In 1980, upon first learning about its design process, I predicted that the Ada programming language would be essentially dead on arrival.

In 1981, when I first learned how TCP/IP worked, I predicted that the address space would prove too small. (At that time, there were only a few hundred machines on the net, so most people felt that 4 billion was a safe maximum to plan for.)

In 1987, I predicted that the X.400 email protocol, and OSI standards in general, would be rendered irrelevant by Internet protocols.

In 1988, I predicted that Microsoft would grow unchecked until the Justice Department got it broken up.

In 1994, I predicted that if Internet commerce relied on credit card numbers, however encrypted, there would be a steady rise in fraud rates as the vulnerabilities became ever more clear.

In 1996, along with my colleagues at First Virtual, I demonstrated an incredibly easy way to steal credit cards on the Internet, one that totally bypassed the reassuring "lock" icon on your browser. The credit card companies rushed to discredit us, but in 2002, kids were finally caught using this approach (and you'd have to be pretty careless to be caught):

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-938235.html

On the lighter side, on October 28, 2004, after the Red Sox finally broke their curse, I wrote in email to a friend:

> ...I find myself thinking we might now see a die-off 
> of all the oldest Red Sox fans who finally feel like they can die 
> happy.

That prediction quickly proved right on target. If Fred Hale hadn't existed, someone would have had to invent him!

In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should include my most painful failure:

In 1993, I predicted that people on the net would prefer fee-based information services to advertiser-supported free services. (D'oh!!!)

Finally, some unfulfilled predictions that I still stand by:

In 1986 I predicted that UNIX would eventually displace DOS on the desktop. However, I don't think this will happen until some time *after* Microsoft gets broken up. (I am hoping that Mac OS X is a hint of the future on this score.)

See my 1988 prediction about the future of Microsoft, which is only half-fulfilled.

2000: There's a ton of money to be made in Internet-based Point-of-Sale Systems

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