Recovery

Response

 Protection

Detection

Producing replacement machine parts from a

digital design

Automating repetitive data-capture tasks between

accounting systems

Monitoring stock levels using connected sensors

The speed of the internet, every five years

The cost of computing, every two years

The number of software developers, every decade

The number of transistors on a dense integrated circuit, roughly

every 18 months

Detecting fraudulent journal entries

Encrypting confidential financial data

Forecasting next year’s sales

Encrypt the report with the auditor’s public key and sign it with the auditor’s public key as well, since the exchange is governed by the recipient’s key pair and using a single key for both steps avoids any confusion over which key applies

Encrypt the report with the auditor’s public key, so that only the auditor’s matching private key can open it, and sign it with her own private key, so that the auditor can verify the signature using her public key

Generate one symmetric key, encrypt the report with it and send the key to the auditor in a separate e-mail; symmetric encryption is considerably faster than asymmetric encryption for a large file and avoids the overhead of managing certificates

Encrypt the report with her own private key so that the auditor can open it with her widely available public key; because only she holds the private key, this simultaneously proves that the report came from her and keeps its contents secret from everyone else

Big data analytics running on cloud infrastructure, because it can process very large, varied datasets scalably and cost-effectively

A firewall, because it protects the network

Augmented reality, because it visualises the shop floor

3D printing, because it produces items on demand

To compress the document to save storage

Create a fixed-length, one-way digest that changes if the document is changed to prove integrity.

To make the document available to more users

To encrypt the document so only the recipient can read it

 Drones fitted with high-resolution and thermal cameras; the benefit is rapid, low-cost, close-range inspection of assets that are otherwise inaccessible, without placing crews at height or in hazardous terrain

Satellite imagery combined with big data analytics; the benefit is wide-area coverage with no site visits at all, but the resolution available is generally insufficient to detect the fine cracks, corrosion and connector hotspots that inspection is meant to find

IoT sensors permanently fitted to each pylon; the benefit is continuous condition monitoring rather than periodic inspection, but installing and maintaining powered sensors on hundreds of kilometres of remote structures requires exactly the dangerous, costly physical access the utility is trying to avoid

Autonomous ground vehicles carrying inspection equipment; the benefit is that no crew is exposed to danger, but roadless mountainous terrain and elevated spans place most of the assets beyond the reach of any ground-based platform