# Generalized Benford’s Law as a Lie Detector

@article{Gauvrit2017GeneralizedBL,
title={Generalized Benford’s Law as a Lie Detector},
author={Nicolas Gauvrit and Jean-Charles Houillon and J. P. Delahaye},
year={2017},
volume={13},
pages={121 - 127}
}
• Published 30 June 2017
• Mathematics
The first significant (leftmost nonzero) digit of seemingly random numbers often appears to conform to a logarithmic distribution, with more 1s than 2s, more 2s than 3s, and so forth, a phenomenon known as Benford’s law. When humans try to produce random numbers, they often fail to conform to this distribution. This feature grounds the so-called Benford analysis, aiming at detecting fabricated data. A generalized Benford’s law (GBL), extending the classical Benford’s law, has been defined…

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