Surveys of cyber crime and numbers of sexual partners have a lot in common, researchers have suggested.Both are self-reporting, uncorroborated surveys that are subject to “catastrophic errors”, according to analysis by a Microsoft research team.Over-reporting by a small number of survey subjects can wildly skew final estimates.As a result, they said, no faith should be placed in the evidence these surveys claim to have uncovered.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13726085Also see:Many cybercrime surveys hopelessly flawed, researchers find
Cybercrime surveys are so riddled with statistical distortions the answers they glean are probably about as reliable as asking the average American Don Juan how many sexual partners he’s slept with, a Microsoft research paper has calculated.In Sex, Lies and Cybercrime Surveys authors Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley use the analogy of common errors found in sex surveys to illustrate a similar problem in many cybercrime studies.
http://news.techworld.com/security/3285279/many-cybercrime-surveys-hopelessly-flawed-researchers-find/