2012 Q3 link clearance: Microsoft research edition

Short answer: Because it ensures that the replies come only from the most gullible people on earth.

Bonus chatter: I received a scam email purportedly from Sir Humphrey Appleby, secretary to the Prime Minister. I could tell it was a fake because the message was comprehensible.

Okay, I admit I haven’t read the paper. But the video is fun to watch.

This is the paper on Windows Error Reporting that everybody cites. To me, it gets interesting starting in Section 6.

I had the good fortune of seeing an early version of this paper. The thing that jumped out at me was the hard drive failure information:

• The probability of a failure in the first 5 days of uptime is 1 in 470.
• Once you’ve had one failure, the probability of a second failure is 1 in 3.4.
• Once you’ve had two failures, the probability of a third failure is 1 in 1.9.

Translation: That hard drive failure you experienced? It was no fluke. Once you experience your first hard drive failure, the odds of a second one increase by a factor of over 100.

What’s more, that second failure is highly likely (86%) to occur within the next ten days, and almost certainly (99%) within the next thirty.

Conclusion: When you get a hard drive failure, replace the drive immediately.