On Saturday, September 21, 2002, at 09:29 AM, Tim May wrote:

Not a new idea. Ted Nelson (IIRC) wrote about using coin flips to randomize AIDS poll questions. ("Have you engaged in unprotected sex?" Flip a coin and XOR it with your actual answer.) I remember talking to Eric Hughes, Phil Salin, and others around 1990-91 about this.

(However, IBM is probably busily copyrighting their new invention, just as Intel copyright their recent "invention" of the anonymous remailer.)

I meant "patented" in both cases. Part of the continuing idiocy of our patent system, when obvious prior art going back more than a decade counts for nothing in the blizzard of patents. --Tim May