Biotech Will Drive Software Security In Post-Humans

As the IT industry continues to grow and become more profitable, the role of security will take on ever greater importance than it does today, and the human evolutionary process is a good place to look for guidance on what to expect. Software security will be even more important as humans become more of a hybrid of non-biological and biological technology and intelligence, said Ray Kurzweil, inventor, author and futurist, in a keynote speech Wednesday at the RSA 2007 conference in San Francisco. This convergence is already happening with neural implants designed for Parkison's Disease sufferers that are capable of downloaded software updates. "As devices shrink and get more powerful, software security is going to be more important," he said. Computational power in the 21st century will have more than enough power to simulate all functions of the human brain, and reverse engineering these processes into software will be a key challenge for the developers of the future. Already, 20 of the hundreds of known regions of the brain have been simulated in this fashion, Kurweil said.