Goodman, now Senior Fellow in Future Crime and recent addition to the Munk School of Global Affairs at U of T, has spent 20 years building expertise and familiarity in next generation security threats, including cyber terrorism and information warfare. Having worked with organizations including the UN, NATO, and Interpol, Goodman has not only been a witness to the future of crime, but also a force in counteracting the criminal activities many would dismiss as science fiction.

For two hours on Wednesday, November 30, Goodman discussed the future of crime with a captivated audience at the George Ignatieff Theatre in Trinity College. Far from dealing exclusively with such trite topics as hacking, phishing schemes, and digital media piracy, Goodman brought forth “a message from the future,” examining the threats of tomorrow we’re beginning to face today. Crimes involving robotics and nanotechnology, biological crime (including the exploitation of the human genome), and cyber terrorism were just some of the subjects discussed.

“Technology has gotten way beyond law enforcement policy,” said Goodman. “There may be no law they [police and government agencies] can act upon. And even if there is a law, they have very limited resources, limited training, and limited budgets.”

The future of crime, according to Goodman, is one where “ubiquitous computing” has rendered nearly every aspect of our world vulnerable to cyber crime. “In the future, we will have devices connected to the Internet that we've never imagined,” he said. “Everything from pacemakers to automobiles to children to prisoners to pets.”

With ubiquitous computing, Goodman predicts an omnipresence of wired devices and Internet connectivity. Of course in the smartphone-using modern world, it may seem like we're already there. But in the future, even innocuous items such as refrigerators, milk cartons, and garbage bags will be equipped with such functionality. Goodman envisions a not too distant future where your milk can tell the grocer whether it's in the fridge or in the trash, and inform you to buy a fresh quart via Twitter.

“There's a large unawareness of the problems, particularly of the emerging threats,” said Goodman. “Of course people know about the standard cyber crime of today, but what it looks like in their future will be very different.”

The threats of cyber crime are especially troubling in part because criminals can use and exploit new technologies far more quickly than law enforcement agencies. Authorities are only permitted to act within the boundaries of the law, while criminals obey no such restrictions. “They [criminals] don't have to worry about national sovereignty, and they're free to act as they will,” added Goodman. As technology advances at an exponential rate, governments face increased difficulty keeping up.

“As more and more things get connected to the Internet, whoever controls the Internet has access to those things,” added Goodman. Whether criminals or cops, such technologies are already being used by both sides.

Sensing the slight atmosphere of despair his seminar may have instilled after extolling the cleverness of tech savvy criminals and the relative impotence of law enforcement in dealing with them, Goodman ended with an appeal to communal solidarity. “We need to bring human beings back into the fold,” concluded Goodman. “We need to bring that into the fight against computer crime and cyber terrorism.”