Why anomaly detection is not binary classification

 

Anomaly detection refers to the problem of finding patterns in data that do not
conform to expected behavior.

—Chandola et al., Anomaly Detection: A Survey

Like a fish swimming upstream, the mouse befriending the cat and the rich giving to the poor.

But also like

  • the malicious user in your organization
  • the defecting engine you just manufactured
  • the fraudulent credit card transaction you just processed
  • the unreasonable network traffic on your servers

It seems that Anomaly Detection amounts to all but separate the good from the bad. And in fact, it is. So why not dig up the good old binary classification?

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