On 28/08/2018 13:16, Mark Rousell wrote: > > Footnote:- > 1: A more recent example of a very similar skewed and confused view of > things is the Casio F-91 watch. Certain elements of US intelligence > had noticed that many terrorist suspects arrested in Iraq were wearing > the Casio F-91W watch model. The intelligence reports extrapolated > this apparent correlation to suggest, amongst other things, that the > watch was chosen because its alarm capabilities allowed an alarm to be > set more than 24 in the future (in fact that particular model allows > no such thing, although some other Casio models do). In truth, the > Casio F-91W model was and still is popular with third world terrorist > suspects because it is (a) very cheap, and (b) it is produced in > greater numbers than any other watch model in the world. I.e. Lots of > people in third world countries wear Casio F-91Ws, not just > terrorists. And yet the intelligence people were ignorant of the wider > popularity of the F-91W and extrapolated incorrectly from the limited > (skewed) data set of which they were aware. Similar errors of limited > vision, confusion, and skew were made in the timeframe we're > discussing here by some people running training course for professionals.
I just noticed a typo in the above. Here is the corrected version: A more recent example of a very similar skewed and confused view of things is the Casio F-91 watch. Certain elements of US intelligence had noticed that many terrorist suspects arrested in Iraq were wearing the Casio F-91W watch model. The intelligence reports extrapolated this apparent correlation to suggest, amongst other things, that the watch was chosen because its alarm capabilities allowed an alarm to be set more than 24 hours in the future and so it would be useful as a bomb timer. (In fact that particular model allows no such thing although some other Casio watch models do). In truth, the Casio F-91W model was and still is popular with third world terrorist suspects because it is (a) very cheap, and (b) it is produced in greater numbers than any other watch model in the world. I.e. Lots of people in third world countries wear Casio F-91Ws, not just terrorists. And yet the intelligence people were ignorant of the wider popularity of the F-91W and extrapolated incorrectly from the limited (skewed) data set of which they were aware. Similar errors of limited vision, confusion, and skew were made in the timeframe we're discussing here by some people running training courses for certain types of professional. -- Mark Rousell
