Drone strikes targeting cyber-terrorists, hackers holding online identities hostage, and parents emphasizing ‘internet education’ ahead of sex education – this is the future that lies in store for us all, according to Google’s Eric Schmidt.

“For citizens, coming online comes to mean living with multiple identities; your online identity becomes your real identity. 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,” said Schmidt to an audience at Cambridge University.

The full speech can be seen in this video. Be warned that it’s a long one – 45 minutes – but if you have the spare time and want to have your mind blown by the extraordinary ramblings of an extraordinarily powerful man at the top of the most powerful company internet company in the world, it makes for compelling viewing. If you don’t have time, I’ve picked out some of the juiciest bits for you below:

During his speech, Schmidt touched upon his recent visit to North Korea, describing the conditions under which its population live as a “total information blackout”. Connectivity would bring the North Korean people “enormous benefits” said Schmidt, but these could be exploited by ‘dark forces’ as our online identities become ever more important to our lives.

Google’s Executive Chairman then related his vision of a dark future, full of ‘virtual kidnappings’ in which hackers steal one’s online identity and hold this to ransom.

According to Schmidt, we have already seen a precedent for this, with hackers taking over computers and ‘locking up’ the hard drive, before demanding payment from the user to unlock it again. What’s more, as technologies advance and become more affordable, these problems will only get worse.

“Terrorists and criminals could use drones to carry IEDs, which could result in conflict between civil and military drones,” espoused Schmidt. However, the future will be “much more disruptive to terrorists than anyone else”.

Schmidt was referring to the fact that the more connected people become, the harder it is to stay hidden:

“If they connect, they leave some sort of digital footprint. And that makes them detectable,” he continued, explaining how a terrorist suspect was recently caught after discussing wedding plans – and the location of the wedding – online.

Online Privacy & “Ethnic Cleansing”

Circling back to the online identity theme, Schmidt stressed how privacy was only going to become more important as time goes on. Tomorrow’s parents will want to educate their children on digital dangers way before they think about discussing how babies are made.

“It might be when they’re eight years old, you’ll be saying ‘don’t put that online! It’ll come back to bite you!’ and then have to explain why.”

Schmidt dwelt on regulation, stating that governments will create more laws to protect citizen’s anonymity as we come to depend on our online identities – yet these won’t prevent the emergence of a thriving black market for those details.

He also warned of the dangers that some governments might pose, suggesting that as online identities become essential to living a modern existence, some repressive regimes may attempt to carry out “online ethnic cleansing” of certain ethnic groups they dislike – blocking their access to online payment systems, emails and social media.

Connectivity Brings More Freedom

Schmidt’s predictions make it sound like the future will be an entirely bleak and depressing one, but he also shone a light of the positive aspects of a growing digital world, particular how they relate to a growing sense of freedom. While cybercrime will remain a serious threat, the rise of the connected world will at least help bring about an end to corruption and repressive regimes.

“There’s no country where the situation has worsened with the arrival of the internet. Citizens can use their mobile phones to raise the cost of corruption. And even in China, the regime can be shamed – when there was a train crash recently the government tried to hush it up, but people began posting pictures on [the Twitter-like chat service] Weibo, and the story got out,” he points out.

Schmidt concluded his speech with a touch of nostalgia for bygone days, saying that society has lost a great deal through the demise of books.

“I worry a lot that nobody’s doing that, that nobody’s getting what comes from the deep reading of a book,” he said.