Create an Account
username: password:
 
  MemeStreams Logo

Catching cheaters with Benford's Law (kottke.org)

search

dmv
dmv's Pics
My Blog
My Profile
My Audience
My Sources
Send Me a Message

sponsored links

dmv's topics
Arts
Business
Games
Health and Wellness
Home and Garden
Miscellaneous
Current Events
Recreation
Local Information
Science
Society
Sports
Technology

support us

Get MemeStreams Stuff!


 
Catching cheaters with Benford's Law (kottke.org)
Topic: Miscellaneous 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.
...
That got me thinking...can I use the distribution of numbers in these post timestamps to detect my cheating?

Catching cheaters with Benford's Law (kottke.org)



 
 
Powered By Industrial Memetics
RSS2.0