The way I think of this is: - nearly everything is compressed - many things are encrypted Therefore, For any given "random" ( "high entropy" ) string of len

The way I think of this is: - nearly everything is compressed - many things are encrypted Therefore, For any given "random" ( "high entropy" ) string of length X, there's some non-negligible chance it's already been sent. But it's far less likely that a ( partially degraded ) non random string is sent. Why ? Consider this: "the cat sat on the hat" ( probably sent ) "the cut sat on the hat" ( still probably sent ) "thx cut set19n the mkt" ( waaaay less likely to be sent ) "thKxc8t suts n x4e m-t" ( probably never sent ... until now :) ) My reasoning is like, all random strings are ( happy / random ) in the same way. They all look alike. High entropy, but low organization / structure. Because of compression and encryption, any random string probably has as good a chance to be sent as any other, so looking at random strings doesn't really get us anywhere ( but I do make a very very rough calculation at the end that says probably all 7 byte strings have been sent ). It's going to be far easier in my opinion to find an "almost-language" string ( partially degraded, like the above examples ) that's never been sent. Remember, Google whacks? 1 search result. One tactic was putting together uncommon words. Another was misspellings. Basically the intuition / intuitive idea I'm trying to convey is : pick any random high entropy string of given short length, and pick any language string of given short length, and they are both, in my opinion, more likely to have been sent than an "almost language" string of same length. The more degraded you make it ( up to a point, heh ) the less likely it was ever sent. Very rough calculation about random strings So, assuming the question is for what X is p > 0.5, and assume that 1 zettabyte has been sent through the net through it's entire history, so 10^18*8 bits, or roughly 2^(63.8), so roughly every 58 bit string has been sent. So roughly every 7 byte string ever possible has been sent on the internet. Probably.