How do I compute the approximate entropy of a bit string?

Posted by dreeves on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by dreeves
Published on 2010-06-05T04:35:50Z Indexed on 2010/06/05 6:52 UTC
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Is there a standard way to do this?

Googling -- "approximate entropy" bits -- uncovers multiple academic papers but I'd like to just find a chunk of pseudocode defining the approximate entropy for a given bit string of arbitrary length.

(In case this is easier said than done and it depends on the application, my application involves 16,320 bits of encrypted data (cyphertext). But encrypted as a puzzle and not meant to be impossible to crack. I thought I'd first check the entropy but couldn't easily find a good definition of such. So it seemed like a question that ought to be on StackOverflow! Ideas for where to begin with de-cyphering 16k random-seeming bits are also welcome...)

See also this related question:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/510412/what-is-the-computer-science-definition-of-entropy

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