This article was taken from the October 2014 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
People lie with numbers. They make up fake expenses for a tax return or an expense account and fabricate financial data to impress a lender or venture capitalist. But when they do, they fall into unconscious patterns. With a little practice you can learn to spot them.
For instance, here is the invented amount of a bad cheque from a US embezzlement case: $87,602.93 (£54,500). For clarity I'll strip off the dollar sign and decimal point.
A fake number: 8760293 Now, for comparison, here are some authentically random digits (from the website random.org, which uses atmospheric noise to generate random strings).
A random number: 5044902 You're probably thinking both numbers look random.
But there are several tell-tale differences.
Descending sequences In the made-up number, 8 is followed by 7, the digit that's one less, and the 7 is followed by 6. Descending runs of two, three or four consecutive digits are more common in fabricated data. This reflects the way our brains are wired. When a crook free-associates "random" numbers, they favour consecutive digits. Ascending sequences (eg 2345) are also more common.
Missing zeros Another tip-off is that fakers avoid making up round numbers, which call attention to themselves, and they generally shy away from 0s. Zeroes ought to account for about ten per cent of the digits in large, unrounded numbers. But in the embezzler's invented cheque amounts, only about four per cent of digits were 0s. Venture capitalists: beware of fake figures.
Repeated strings Those making up numbers fall into mental ruts and repeat digit sequences. The crook who made up the fabricated number 8760293 overused both 87 and 93 in the amounts of his bad cheques.
Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff unknowingly favoured the pair of 8 and 6 -- both in the statements he sent to investors as well as in his self-reported golf scores.
Missing repeats The random number, 5044902, has two 4s in a row.
Two-digit repeats (such as 44 or 77) are fairly common in honest numbers. After all, there ought to be about a one-in-ten chance that a given digit will be followed by itself. But the people who fabricate numbers usually totally avoid repeating the same digit two (or more) times in a row.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
