Declan misses the mark on ecash

[lcs Mixmaster Remailer]

Declan McCullagh writes:
> On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 07:00:21PM -0000, lcs Mixmaster Remailer wrote:
> > It is a botched attempt to describe the "cut and choose" mechanism.
>
> Right, it was an attempt to describe "cut and choose" in three
> sentences or so. It's a news article, not a technical paper. Deal.

It's not so bad that you botched cut and choose, it's that you misled
readers into thinking that it was a central part of Chaum's ecash
protocol.  See the later question by Eric Cordian, just one of many
readers who were undoubtedly scratching their heads trying to make sense
of what you wrote.

But hey, if you don't care about accuracy, I guess we can't hold
you accountable.  Your attitude is that it's just a news article.
We can "deal" with that, indeed.  The only thing that suffers is your
credibility.

> > The article also contains a recap of the Chaum/Brands patent wars.
> > It would have been more interesting if there were some reference
> > to new approaches to ecash that avoid the patents, such as the
> > Lucre software by Ben Laurie, based on David Wagner's blinding
> > (http://anoncvs.aldigital.co.uk/lucre/
>
> The point of that section of the article was to talk about available
> patents. Wagner's scheme appears to reply on Chaum's (original)
> patents, so it wasn't relevant.

Again, you misled the public by implying that all potential approaches to
ecash were patented.  In fact, Wagner's blinding does not rely on Chaum's
original blinding patent and in fact is designed to avoid ALL patents.
It appears to be an unpatented method for doing ecash.  (Caveat, of
course anyone trying to judge whether a particular technology is truly
unpatented should consult a lawyer.)

This kind of mistake, implying that all feasible approaches to ecash are
patented, plays right into the hands of those who want to keep these
technologies off the market.  Ironically, this article will therefore
serve to delay the progress which the author claims to desire.