-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In list.cypherpunks, loofbour@cis.ohio-state.edu writes:
And there's another item of note: each chip has a unique, etched, machine-readable serial number. What are the bets that Dallas Semiconductor can tell you who purchased that chip? Well, so much for an anonymous payment scheme based on *this* product.
Dallas might be able to tell who purchased them, but it's likely to have been someone like Hamilton-Hallmark (a major parts distributor). Whether the distributors are going to maintain the audit trail is questionable at best. It only takes one distributor to break the chain of traceability, and audit trails cost money.
* Gee, back in my day EPROMs were Eraseable; these folks mean instead to indicate an Electrically Programmable chip, which sounds like a good old PROM to me. Ahhh, acronyms...
This comes from the fact that PROMs are typically mask-programmed at the fabrication stage. EPROMS are programmed in the field. And yes, if you could get the top of the chip off cleanly, you could erase and reprogram them. (not likely, and hardly undetectable, but it's ever so slightly possible) More often, I see these devices called OTP (for One Time Programmable). In the more standard types (27C256, for example), they're a fraction of the cost of the erasable ones. Ceramic cases and quartz windows are spendy. - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy@cybrspc.mn.org PGP Public Key fingerprint = 31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54 13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6 Key available from pubkey@cybrspc.mn.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMIQv0Rvikii9febJAQEeKAP+LbgyZ/60fGuVICZEqM+Rv34GhEA6a/vg cKPbKCazUVg8bEBod3mqbHfssjDgD47PcAai8uM3ALmki/TI3DfI6FLbZr7aCpa8 PSNFDTEpmRDpnm5xpbZa/5O1aLdXLX6ps8OGsg0YjY1hvFQCn5tymW9GjhOXrkXS s698T5nEoQI= =LoNA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----