

Look out for No. 1 - yread
http://timharford.com/2011/09/look-out-for-no-1/

======
mdda
"Nobody seems sure why so much data has the Benford distribution. " : Have a
look at [http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/benfords-law-
zipfs-...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/benfords-law-zipfs-law-
and-the-pareto-distribution/) (cited in the previous discussion on HN) for an
excellent exposition of the theory, and an explanation of the 'power' of the
Benford Law.

~~~
bermanoid
That Terry Tao article is excellent, as usual (well, at least for math dorks -
what's unusual about this one is that you don't need a very high level of
dorkery to grok it 100%) and the "executive summary" reason that Benford's law
applies so broadly is easy to find:

"More generally, it is not hard to show that if X obeys the continuous
Benford’s law, and one multiplies X by some positive multiplier Y which is
independent of the first digit of X (and, a fortiori, is independent of the
fractional part of log_10(X)), one obtains another quantity X' = XY which also
obeys the continuous Benford’s law."

In other words, multiplicative combinations of (independent) quantities will
inherit Benford's law as long as any one of the quantities obeys it on its
own, so it just takes one sub-factor that grows exponentially in order for an
entire distribution to follow the law.

------
pigbucket
Good to be aware of this if you plan to falsify your tax returns, according to
a '98 NYT article (from which this post takes its neat title)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/04/science/following-
benford-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/04/science/following-benford-s-
law-or-looking-out-for-no-1.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

------
amirmc
Previous discussion of Benford's Law on HN

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2701342>

------
RockofStrength
I'm impressed that Madoff was smart enough to mimic Benford distribution in
his monthly returns (that's what the article led me to infer).

I actually made an r/math post about Benford's Law that I thought was pretty
interesting, although it didn't get much attention or many comments
(admittedly bad signs). Any peer review (or su-peer-ior review) is
appreciated.

Here's a snippet: "...generation of the geometric layout for Benford first
digits is a similar process to creating a Sierpinski Triangle by drawing a
triangle, and randomly plotting midpoint dots between vertices and sides
recursively. In the Benford case the plotted dots are instead individual
numbers, which share a geometric connection (e.g. two galaxies colliding will
on average be a doubling, so galaxy size should possess Benford
distribution)."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/gkj2i/benfords_law_exp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/gkj2i/benfords_law_explained_through_a_tree_of_first/)

------
alecco
Last month Khan and Vi Hart made some very interesting videos on Benford's
Law:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KmeGpjeLZ0>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZUDoEdjTzg>

------
borgar
No link in the article so here is the report cited:

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2011....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2011.00542.x/full)

------
chailatte
I don't think the issue at hand is that fraud detections are unsophisticated.
The issue at hand is that the fraud detections are in cahoot with the fraud
themselves. For example: Enron, Worldcom and Accenture (past) Greece, Italy,
Spain and Goldman Sachs, Fitch, Moody, S&P (present) Chinese local banks,
Chinese companies and SEC (future)

The problem with hackers is that they always try to find mathematical
solutions to moral problems. What the world needs right now is a moral
solution. A beheading for those that have fouled.

Unfortunately, the hackers, the workers - ones that actually have the power to
demand changes - are willingly allowing themselves to be exploited by those
that lie, and not demanding any moral judgements. They're not interested in
changing the politics, they claim. They just want to keep producing
interesting things, they exclaim. They don't realize they're the ones keeping
the lie going. They're the ones propping up this decrepit shell of a society.

Until one day the shell collapses on their kids, anyways.

~~~
william42
The problem is that revolutions tend to be more harmful than their
predecessors: see China in the 60s, for example.

~~~
0x12
That's definitely not a given. Revolutions are a time of instability and the
outcome can be worse or better. It mostly depends on what precipitated the
revolution in the first place, how educated the people in the country where
the revolution takes place are and how involved they plan on being once the
violence dies down. A revolution is a time of transition and instability
without any guarantees towards the outcome.

