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An interactive explorer for Benford's Law across real datasets

30 pointsby dingobabiestoday at 12:18 AM10 commentsview on HN

Comments

jmpmantoday at 1:21 AM

I'd recommend allowing 2 digit exploration. I've used it in the past when analyzing hard drive failure logical block addresses.

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jboggantoday at 3:31 AM

I once did an application of Benford's Law to USDT transactions between crypto exchanges, which seemed to indicate some exchanges had mostly "organic" transactions and a handful of exchanges seemed to have heavy transaction volume of seemingly-random but not really random amounts, indicating some level of wash trading on those exchanges.

yellow_postittoday at 2:40 AM

Neat! Benford’s Law was the first topic I dove into in undergrad math that got a minor publication. Given how well known it is for forensic accounting I’ve always wanted to look into convictions and see if the “average” fraudster has wised up and produces more realistic distributions.

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cwmooretoday at 1:35 AM

Interesting that it was first discovered with noticing the “garden path” in the front pages of a book of logarithm tables (in 1881).

deanalyzertoday at 4:07 AM

I learned about Benford's law over a decade ago, and I always found it beautiful and elegant. But surely, fraudsters have become more sophisticated by now. I wonder if you asked an AI to commit fraud, if it would be clever enough to avoid such mistakes.

anArbitraryOnetoday at 1:51 AM

It's interesting how all base 10 numbers identify as non binary

SV_BubbleTimetoday at 4:17 AM

I wonder if it using this would help disprove election irregularities?

stefantalpalarutoday at 1:44 AM

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