Was reading an IT security article today that was talking about Microsofts response time to Privately or Publicly exposed flaws in it's software... And this sentence struck me as being flawed in itself:
Microsoft took 3 months on average to fix issues privately disclosed to the company in 2003, a response time that shot up to 4.5 months in 2004 and 2005, according to the analysis. Yet, the company response to a publicly disclosed flaws has quickened, from 71 days in 2003 to 46 days in 2005.
The bit I particularly like is that last time I checked 71 days is around about 3 months (if it includes February it's over 3 months)... But mostly it got me annoyed that it's a fairly common technique amongst journalists that in order to sensationalize a topic they'll not compare 'Apples to Apples', instead there'll be something like an average over the previous year vs the worst days figures (with the tone implying that that single day is an 'average' day).
Anyways was something I'd noticed and thought I'd have a brief rant about, going to stop now and do some other stuff... Have fun!
B
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