On 6/22/2015 3:50 PM, John R Levine wrote: >>> The US debt has many digits, and is published regularly by an agency >>> with a tradition of not fudging the data. It's a perfectly reasonable >>> source of randomness. >> >> Why do you feel that's true? >> >> There could easily be an artifact in how it's calculated that biases >> certain values or increments, which could affect the numbers posted. > > Because I have some familiarity with the way the US debt works. Entropy proofs aren't typically based on the principle of "some familiarity". > The low > digit probably isn't random since most debt is sold in $1000 increments > and there may be some artifact of the way the interest is rounded, but > other than that Yes. Other than that. Joe