[LINK] lies, damn lies, and 31,000 pages

[Sylvano]

A quick look at some M$Word docs shows an effective 20Kb to 30Kb per page as not being untypical, which would mean four million plus pages in 120GB of space!!  They need better spin doctors!

Furthermore, typing 'car bomb' into my desk top search returned 54 documents.....    The main point being that it would be less than a days work (surely!) for someone to filter candidate documents for assessment, with any standard desk top search tool.

Sylvano

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----- Original Message -----
From: Howard Lowndes [mailto:lannet at lannet.com.au]
Sent: 7/12/2007 9:48:50 AM
Cc: link at anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [LINK] lies, damn lies, and 31,000 pages

> I think a bare bones installation of XP or Vista is over 100,000 files.
> 
> Stilgherrian wrote:
> > On 12/7/07 8:11 AM, "Craig Sanders" <cas at taz.net.au> wrote:
> >> for the last week or so, Ruddock has been going on about "31,000 pages
> >> of documentation to be reviewed" in relation to (and justification for)
> >> the Indian doctor being held in Queensland.
> >>
> >> i read in The Age this morning, the story has changed slightly:
> >>
> >> http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/indian-doctor-going-nowhere/2007/07/11/
> >> 1183833599463.html
> >>
> >>    "But Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said more than 120 gigabytes
> >>     of information had to be reviewed - equal to 31,000 pages of
> >>     documents."
> >>
> >> so, what that probably means is that they've got a laptop or desktop
> >> computer with a 120GB hard disk...and it's convenient for the
> >> government's scare campaign to misrepresent that as "31,000 pages" of
> >> secret terrorist documents that need to be reviewed.
> > 
> > The other day a senior policeman said they'd seized a computer with "more
> > than 12,000 files" -- with the obvious implication that this was some vast
> > treasure-trove of documentation. Totally misleading for two reasons, one
> > direct and one indirect:
> > 
> >   * A "file" in and of itself is neutral. "Having files" is not a
> >     crime. And yet the average person thinks "I only have a 'a few
> >     photos' and my family letters," and imagines they have only a
> >     handful of files.
> > 
> >     Someone with "thousands" of files now becomes "different" and
> >     suspicious -- we're automatically programmed to link "different"
> >     with "suspicious" as a survival instinct, and this presses that
> >     button without rational cause.
> > 
> >   * A "file" is a technical term, meaning any data object on the
> >     hard drive. The Windows box I have for testing -- Windows XP
> >     with MS Office 2003 Pro and a fairly basic set of utilities for
> >     general use -- plus a couple GB of data belonging to clients as
> >     we've copied stuff from old computer to new -- has 93,643 files
> >     on it. So 12,000 files is... well, nothing really.
> > 
> > Still, all we hear is [big number] -> [lots of work] -> more jail.
> > 
> > Magic, really.
> > 
> > Stil
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Howard.
> LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people <http://lannetlinux.com>
> When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux;
> When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft.
> --
> Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states.
> 
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