This is seen in two areas: when security vendors are trying to sell a product or service, and when Information Security professionals are trying to communicate risk to management. The semi-attached figure is a situation in which one idea cannot be proven, so the author pulls the old bait-and-switch, stating a completely different idea and pretending it is the same thing.

Examples of Statisticulation in Security Surveys Readers will find that Huff’s work is just as relevant, and important, today as it was in the past. This series takes the foundation Huff created over 60 years ago and updates the concepts and examples for the contemporary Information Security field. This type of numerical trickery would be a familiar sight to anyone who has spent just an hour in the RSA or Blackhat vendor expo halls. One example is an ad claiming that “Users report 23% fewer cavities with Doakes’s toothpaste,” when the sample of “users” is so unusually small that someone with sufficient motivation can find patterns in randomness where no pattern really exists. Darrell Huff called the manipulation of statistics statistaculation.įor example, the claims and misuse of survey research the ad men on Madison Avenue perpetrated drew Huff’s ire and were exposed. Huff introduced the general public to common ways that statistics are used to manipulate the facts in an easy-to-understand and accessible way. Huff was the editor of Better Homes and Gardens in the 1940s and ’50s and had a lifelong passion for statistics - and even though he was not a statistician, his book has become the most widely read Statistics book to date. The series is based on a monumental book titled “ How to Lie with Statistics,” by Darrell Huff, published in 1954.

Welcome to the very first post in long series about all the ways statistics, measurements, facts and data visualizations are used and abused in the Information Security space.

Darrell huff how to lie with statistics