http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/study-shows-cybercrime-estimates-to-be-overblown.ars By Curt Hopkins ars technica April 17, 2012 Since the first zero met the first one, people have been shrilly overestimating the effects of computers on our day-to-day lives. Most instances of wild exaggeration are eventually brought back down to earth (at least for a while). It happened with the wild estimates of economic harm done by piracy. The latest aspect of our shared interaction to be punctured is cybercrime, the extent and pervasiveness of which has been described in terms of near-Apocalyptic overstatement, according to the authors of a new report. The report, "Sex, Lies and Cyber-crime Surveys" (PDF), by Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley of Microsoft Research, has now been released. In an op-ed in the New York Times that coincided with the report's release, they wrote, "One recent estimate placed annual direct consumer losses at $114 billion worldwide. It turns out, however, that such widely circulated cybercrime estimates are generated using absurdly bad statistical methods, making them wholly unreliable." What initially attracted the authors' attention was the disparity between the huge figures and the fact that access to these resources (money, via hacking) is relatively easy. [...] _______________________________________________ LayerOne Security Conference May 26-27, Clarion Hotel, Anaheim, CA http://www.layerone.orgReceived on Tue Apr 17 2012 - 23:58:16 PDT
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