no you want to just skip numbers randomly to inflate the estimates

The irony here is that, at the beginning, the Nazi Party started counting members at 500 to make themselves seem bigger than they were.

<glances at the UIDs in his system's /etc/passwd>

Depends on why you want to obscure. Works for the context of the article, but what if you want to look non-threatening to your large neighbor, to avoid an attack?