[ExI] repeated digits in ss numbers

Mike Dougherty msd001 at gmail.com
Fri Nov 21 02:47:23 UTC 2014


On Nov 20, 2014 8:36 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
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.

The selection bias you are talking about shouldn't be called random.  From
any number of tests your prof had you do to test numbers,  you'd probably
see how special those human-generated numbers are;  even when appearing
otherwise unremarkable.

> 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.

The number of collisions may warrant solving the problem by simply
reassigning identification credentials.   Think of all the other human
cattle. .. er, capital tracking problems that would solve.  Sure,  we see
the hundreds of other ways that tracking violates our rights,  but we're
just old and wary; kids these days have no expectation of any different.

You want your guaranteed income payment?  Well you have to be on the
network to receive it.

Identity management for credit cards is similarly obsolete; we're one of
the last places in the world where a strip of magnetic tape on a slice of
plastic can rob someone of their electronic currency.  We need a better
system,  ideally one that doesn't introduce new problems for the
cred-holder.
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