Security trends and analysis
Dan Geer is a smart man. His recently released paper A Quant Looks at the Future Extrapolation via Trend Analysis is probably one of the best trend presentations I’ve seen. What Geer has done, essentially, is to analyse trend reports from various companies and institutions, including Symantec, Counterpane etc. From the paper:
Why do trend analysis? First, trend analysis is what a statistician will recommend when the underlying topic of interest is changing and the method of measuring it is uncertain. In such a circumstance, and so long as the measurement you do have can be applied consistently, the trend data can be relied on and it is what you need for decision support. Of course, making decisions early is more expensive in decision cost than making them later, but then again later decision making generally comes with fewer workable options.
I’ll go there whenever I need figures, and to understand what they mean.