Random Data Compressed 100:1 (Guffaw)

[Declan McCullagh]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 02:27:47PM -0700, Michael Motyka wrote:
> So what is compression/decompression? Isn't it just finding
> corresponding sets using defined procedures, one set being "smaller"
> than the other? Which types of procedures are allowed and which are not?
> 
> What exactly is random data? Does it have to appear to be random? Does
> it have to pass some set of statistical tests to be random? If a string

I'm naturally skeptical of this claim (until I can verify it for
myself), but I do not believe the claim is "we can encode random data
at 100:1."  They seem to be talking about 100:1 lossless compression
of real-world data, which is generally not random.

-DEclan