Fake data

[Aaron]

I'm looking for some good sources of biographical data -- either real,
or fake but validly formed, as appropriate. For as many locales as
possible. Stuff like:

- names
- addresses
- CC numbers
- national IDs
- phone numbers

It would have to be liberally licensed to allow for reuse and
redistribution (attribution is OK).
Anyone know of some good sources?

[Stephen Doig]

You could build some nice fake data using a public dataset like campaign
finance records. Scramble the first and last names to create mythical
people, use random number generators to create phony phone numbers, etc.

Steve Doig

[Aaron]

That could be a good data set for the US, esp. if the info is in an
accessible format and split into appropriate fields. What about other
countries though? And where can I get those records?

Names & addresses benefit from a good sample set, but for CC numbers/
national IDs/phone numbers, real data isn't really needed (or wanted)
-- just the constraints necessary to form legitimate-looking numbers
for every type. Easy to fake what you know (Visa, US phone numbers,
SSNs), but to cover other countries sample sets or generators would be
really helpful.

On Oct 8, 3:19 pm, Stephen Doig <steve.d...@asu.edu> wrote:
> You could build some nice fake data using a public dataset like campaign
> finance records. Scramble the first and last names to create mythical
> people, use random number generators to create phony phone numbers, etc.
>
> Steve Doig
>