TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu> (06/10/90)
A couple weeks ago, I posted a survey asking questions about possible illegal telecommunications/computer activities by readers. It looks like the survey was flawed, due to an error in the way I set it up. There have been several messages which pointed out that unless I was aware of the dietary and banking habits of the readers, it would be impossible to accurately give any meaning to the results. To avoid embarassment or possible legal ramifications, readers were asked to answer one set of questions or another set, based on the flip of a coin. The two question sets were: 1) 1. Have you made one or more phraud calls in the past six months? 2. Have you broken into a computer or gained unlawful access to a computer in the past six months? 2) 1. Have you eaten a hamburger for lunch in the past two weeks? 2. Have you gone inside the bank you usually do business with in the past two weeks? We know that as the number of coin tosses increases, the likelyhood is that there will be an even number of heads/tails come up. So, we can take the number of answers received, *assume that half were answering the relevant questions and disgard half the results, evenly from all possible answer groups*, getting some idea of how many of you are naughty, and how many are nice. But several of you wrote to point out that without knowing if a preponderance of the readers here were vegetarians, or misers who did not trust banks, the results would be difficult or impossible to interpret. If no one eats hamburgers or visits banks, then a large number of 'no-no' answers would appear. And, this is in fact what happened when the results were tallied -- more on this later. A better way of handling the survey, aiming for the highest possible number of accurate answers while still allowing a relative anomynity in posting would have been to ask but the first set of questions -- the relevant ones -- with the condition that if the coin toss was heads, answer the questions accurately. If the coin toss was tails, then flip the coin twice more: (1) heads/tails = yes/no on phraud calls; then (2) heads/tails = yes/no on computer cracking. In either event, do not reveal the coin toss -- simply send along your answers. Here are the results from the first time, although flawed. They are presented for your amusement, and I hope you will answer the survey a second time, using the more accurate collection techniques. Total respondents: 636 36 (5.7%) answered yes to both cracking and phreaking in the recent past. 78 (12.3%) answered no to phreaking and yes to cracking. 66 (10.4%) answered yes to phreaking and no to cracking. 456 (71.7%) answered no to both questions. No cracking or phreaking. Percentages slightly over 100% due to rounding. Of course, if we assume half the respondents were talking about their lunch and financial matters, then the figures would decrease, but the percentages would stay the same. Still, as pointed out above, the results are suspect, so let's do it over again: Flip a coin. Heads, answer these questions honestly. 1) Have you made one or more phraud phone calls in the past six months? 2) Have you broken into a computer or gained unlawful access to someone else's account in the past six months? If tails, flip the coin twice more: On the first flip, answer the first question: heads = yes / tails = no. On the second flip, answer the second question: heads = yes / tails = no. Then, mail your results, with the subject header 'survey' to: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu Your answers should take one of these forms: 1) Yes Yes 2) Yes No 3) No Yes 4) No No Avoid the header 'questions' since some late responses to the first survey are using this header. Do not reveal the coin toss(es) and do not make other comments for which a reply is expected. Results to this hopefully more accurate version will appear in a couple weeks. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator PS: And remember, Bob Dobbs explained it thus: " I don't practice what I preach because I am not the kind of person I am preaching to!" :)