[ExI] repeated digits in ss numbers

[Anders Sandberg]

spike <spike66 at att.net> , 21/11/2014 2:39 AM:


  Does that sound right, randomness hipsters?  The human-chosen ten-digit numbers are more likely to have nearly all ten single digit numbers.
Yep:http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0041531
There are a billion possible SSNs but 450 million have been used. So if I randomly select one number I have about 45% chance of hitting a number officially in use; whether it is actively used by somebody I guess is about 50-50. The internal structure of the used ones seem to be random with the exception of a few small 'holes'. So I think it is true that if you have a pattern-looking SSN it is less likely to have been used. 

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20141121/fed89361/attachment.html>