The coming internet age of liberation and treachery

We face a future in which cyberterrorists are targeted by government drone strikes, online identities are taken hostage and held for ransom, and parents explain online privacy to their kids long before the subject of sex.

That, at least, is Google chairman Eric Schmidt's vision of the future, one in which the distinction between the physical and virtual will become blurred.

"For citizens, coming online comes to mean living with multiple identities; your online identity becomes your real identity," he said. "The absence of a delete button on the internet will be a big challenge. Not just what you say and write, but also the websites you visit, and do or say or share online. For anyone in the public eye, they will have to account for their past."

Schmidt returned from his trip to North Korea last month where he witnessed a population living in an "utter information blackout" - but that change was certain to come, as well as for the 5 billion people worldwide not yet connected to the internet, for whom connectivity would bring enormous benefits and transform their lives.

"North Korea reminds me how far we have come," Schmidt said before an audience at Cambridge University in the first of a series of speeches outlining his view of the technological future: "That disconnectedness used to be closer to the norm than where we are now."

He said that he thought change would come "slowly and incrementally" to North Korea as the use of mobile phones spread, and with it information. Google has already updated its maps of the country since Schmidt's visit using "citizen mappers" inputting information to its Mapmaker software.