Decision Mechanics

Insight. Applied.

One in 292 million

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One in 292 million

People can’t get their heads round very large (or small) numbers. This results in us being unable to reason about rare events or things that happen over long periods of time.

When I was a child, my parents wanted me to walk to school through woodland rather than along the busy road. Makes sense—roads are statistically quite dangerous. However, in today’s society, the advice to children is to remain in busy places lest they be abducted. This is an example of us over-reacting to things that offend us morally—and thus overestimating their frequency. Just one of a number of causes of risk misperception.

Evolution doesn’t make intuitive sense when considered in the context of a human lifetime—or even against many generations. It operates on the scale of many millions of years. That kind of time frame is hard to comprehend for a species that lives for around 80 years. Again, large numbers confound us.

A classic example of risk misperception is the chance of winning the lottery. We all know that it’s unlikely—but don’t have a sense of quite how unlikely.

The Wall Street Journal has an interactive visualization that gives us a visceral feel for our chances. I recommend you give it a go. Don’t cheat—at least not immediately.

But, hey—don’t let statistics spoil your fun. I have a good feeling about next week’s draw…

Problems with biometric security

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biometric identification

Security flaws in Apple’s Face ID are already being reported—masks being used to unlock phones and the inability to distinguish between close blood relatives.

I don’t think this has surprised anyone involved in IT security.

Last week a wife discovered her husband had been cheating on her after she unlocked his phone using his fingerprint as he slept.

Biometric authentication is convenient—but it’s bad security. I’ve written about this previously for Learning Tree International.

National Cyber Security Awareness Month

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ten Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities

As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month Learning Tree have re-purposed two of my security-related articles—one as an info-article and the other as an infographic.

The info-article is on the problems with biometric security and the infographic is a summary of ten Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities.

The original biometric security and IoT vulnerabilities articles are available on the Learning Tree blog.

Governments have to stop undermining IT security

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Microsoft has said that the recent wave of cyber attacks that has hit 150 countries should be treated by governments as a “wake-up” call.

Security experts have constantly warned intelligence agencies about the risks of weakening security to make it easier to undertake surveillance. As UK hospitals are plunged into chaos we can see the ramifications of ignoring these warnings.

This has been a textbook demonstration of why weakening infrastructure that we all rely on is a terrible idea. Let’s hope that companies who’ve resisted pressure to insert “back doors” in their systems feel emboldened to continue the fight.