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Shared and open data promise to create big opportunities for business, science and society – but major headaches await when it comes to preserving privacy. Can we balance the demand for information with the need to protect individuals? And how are statistical models helping to keep our data safe from hackers, crackers and cyber attackers?
 
These are just two of the questions we seek to answer in the new issue of Significance, out now.

Elsewhere in this issue, Jonathan Auerbach, winner of the Young Statisticians Writing Competition, explains how he used a variation on the capture-recapture method to challenge the widespread belief that New York City contains as many rats as people, while Alex Reinhart recounts the untold story of How to Lie with Smoking Statistics, Darrell Huff's unpublished follow-up to his best-selling original, How to Lie with Statistics.

There's also an interview with David Hand about his book, The Improbability Principle, which follows on nicely from the recent Huntrodds' Day celebrations. And, in our visualisation section, we showcase recent work by Maximilian Schich and Mauro Martino to map the spread of Western culture over 2,000 years. Don't miss the companion videos elsewhere on the Significance site.

The full contents list for October's magazine can be found here. Print copies are incoming, but if you are a Royal Statistical Society or American Statistical Association member, log in to your respective members' areas to access the digital edition today. Non-member subscribers can access the digital edition here.

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Significance Magazine