In a self-described bold move, the security firm Internet Identity released a statement this week in which it prognosticated that the Internet will become a murder weapon by 2014. We can't make this stuff up.

In a self-described bold move, the security firm Internet Identity released a statement this week in which it prognosticated that the Internet will become a murder weapon by 2014.

The predictions read like some kind of cyberpunk nightmare, with Internet Identity (IID) president and CTO Rod Rasmussen writing that the increased connectivity of vehicles and medical devices will eventually allow fiends to kill via their Internet connection. IID points to remotely operated pacemakers and self-driving cars that could be hijacked.

"With so many devices being Internet connected, it makes murdering people remotely relatively simple, at least from a technical perspective," writes Rasmussen. He continues, "if human history shows us anything, if you can find a new way to kill, it will be eventually be used."

The IID release goes on to outline a bleak vision of the near future. They believe that by 2014 we will see an increase in the use of malware in conflicts between nations; that there will be a successful breach at a major piece of infrastructure, such as a power plant; that military hardware, such as drones, will be hijacked with "real-world consequences."

IID's claims are grandiose, to say the least, but there is some truth to them. Cybersecurity is no longer an issue of hardened computer systems, but of an interconnected world of devices and services providing more potential points of entry – many of which go overlooked. Take, for example, Ang Cui who demonstrated how VoIP phones and networked printers could be used to remotely gather information.

The concerns over state-controlled cyberweapons, particularly those used by nations, is a very real one as the likely origins of Stuxnet's revealed. Concerns about defending the computer networks at critical infrastructure has been echoed by high ranking officials and even grabbed some headlines. And though armed drones, for the moment, are limited to overseas operations, their computer systems struggle with a very real (though as yet mundane) malware problem.

Of course, the problem with IID's claims about death-by-Internet is that there is far more incentive to steal and sell personal information via an Internet connection than, say, hacking someone's pacemaker. After all, a dead man can't continue to send checks to various and sundry Nigerian princes.

In their statement, Radmussen comes close to explaining why IID's predictions are the way they are.

"Being bold is predicting the end of the world this week coinciding with the end of the Mayan long-count calendar as some people are," he writes. "What isn’t bold in cybersecurity is prognosticating the same old same old with more mobile malware, APTs giving cybercriminals backdoor access to their intended victims and even more data breaches of Fortune 500 companies as most industry pundits are."

More pedestrian, to be sure, but also more likely.

Following in the footsteps of IID my personal "bold" predictions for 2014 include surgical computer implants, cyber jockeys engaged in dangerous adventures on the net, electrowizards with mohawks listening to exotic computer generated music, and people with the entire text of William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive tattooed on their body.