Reputation: 29677
I want to create a web-based demonstration of differential privacy. To do this, I need a JavaScript implementation of the Laplace noise distribution.
I've been unable to find basic noise distributions in JavaScript, such as Gaussian. This is surprising, because I would like that there would be lots of cool JavaScript demos showing how the distribution builds up, draw by draw, to produce a pretty bell-shaped curve.
How do I generate a Laplace noise distribution in Javascript?
Upvotes: 0
Views: 703
Reputation: 29677
function sgn(x) {
return x < 0 ? -1 : 1;
}
// From wikipedia:
// Lap(X) = mu - b sgn(U) ln (1-2|U|) where U is a random variable between -0.5 and 0.5
function laplace(mu, b) {
var U = Math.random() - 0.5;
return mu - (b * sgn(U) * Math.log(1 - 2* Math.abs(U)));
}
function privatize(F,deltaF,epsilon) {
return F + laplace(0.0, deltaF/epsilon);
}
Upvotes: 1