When Only 80% Of Computers Having Viruses Is Considered A Good Thing

from the ouch dept

The headline of this story sounded like good news at first, claiming: Fewer computers infected with virus. Then you read the details, and realize they're saying that the number of virus infected computers in China has dropped from 88% to just 80% -- and you have to wonder just what folks are doing there to have so many viruses. Given China's ability to control so much of the internet in that country, you would think that part of those efforts would go towards trying to block viruses. Apparently not.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Sissy Pants, 18 Nov 2005 @ 9:53am

    Um Sony?

    Well, considering the Sony rootkit has been "infecting" computers since 2004 the extent isn't known yet... it's not a huge suprise that 80% of china is infected...

    What percentage of the US is infected? Or Europe? Are you?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Testudo, 18 Nov 2005 @ 9:59am

      Re: Um Sony?

      I agree. Some viruses may not become appearent for a long time. Not all viruses are the headline grabbers that bring down entire computer networks within days

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    dorpus, 18 Nov 2005 @ 10:32am

    Confidence Interval?

    I would want to know the 95% CI on that. There is the concept of Risk Function -- mathematically, it is very difficult to prove whether a coin flip has a 50% chance of heads, or a 55% chance of heads.

    To determine probability, our intuition may tell us to flip 100 times and count the number of heads, i.e. use the sample proportion. However, it can be shown mathematically that it is better to artificially add 3 heads and 3 tails to our counts, if we are confident that the true probability is close to 50%. Our estimate will be about 11% more accurate this way.


    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      dorpus, 18 Nov 2005 @ 10:39am

      Re: Confidence Interval?

      p.s. When humans flip a coin, they tend to place the head up before flipping, and everyone has roughly the same thumb strength, so a paper from Stanford last year showed that the probability of a coin landing heads is in fact roughly 55%.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Wyatt, 18 Nov 2005 @ 11:13am

        Re: Confidence Interval?

        Why not the 75% conf. interval? What's so special about 95%? Would you not make a bet on a study that had had a 90% CI, what about 85%? Stats is stats... not truth.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          antigone, 18 Nov 2005 @ 12:25pm

          Re: Confidence Interval?

          By using a higher confidence interval, you're less likely to make a Type II error, which is a really stupid thing to make - to claim something is statistically significant when it isn't. It's like the commercial for the prescription for Detrol LA. When you actually look at the reports for it, the medication really didn't do anything that was significant.

          And the 95% CI is a typical cutoff for estimating unusual values.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            spiker, 18 Nov 2005 @ 1:31pm

            Re: Confidence Interval?

            With all due respect I think you have type 1 error mixed up with type 2 error

            link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            dorpus, 18 Nov 2005 @ 2:08pm

            Re: Confidence Interval?

            Actually, that's a Type I error, when you conclude that something is significant (when it isn't). A Type II error will conclude the effect is insignificant, when in fact it is significant.

            The probability of not making a Type II error, i.e. correctly finding significance, is known as "power".

            95% CI has been the gold standard for much of scientific research for many years. It's saying that if we were to repeat the experiment at the same scale, we have a 95% chance of reaching the same conclusion. Here, the 95% is known as the "size" of the test. One can perform 90% CI in situations where the results are inexact, or 99% CI's in situations that demand more precision.


            link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      NormL, 18 Nov 2005 @ 11:11am

      Re: Confidence Interval?

      Why would you want to know? Why don't you want to know at this point in time? What is causing this delay in your decision to gain the knowledge in which you seek?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Duodave, 18 Nov 2005 @ 12:19pm

    Preventing viruses requires education

    Seeing as the Chinese government has done everything in its power to prevent their citizens from communicating with the free world, it should come as no surprise they are infected. They obviously have no clue how to prevent them. The great wall of virii.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bryan H, 18 Nov 2005 @ 1:21pm

    hen Only 80% Of Computers Having Viruses Is Consid

    It's probably China's government infecting the computer's.

    This way the Chinese are so damn busy cleaning their computers of viruses there isn't any time to fight the government.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.