[ExI] repeated digits in ss numbers

[spike]

A long time ago, a computer science professor was teaching us about random
number generators.  He asked us to write down ten random numbers, ten digits
each.  Then we did randomness tests on them.  One of the findings I vaguely
recalled from a long time ago is that when you write down ten random digits
(such as a social security number) the probability of a human-chosen random
number has anomalously few repeated digits.  Does that sound right,
randomness hipsters?  The human-chosen ten-digit numbers are more likely to
have nearly all ten single digit numbers.

 

Reason I ask: the USA is likely going to grant pardon for all illegal
immigrants who have used a random social security number (ten digits.)  The
victims of that blanket pardon are those whose SS numbers have been randomly
chosen and used by an illegal.  A cheerful thought occurred to me: those of
us whose SS numbers contain a lot of repeats are less likely to have had our
number stolen.

 

Sound right?

 

spike

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