The connected world that Bill Gates described at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is going to bring many problems, both in terms of the network infrastructure needed to provide it and the intellectual property rights challenges it poses.

The popularity of digital music and the arrival of products that distribute video to remote locations has meant that existing laws are becoming increasingly outdated. Some would also argue that they do not strike a fair balance between the rights holders and the users. When the general public feels that a law is unfair or unreasonable more people will disregard or circumvent it. The calls for a right to fair use are likely to become louder.

In the meantime, demand on the network infrastructure is increasing, as is the amount of unwanted content, particularly spam. It would seem that 2007 is going to be the year of high-definition, but it really needs to be the year in which illegal activities on the internet are curtailed.

More effort is needed to reduce crime perpetrated via the internet. This should include minimising spam through the use of technology and by actually applying the laws that we have. The internet is becoming a safe haven for criminals for the simple reason that law enforcement bodies do not have the resources or the technical expertise to deal with hacking, denial of service threats and the various email-based scams.

Extortion is moving onto the internet. What do you do if you receive a demand for the payment of, say, £5,000 otherwise your online business will be taken down? The big companies can afford to move their web sites to specialist hosting companies that can provide a level of protection, but most firms cannot.

There are various international efforts to tackle these issues, such as the European Convention on Cybercrime, but these need to be backed up by skilled resources, which are clearly lacking. If the efforts aren't coordinated globall y, and the situation only improves in some countries, cyber criminals will move their operations to a jurisdiction with weak laws that aren't enforced.

Border controls are no longer geographic, rather they are the backbone interconnects. Is this where law enforcement should take place? Will our world move away from notions of independence and sovereignty based on geographical boundaries to a world controlled by those who supply the predominant means of communication?

This will lead to conflict between the first and third world, and the various religious groups, as the economic, religious and social values of one community are imposed on another.