Re: asymmetric snooping

Posted by Arlo Barnes on Sep 25, 2013; 6:00am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/asymmetric-snooping-tp7583857p7583881.html

It seems unacceptable that a statement could stand like "X is 52% classified" where X is not an aggregate disconnected set of things, but some single fact in context.   It would be just muddy guidance.  The fact in context can be disclosed to a specific audience, or it cannot.  It can't be disclosed 52% of the time.

Often, though, there is confusion about what the parameter to be discretized is. For example, you might use 'facts' as the parameter, and say something like "52% of the facts about Project X are disclosed in the press release." Ignoring the point that you have not disclosed what defines a fact, if you do not specifically say what parameter (I am sure there is a better word, not coming to mind right now) you are basing a measure on, there is room for confusion. If you say "Project X is 52% disclosed" a person could possibly thing that 52% of the times people asked about Project X, you told them all about it, and the other 48% of the instances you told them nothing. I posit that any such measure can be made about anything (which probably boils down to claiming that all discrete values can be made continuous, which at once feels wrong and is unsurprising) given enough formal surrounding structure defining the communication, but that such a qualification renders such a claim almost meaningless.

-Arlo James Barnes

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