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An interactive explorer for Benford's Law across real datasets

vatsalbakshi.com

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Re: An interactive explorer for Benford's Law across real datasets

#12
post #2

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

benford's law is used to detect whether data is faked in which ways would the list of hdd bad blocks be faked?

It can also be tried for general anomaly detection https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3624062.3624121

Re: An interactive explorer for Benford's Law across real datasets

#13

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.

Could look up convictions and see how any county courthouse delivers sentences, Bendord’s Law isn’t just for accounting, it’s for anything numeric.

Re: An interactive explorer for Benford's Law across real datasets

#15
post #2

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

benford's law is used to detect whether data is faked in which ways would the list of hdd bad blocks be faked?

You can use it to find anomalies in data sets. I'd read somewhere that Starbucks coffee prices stick out on financial audits using benfords law, because they're over represented.

In my scenario, I simply had access to a massive data set of hard drive sector failure LBAs, and had just read about benford's law on Slashdot (back in the day), and was skeptical that benford's law would actually fit this data.... so I tried it. And the data fit benford's law perfectly - with a single digit. When I tried it with 2 digits, and again, it fit perfectly - except there were two spikes which stood out. Curious, I started digging in... it was an interesting failure mode.

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