For Good Measure: The Imperative of Reclaiming Metrics Terminology

I'm swimming
in darkness
keeping eyeballs clear
—Murio Suzuki
(Trans. Ban’ya Natsuishi)

The explosion of interest in measuring and reporting on security has been most welcome, yet that surge has also brought with it powerful side effects, often stemming from a lack of consistent ontology to aid in common understanding, reasoning, and communication. Many current efforts suffer from a misunderstanding of the distinct differences between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. We are too often speaking past one another—even more so as information technology, business, legal, and other professions collide.