Building A Global Information Assurance Program

Appendix B Glossary

The beginning of vision is the definition of terms.

Socrates

As explained in the text, terminology is far from standardized in the areas discussed. Many organizations assign different meanings to commonly used terms; some are only minor deviations while others are significant. Where multiple definitions exist in every day use, we have included several of the more common ones here. The reader is left to decide for himself which, if any, might best suit his purpose.

Abduction [AAAI, 1999]: A form of inference that generates plausible conclusions (which may not necessarily be true). As an example, knowing that if it is night, then a movie is on television and that a movie is on television, then abductive reasoning allows the ...