The Semi-Attached Figure: How to spot manipulative security advertising claims

August 07, 2018 by Tony MartinVegue in Cognitive Bias

Out of all the ways to lie with statistics and manipulate peoples’ perceptions, the semi-attached figure may be the most prevalent. It’s hard to spot unless you are really looking for it because it’s sneaky, subtle and takes a fair bit of concentrative analysis to identify. A semi-attached figure occurs when proof is given for a claim, but when the reader looks at it closely, the proof and the claim are not related. It’s called “semi-attached” because the proof seemsto support a claim, but upon inspection, it doesn't. Marketing and advertising professionals are absolute masters of the semi-attached figure.

How to Lie with Statistics, Information Security Edition

July 09, 2018 by Tony MartinVegue in Statistics

Have you ever finished reading a vendor whitepaper or a research institution’s annual security report and felt your Spidey sense begin to tingle with doubt or disbelief after reading some of the conclusions or research methodology? What you are probably sensing is a manipulation of statistics, an age-old hoodwink that has been occurring as long as numbers have been used to convey information.

Selection Bias and Information Security Surveys

March 10, 2017 by Tony MartinVegue in Cognitive Bias

Selection bias is what makes these surveys virtually worthless. I previously wrote about the problems of surveys in information security vendor reports and I want to dig in deeper on a topic from the last post: properly selecting a representative sample from the general population being surveyed. This matters so much. This is perhaps the most important step when conducting a statistically sound survey.

The Problem with Security Vendor Reports

February 25, 2017 by Tony MartinVegue in Statistics

The information security vendor space is flooded with research: annual reports, white papers, marketing publications — the list goes on and on. This research is subsequently handed to marketing folks (and engineers who are really marketers) where they fan out to security conferences across the world, standing in booths quoting statistics and attending pay-to-play speaking slots, convincing executives to buy their security products.