We have tended here to concentrate on protecting information flows through computer networks. This is in part because there is so much work still to be done in this area, but I think also in part because most Blindsiders are of a computer-centric generation (you may well say ’speak for yourself, Fuller’, and I’ll eat humble pie).

However, mobile computing is growing faster than just about anything that gets measured in tech terms (well, except for Larry Ellison’s ego…) and I am personally convinced that a combination of mobile computing, location-based services and pervasive computing is going to explode onto the scene, offering new possibilities and new threats. I not only believe this–the success of my private pension scheme depends on it.

I think the day is coming very fast when the fact that I sit in a room at a desktop will instantly identify me as a grumpy old man (I think women will adapt to the new paradigm without much fuss). I think mobile devices with Japanese butterfly fan screens that fold up will move computing outside the converted second bedroom and into the street, and flash memory lapel pins will hold more information than my laptop.

It’s all going to be great fun, and I’m looking forward to it. But one reason I think it’s going to be fun is the fact that I’m not charged with assuring information flows within a government organisation. I think the number of nodes in organisational networks is set to grow logarythmically and that the edges of networks are going to blur dramatically.

I think IA specialists in 10 years are going to reminisce fondly about how life was so simple in 2007, before they had to build concentric circles of protection and build data hierarchies that have to exist in different forms within each circle.

For all of us who have retirement in mind before 2017, we may breathe a sigh of relief that it won’t happen on our watch (although it still may). And it might be fair to say that a fairly large share of Blindsiders fall within this group. But I think we owe it to the next generation of information assurance professionals to set the stage for them.

When memory becomes so small and cheap that your life fits into your belt buckle, when people will normally carry four or five objects on their person that have network connectivity, when hundreds of services offer local data based on segmentation rather than aggregation, when p2p dating services sit next to real-time data flows from your banking and investment activity, when government networks imperceptibly bleed into and through a myriad of specialist networks, information assurance will take on a different meaning.

We are entering that period of time where the evolutionary explosion fills an environmental niche created by a new technology. The prelude is finished. It’s just a bit funny that it’s not just one new technology–that computer science, biology, nanotechnology and whatever else I’m forgetting are coming of age at the same time.

Who needs science fiction?