Another excellent paper by the Mueller/Stewart team: “Terrorism and Bathtubs: Comparing and Assessing the Risks“: Abstract: The likelihood that anyone outside a war zone will be killed by an Islamist extremist terrorist is extremely small. In the United States, for example, some six people have perished each year since 9/11 at the hands of such … Read More “John Mueller and Mark Stewart on the Risks of Terrorism” »
Category: riskassessment
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This is well-worth reading (non-paywalled version). Here’s the opening: Cryptocurrencies, although a seemingly interesting idea, are simply not fit for purpose. They do not work as currencies, they are grossly inefficient, and they are not meaningfully distributed in terms of trust. Risks involving cryptocurrencies occur in four major areas: technical risks to participants, economic risks … Read More “Nicholas Weaver on Cryptocurrencies” »
I’m sure it pays less than the industry average, and the stakes are much higher than the average. But if you want to be a Director of Information Security that makes a difference, Human Rights Watch is hiring. Powered by WPeMatico
Good article that crunches the data and shows that the press’s coverage of terrorism is disproportional to its comparative risk. This isn’t new. I’ve written about it before, and wrote about it more generally when I wrote about the psychology of risk, fear, and security. Basically, the issue is the availability heuristic. We tend to … Read More “How the Media Influences Our Fear of Terrorism” »
Interesting research that shows we exaggerate the risks of something when we find it morally objectionable. From an article about and interview with the researchers: To get at this question experimentally, Thomas and her collaborators created a series of vignettes in which a parent left a child unattended for some period of time, and participants … Read More “Confusing Security Risks with Moral Judgments” »
In an interview this week, President Obama said that terrorism does not pose an existential threat: What I do insist on is that we maintain a proper perspective and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by overinflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat … Read More “Obama Says Terrorism Is Not an Existential Threat” »
I have long said that driving a car is the most dangerous thing regularly do in our lives. Turns out deaths due to automobiles are declining, while deaths due to firearms are on the rise: Guns and cars have long been among the leading causes of non-medical deaths in the U.S. By 2015, firearm fatalities … Read More “Common Risks in America: Cars and Guns” »
Robert Lee and Thomas Rid have a new paper: “OMG Cyber! Thirteen Reasons Why Hype Makes for Bad Policy.” Powered by WPeMatico
Interesting data: Turning to the crime section of the Chapman Survey on American Fears, the team discovered findings that not only surprised them, but also those who work in fields pertaining to crime. “What we found when we asked a series of questions pertaining to fears of various crimes is that a majority of Americans … Read More “Survey on What Americans Fear” »