LAST week's column on technology forecasts for 2007 netted some reader replies, including one from Steven, who sent me to a security group's "fear list" of predictions. A panel of them got together to pick out the what they belive are the ten top security trends. For one, organisations that store customer and patient data will finally become embarrassed enough to make encryption mandatory on laptop and mobile devices, they say.

Other horrible trends include an increase in the theft of PDA smart phones, of targeted attacks by terrorist groups looking for military information, of cell phone worms infections, of vulnerabilities in Voice over IP (VoIP) systems, and of complex spyware, viruses, and bots. They mix that lot with a predicted increase in legislation protecting customer information, along with harsher penalties for those that lose the data. Number ten on their list of predictions is the increasing use by organisations of network access control as a defensive strategy against malicious entry to a network. The list was narrowed down from 40 by a panel of 20, which included experts from SANS, the Internet Storm Centre, the Naval Surface Warfare Centre, the Centre for Internet Security... you get the picture.

Meanwhile, another reader was interested in my caution against buying a new computer now, with Microsoft just about to release Vista. "Sounds like you were enjoying the Microsoft products!" wrote James. I am sorry I can't take up his kind offer of lunch to talk about them. My office is not anywhere within walking distance (I live in Montpellier, France). But we can still have a "chat" about new products via e-mail as you suggest. On the topic of Vista, a security expert in Bermuda sent me links to the first wave of criticisms from the professionals about the flaws in the new operating system. One is from Peter Gutmann, a self-described "professional paranoid", who fingers a problem in Windows Vista's content protection system for "premium content", typically music and video.

"Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost," Gutmann writes.

Companies and people will be loath to shell out for the more powerful hardware required to overcome the slowdown in speed and the degradation of video. He predicts the Vista content protection will take less than a week to be bypassed by a determined hacker; since the Microsoft's "Output Content Protection and Windows Vista" specification weighs in at 44 pages, he believes it "could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history".

Gutmann has creds. He is a computer scientist based in Auckland, New Zealand, who is known for developing a better method for preventing previously erased data on a hard drive from being recovered.

For his analysis go to www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/ and scroll down to his "Crypto Social Issues" section.

Others are starting to discover the initial flaws in the new operating system, which has been released to business customers, and goes out for public sale at the end of January. In mid-December a Russian programmer claimed to have found a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user's privileges on all of Microsoft's recent operating systems, including Vista. Now a California computer security firm said it has notified Microsoft of another flaw, and five other vulnerabilities. Microsoft says it is studying the alleged problems to see if a fix is needed.

This is all to be expected, even though Microsoft has put an increased emphasis on security recently.

Windows XP required two "service packs" to fix a series of flaws. New fixes are released quite regularly.

PC World, in its prediction of the top ten software trends for 2007, a little optimistically believes Apple Computer's Mac OS could gain more mass appeal among users that in the past might have bought a computer with a Windows system. It attributes the belief, not to Vista's shortcomings, but to Apple's strategy of using cheaper Intel chips in a bid to lower the cost of one of its computers.

The magazine is also predicting bigger inroads for the open-source OpenOffice suite in competition with the new Microsoft Office, also about to be released on the market. OpenOffice is being developed to better send and receive files from Microsoft Office users, making it a good, free alternative for the mass market.

Digging into my e-mail further I find I have neglected to answer Timothy, who asks: "What is Wi-Fi? Are there any simple books for simple people? All those I see are supposed to be for dummies, but are written by nerd techies who should have been pharmacists." Absolutely right. Experts even cast serious doubt cast on whether Wi-Fi stands for "wireless fidelity".

Apparently it does not stand for any word.

I have also checked up on the Wikipedia for Wi-Fi and found the entry did not even cover the most basic features of Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi is the use of radio frequencies to connect desktops, laptops personal digital assistants and other devices to each other or the internet, without the use of cumbersome and limiting cables. You do not have to plug in anymore. It is a great freedom, one I take advantage of at home by being able to work on my laptop wherever I feel like, office, kitchen, livingroom or bedroom.

You must have both a piece of equipment to convert your internet connection into a wireless signal, a computer with the hardware to communicate via Wi-Fi.

You can dig more into the technology at the Wi-Fi Alliance web site (www.wi-fi.org). If any readers have questions about other technology related topics, send them my way at elamin.ahmed@gmail.com. I'll try my best not to muddy the waters even more in 2007.