What Cybercrime Stats Have In Common With Sexual Braggadocio

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft researchers have rubbished figures from cybercrime surveys, deeming them subject to the types of distortions that have long bedeviled sex surveys. All it takes is a few self-styled Don Juans to hopelessly distort the sex-survey figures. Similarly, cybercrime surveys tend to get dominated by a minority of responses, normally those who have or think they have lost a great deal as a result of hacking or malware attack, and are vocal about it. 'Cybercrime surveys are so compromised and biased that no faith whatever can be placed in their findings,' the researchers write."

Those darn "hackers"!!!

[jandrese]

Some of the worst offenders of this are outfits like the RIAA and MPAA that grossly overstate the impact of piracy in order to legitimize themselves. When a single kid with Limewire deserves a fine larger than the GDP of the entire world for a decade, you know the metrics have lost all basis in reality.