We asked security experts to give us their industry predictions for the New Year. Here's what Jonathan Callas had to say.

There will be at least one outbreak of an obnoxious e-mail virus/worm. The computer security industry will over-estimate its economic impact. Law enforcement will try to have these weapons of mass irritation labeled as terrorist weapons so they can use their nifty new spying powers. Computer and software manufacturers will continue to show wanton disregard for the safety of their customers; they will treat security problems as public relations problems that can be solved by refusing to discuss them, rather than quality issues. Content owners will continue to believe that there are technological solutions to business management issues -- if their workers and customers have bad relations with them, this can be solved by throwing some cryptography at the problem. They will be proved wrong every time they try. They will also try to use terrorist-fighting powers on their workers and customers.

Jonathan Callas
Senior Systems Architect for Wave Systems Corporation, Jonathan is an acknowledged expert in all major aspects of contemporary business security, including cryptography, operating system security, public-key infrastructure and intellectual property rights. He offers his platform and system security expertise to searchSecurity users via