Bloating and Statistics
Joe M posted in opinion on April 15th, 2010
After perusing an article at Ars Technica, about piracy estimates and losses…
Any time you hear someone quoting statistics, remember…
92 % of all statistics are completely useless!
It’s not that I am against watching trends and analyzing data.
I like to look at reports and graphs, as much as the next person.
It reminds me of some interesting stories over the years.
Without citing names…
Several hacker stories come to mind.
When you talk about damages being done… whether intentional or coincidental…
It seems that the intention of accuracy gets thrown out the window.
Is it because the dramatic gives way to leverage and planning… and helps someone state their cause?
I would imagine… or… I would guess.
I will say, that whenever I hear the term ‘estimates’ and it used with statistics…
I always question the accuracy or validity of the statement being made.
If you hear someone in a business estimating ‘losses,’ you are taking the person’s account and report on faith and trust.
Most of the time, unless you see the business owner, writing a check and handing it over to someone…
Or calling a third party to negotiate some sort of repairs…
You could question the extent of damages in any situation.
It seems inherent in human nature that we dramatize and emphasize.
In discussing losses, many times that behavior is positively reinforced.
I can remember stories of a hacker logging in to a publicly open wi-fi network… owned by a private company.
When all they do is look around.. and get off, within five minutes…
It does not seem like they have a whole lot of time to do much damage.
But… it seems that in those situations, you always hear stories of how that single event costs that company between $500,000 and $1,000,000 in damages.
Many times… the damage estimates include buying equipment and software to make sure the event does not happen again.
(In other words, “We had no clue what we were doing when we set this up. We did not know you had to secure it!“)
So… if they needed to buy the equipment, anyway… is it really considered damage?