[p2p-research] Drone hacking

[Andy Robinson]

"If a computer can predict
every single decision you make throughout the day with 85% (random
number) accuracy, you are not predictable in a deterministic sense --
no one ever will be -- but you are predictable for all practical
purposes."

So now we're getting somewhere.  You've conceded the core point that people
aren't really predictable at all, just that certain *guesses* of how people
behave based on their past behaviour are right a certain proportion of the
time - hence reducing unpredictability to a statistical fraction of cases.

Which reminds me a lot of the models of risk management which have
repeatedly caused economic crises in the last 20 years.

This really depends on "practical purposes".  But, the practical purpose we
were dealing with at the beginning was asymmetrical warfare.  And when the
stake is whether or not a country can be pacified, stopping 85% of insurgent
attacks, or stopping 85% of a high number of attacks against one's country
in retaliation, is not going to do the trick.  Then there are the ethical
and political problems regarding whether arresting someone for a crime they
are 85% likely to be about to commit will be accepted (I would seriously
hope not, although certain recent laws make me wonder how many of the bigots
would actually think this is a wonderful idea).  So 85% or even higher is
not going to get you anywhere.

"Using data limited primarily to behavior on a large website, which
lacks in-depth context, behavior prediction buys an individual sales
increase in the low tens of percentage points. Call it 10-30% as a
rule of thumb... Performance metrics are trade secrets."

So how exactly do you know that these packages buy a 10-30% sales increase,
or indeed any sales increase at all?  Would you care to tell us where this
information comes from - which websites are using these packages?  Is any of
this information in the public domain?

Or are you working for the people who are marketing these packages, hence in
on the secrets?  In which case I would seriously question your motives in
trying to make them out to be as massively world-changing as you claim.
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