]
C [continuity cut, Christine Grainger smiles, reaches forward to offer a handshake] Well that seems to be about all we have time for in this first of three editions of One-On-One in which we examine the phenomenal success of Haji Salleh Adbullah who, in the last two years, has risen from obscurity to become the world’s richest man. Join us again next week, when I intend to pursue the background to Haji Abdullah’s success. Until next time... [continuity shot to Cartwright, who appears unmoved, and then back to Christine Grainger, who smiles full face to camera, cut]
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