Last year I made a bunch of predictions. They were mostly accurate, so I'll not mail out this one; I'll just update if something comes along.
(Warning. Read this only alongside last year's predictions.)
1. Government intervention ... and in spades! You really truly don't want to read evidence of that, it's way too depressing for the holiday season, characteristically of good cheer and humour.
2. Anti-virus manufacturing reputations: darkened by "the MITB conspiracy" and shattered by "the Sony Affair." They are part of the problem as well as part of the solution.
3. Firefox crossed GP 1, 2, 3.
3.c I never saw any mention of that from Mozilla :-) I wonder how else they will develop their governance and discipline?
OTOH, Mozo employed a Chief Security something or other, Window S. A very welcome step, but the hard work within is unlikely to be really recognised.
4. Gift card rollouts abound. It would be worth a post about the rise of corporate money (I first "discovered" this in 2003 or so), but central bankers won't read it, and others won't need it. Evidence: 1 ... Hyperion Consulting are in the business, so take their comments seriously (unless you are a central banker).
5. Gold issuers are cowboys. Where's that wired link again?
6. Mac share up 30% in US ... 1 while PC sales increased 0%. I guess that means from 5% to 6.5%, which is a shade under 7-8% predicted.
6.b Yes, I'm typing on it! Yes, the UI is hateful. Its "intuitive" reputation is just doublespeak. I've also found the application poverty to be depressing, which surprised me. KDE and FreeBSD are much better equiped, IMO, once you get over the hurdle of installing the monolith in your bathroom. E.g. there have been no piccies posted on FC in ages ... coz I can't figure out how to shrink an image on Mac OSX.
OTOH, Mac OSX does seem easier to keep up to date than the others.
7. google up. But no adverts in cat herders. Instead, it seems that their policies are still working, as long as their hiring maintains its quality. Like the USD, we know it will fail, we just don't know when. (There was a long blog post on their hiring strategy but I don't have it to hand.)
8. MS security problems? Still unsorted. Vista now falls into the legend to become next year's predictions...
9. Mac OSX wasn't troubled, security wise: 1.
10. The perfect phish and realtime phishes -- so I got two out of three. No class action suits on phishing, as yet, and I didn't predict MITB. "Sorry 'bout dat" as they say in Mexico.
11. No mention of SSL as part of any security solution during the year 2006. That I saw. But who would dare show me? (Disclosure: I am now perversely conflicted. I audit an SSL security provider ... life is full of challenges!)
12. 2 factor on phones finally happened, YES! Banks in Europe have been rushing these out, faster than they can say "Europa". Why? Because of MITB. OOPS! Did I say I didn't predict MITB?
13. DRM? Yup, nothing much happened except more of the same.
Wanna dispute the point? Dispute this: 2.
The end-beneficiary of file-sharing continues to enjoy its leading arbitrage status. Obscurely, there is more in the soap opera of DRM, the hypist's favourite security drama, to follow, after the break.