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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Catching cheaters with Benford's Law (kottke.org). You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Catching cheaters with Benford's Law (kottke.org)
by dmv at 2:55 pm EST, Feb 21, 2006

I first heard of Benford's Law in connection with the IRS using it to detect tax fraud. If you're cheating on your taxes, you might fill in amounts of money somewhat at random, the distribution of which would not match that of actual financial data. So if the digit "1" shows up on Al Capone's tax return about 15% of the time (as opposed to the expected 30%), the IRS can reasonably assume they should take a closer look at Mr. Capone's return.
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That got me thinking...can I use the distribution of numbers in these post timestamps to detect my cheating?


 
 
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