Predictions for 2007
Cell phones will continue to blur the line between PCs, PDAs, MP3 players, media players, and cellphones. At some point, these technologies will all converge in the perfect PC phone. Anything you can do with a computer can now be done with a cellphone, including banking, writing, email, blogging, video, music and even VoIP.
Anticipate a more lawless internet with the rapid evolution of the ‘perfect PC phone’. Hackers will continue to break new ground in subverting technology to their intentions. Laws will not be competent, capable, comprehensive enough to deal with this surge in crime:
- identity theft
- international bank fraud
- stock fraud
- credit card fraud
- sale of private information
Laws will continue to lag behind breakthroughs in technology.
The one emerging technology to watch and worry about: multimedia phone commerce over the internet, especially VoIP (voice over IP). I think this is the most problematic technology available today, for the following reasons:
- Money: people want to save money and will adopt VoIP as it becomes available because it is so inexpensive and easy to use. VoIP will become mainstream, as people move from dial-up connections to broadband.
- Existing laws: the very laws which are designed to protect the world from terrorism are the ones which make VoIP most vulnerable to cybercrime: Homeland Security requires any internet voip service to allow it to decrypt and listen to any conversations over the internet. Homeland Security AND cybercriminals will be listening.
- Lack of laws: there exist few laws which deal with VoIP crime and such laws are localized. International laws conflict. Cybercriminals are international thieves, who know how to move money and media over the virtual web to foreign countries which do not cooperate with international laws.
- Software: software is now readily available, for free, which will allow cybercriminals to ’sniff’ and detect VoIP streaming, download it, record it, and decrypt.
- Cybercriminals: these criminals are experts in navigating legal loopholes, in using sophisticated tools which aid their crimes. The profile of the cybercriminals have matured with the web. These people are not pimply faced naive hackers: no, they are in it for the money and many are mob connected.
Have I missed a trend which counteracts these observations? Please voice your opinion here.
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Dear Reader: Merry Christmas. I have the flu, and this is my excuse for not including more links to enrich this discussion. Thanks for understanding.
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