Random Privacy

[Tim May]

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