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Whenever this is posted, it sort of reminds me of the IRS and one way they use to detect fraud. They observed that sometimes, the amounts in the tax returns we
by gxs 3y ago
Whenever this is posted, it sort of reminds me of the IRS and one way they use to detect fraud.
They observed that sometimes, the amounts in the tax returns were too “random” though not in exactly the same sense as the article.
For example, people manually filling out bad tax returns would never use an amount like $5,000 because the number didn’t feel random enough.
This type of analysis is always fascinating and I still see new applications from time to time.
- quickthrower2 3y agoAlso: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law
- thwarted 3y agoThere's also Benford's Law, which is related to the growth of numbers, which is used to detect fraud. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law
- kevindamm 3y agoI think you're referring to Benford's Law [0] and related analysis? It doesn't apply in every context, in particular it assumes values are naturally distributed and have varying numbers of digits. But it is quite effective in those contexts where it is appropriate! [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%2527s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%2527s_law