Benford’s Law is often used as a test to see if data has been manipulated, could it also be used to test to see if trading in Bitcoin is as dodgy as it’s made out to be?So many numbers, so few patterns. (Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash)By this stage of the interrogation, Tameer Hussain was wondering if he would ever see the light of day again. Staring directly into the eyes of the Director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, he repeated,“I’m telling you I didn’t know about the American drone strike, if I had known I would have asked them to call it off.”The Director gave a half smile and with a slight motion of his head, signaled for Hussain’s interrogators to continue beating him,“You see, I have a very simple rule. Do you know how I tell whether someone is telling the truth or not?”Grabbing Hussain’s battered and bruised face between his large hand, the Director sneered,“Because when I ask them, they give a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ — nothing more. When a man lies he tells stories. So I am asking you again, did you or did you not know about the drone strike before you came to see me.”“Sahib, I am saying I didn’t know….ahhhh….”Jolts of electricity from a nearby car battery were applied again to Hussain’s body as the room filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh.In the world of international espionage, where everyone lies, it’s almost impossible to develop a simple rule to see if someone is telling the truth or not, but what if it was possible in the world of data?That’s where Benford’s Law comes in.Betting on BenfordFor the uninitiated, Benford’s Law is simply the law of first-digits — an observation about the frequency of distribution of leading digits in many…