When you want to show that something grows exponentially, plot it with a log scale on the y axis. That way, an exponential function becomes a line, and humans are much better at judging whether something is a line than judging whether something is an exponential function.
In fact, whenever you want to honestly show that something follows a certain law, scale your axes so that you get a line in the best case.
Of course the article just had to include this bit:
> If we look at these results in graphical form, it’s very obvious what’s going on
When it really is not obvious at all what is going on.
Yeah I suck at maths, according to this comment https://lobste.rs/s/j4545s/dos_attack_against_c_compiler#c_n..., it's actually 'double exponential'
> When it really is not obvious at all what is going on.
Yeah, I guess I actually meant to say 'it's very obvious that it's increasing quickly', but as you say, it doesn't read like that!!