In fact, the Identity Agnostic bits were Doug's, and they were focused on the idea that a bank that did not implement blinding could be used in an anonymous fashion by someone willing to violate the patents. /* Blind(*coin) here would violate Chaum's patent, so we * can't do that */ Adam Tim May wrote: | At 1:19 PM -0800 2/12/97, Lee Tien wrote (on the Cypherpunks@toad.com list): | In August of '95, Doug Barnes released a long article on "Identity | Agnostic" systems. (His article is no longer at the www.communities.com Web | site, so I can't refer you to it. Maybe he'll post it again.) | In fact, Ian showed, the Chaum patents on blinding are NOT USED by the | Mint/Bank; only the CUSTOMER uses the blinding patents (and the MERCHANT in | some cases, not in other cases). This means that "anyone a mint" does not | violate any of the Chaum/Digicash patents, and "mint clients" are likely to | be written by third parties. (The _customer_ is presumably on the honor | system to abide by the Chaum patents...except the patents are only being | licensed to banks...go figure.) | | (This is where, as I recall, Doug's "agnostic" system came in...it is | possible his thinking was similar to Ian's...I don't have Doug's paper | handy.) -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume