Talk:Ed Trice/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

A decent start; comments

For a new article, this looks quite nice. However, I would strongly encourage some sourcing for the crypto section (where is this described; where it can be attributed to Trice?), and for the Gothic chess section. In particular, this latter section makes some claims that I find hard to swallow at first glance (and admittedly knowing nothing about Trice or this variant before). Changing some "Sources" to inline citations would help. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 04:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing the encryption section. The cipher is completely worthless, it's obvious to any cryptographer. It's vulnerable to frequency analysis, and is even worse that a substitution cipher because of the additional structure. In addition it does not have an "inexhaustible key size", rather, it has a key size of log ((12!)(4!)(4!))^3(3!), or about 80 bits. But more importantly, the cipher has apparently never been publicized, so this is WP:OR. Mangojuice^talk 12:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I was still describing the invention when you removed it. It is NOT subject to frequency analysis, as EVERY character in the plaintext gets a new table. IOTPCP Stands for INEXHAUSTIBLE ONE-TIME PAD CIPHER PROTOCOL -- meaning every cypher table is used only one time, then never accessed again. Every clock pulse of your computer, at the millionth-of-a-second rate, will generate a new index to a table, which is only used that one time. No two excryption arrangements are the same.

I disclosed the invention of the IOTPCP to Dan Golub, a partner of the Law Firm of Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius. Present at the meeting was Bryan Peckjian, a patent agent.

http://www.morganlewis.com/index.cfm/personID/b7f7ec42-dfc0-44f5-8a23-d9fd3ad087e0/fromSearch/1/fuseaction/people.viewBio

I am not sure how to cite Dan as a reference.

After meeting with government officials in Washington, D.C., after the 9/11 attacks, I gave them this encryption algorithm for free. The NSA independently verified that the cipher could not be broken. It is still in use today, and it has been declassified to discuss topicly because of its strength.

FYI.

GothicChessInventor 13:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Unless any of this can be cited with a verifiable, independent, reliable source, then none of this can go in the article. As it stands, "Inexhaustible One-Time Pad Cipher Protocol" brings up one Google hit, and "IOTPCP" brings up nothing relevant, so my guess is it's unlikely that such sources exist. Oli Filth 13:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Think about what you are asking for: documentation concerning a cipher used by the goverment. It was recently declassified, the person who put it into the article to begin with was (supposedly) a reporter himself. After he botched its description, I got involved. I was merely correcting his mistakes.

I cited how you can contact the partner at the Law Firm of Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius. If you want to contact the source, be my guest. He will tell you that I discussed the nature of the encryption to him, then, subsequently, he advised me not to file a patent on it, since that would mandate descrbing EVERY detail of it, even the decipherment section, which would them make it non-secure for government use.

GothicChessInventor 13:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is what Wikipedia policy mandates; a verifiable, independent, reliable source. Oli Filth 13:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Most importantly for Wikipedia purposes, this is unpublished work and not allowable per WP:RS and WP:V. As to the cipher, if each table (key) is being used for only one character, then it is indeed secure. However, it's still a pretty worthless cipher as it requires a lot more randomness than the true one-time pad, and yet it has distinct disadvantages: it isn't nearly as efficient computationally, and the ciphertext is three times as long. As for your "source" at a Law Firm, that doesn't cut it, not even close. It has to be published somewhere in reliable sources to make acceptable material for Wikipedia. Mangojuice^talk 14:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys. Try contacting User:ChessHistorian. He's the one who introduced the section. --Boricuaeddie 15:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I removed the "B" classification of this article above, since the classification was added by Boricuaeddie who was the same person who created the article. To rate an article one has created one self is bad form. I also cleaned up the indentation of the comments here to make them more readable.

And more importantly: GothicChessInventor, you should not edit an article about yourself, that is considered REALLY bad form. Especially to add more text to it. If you think anything in the article is bad or incorrect or need to be added or removed write about it here on the talkpage and let other (impartial) editors decide about it and let them fix the article.

Oh, and I agree with the comments from Oli Filth and Mangojuice.

--David Göthberg 15:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion

I should apologize for the introduction of the Encrypted Invention section. I am a reporter for a well known newspaper in the USA Middle Alantic region. I interviewed Ed after the announcement from Canadian researcher Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer that the game of checkers had been solved. I spoke with Ed several times on the phone, and was interested in some of what he had done besides his own admitedly small role in helping with the solution for the game. He did ask me to keep the encryption stuff "off the record" so it remained out of print. He also said it was declassified recently. I thought it interesting enough to include on his page, but I had some (most?) of the details incorrect. I will say this though: 1) I saw printed documentation of the invention filing from 2002. 2) I have a faxed copy of a communication from the NSA to Ed regarding their exercising some encrypted text and not being able to generate the original message. 3) I contacted one Patent Attorney who confirmed the invention was rescinded from filing for "reasons other than the invention's performance or conflict with prior art." You know attorneys, they are tight lipped about some things, and they give you just enough information to draw your own conclusion without giving anything away that might be within their Confidentiality Agreement clauses.

I think that we should keep the encryption invention off of his page as well, but for different reasons. I saw the documents first hand, so I know of its existence and importance. I don't think we need to advertise that the USA might be using it for some of its secure communications though. Good enough?

ChessHistorian 18:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Problem solved. Thanks! --Boricuaeddie 18:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no way the USA is using this cipher, so we don't have to worry about that. Mangojuice^talk 20:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand your "emotional" responses Mangojuice. You seem to have a predisposed bias against this person for whatever reason. The letter was dated October 2006 so the US Government was using the cipher. I don't think you read the entire discussion. The cipher was NOT susceptible to a frequency analysis attack since each character of the uncoded message would be encoded using a different lookup table. The definition of a one-time-pad is equivalent to an unbreakable code. The opposite is what killed the German Enigma Machine -- their cyclinders rotated and eventually repeated themself. Trice's lookup tables never repeat. As he said to me in the interview:

"I made more possible tables than the age of the universe (15 billion years) converted into the time interval of seconds, times a billion, times a billion. Every tick of the microprocessor's timer at the nanosecond level can be retrieved by software and used to index into the vast list of tables. Every time you strike a key, it retrieves that timer information, looks up your encrypted character from the sea of infinite possibilities, and writes it to the file, never to be used again."

I think it's an interesting way to encode messages. I don't understand why you are slinging mud at the elegant work of a brilliant mind.

ChessHistorian 23:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If you knew more about cryptography you'd understand. Yes, I understand now that frequency analysis is not an issue: it was not clear earlier that every character is encoded with a separate table, but with that, it is indeed secure, much as the one-time pad is. This is an amateur cipher, and like most amateur ciphers, it's not useful. To critique it specifically, first of all, this cipher is made for alphanumeric messages rather than binary ones, which is a major usability issue because this severely restricts the kinds of messages than can be encrypted without first adapting their basic representation, and it renders this cipher unsuitable for computer use, which is already a critical problem because communication these days is all computerized. However, the cipher that this most resembles is the one-time pad, which is actually flexible enough to work on alphanumeric strings anyway, so a straightforward comparison can be made. For an n symbol message, the one-time pad requires an n-symbol key, all of which is random, and produces an n-symbol ciphertext. This cipher, by contrast, requires a 60n-symbol key that is not fully random, but requires about 37.5n random symbols to generate it. (37.5 is approximately log₃₆ (36! 5^{24})), and produces a 3n-symbol ciphertext. The key length particularly is terrible: the one-time pad is often regarded as too burdensome for use in practice because it requires such long keys that can only be used once, and this cipher takes keys 60 times as long and 38 times as random, but produces a result no more secure. The 3-fold blowup of the message is also terrible: if you look around through Category:Ciphers you'll find that it is standard to require no blow-up in message length after an encryption. The only distinguishing thing about this cipher is the idea that using only "rare" letters adds to the security: the cipher is secure, and "discouraging amateur" cryptanalysts is pointless because they cannot succeed against a secure cipher. If that idea is dropped, we may not have to take 3 full symbols to represent the 125 possibilities for the result for each character, an average of about 1.35 symbols would be sufficient, although the scheme would be complex, and still 1.35 symbols is too many.

When I say that the US government isn't using this cipher, I suppose I don't know what every single part of the US government is doing, but the US government crypto people are clever enough to realize immediately that this cipher is not useful, and also, the government operates very bureacratically and adopts this kind of technology very slowly. The easy response to an amateur contribution like this is to write a nice letter back and move on with life. I would myself take the same tactic in their place, but in this forum, I prefer to be educational. Ed, please don't take all this the wrong way - the truth is there are a lot of smart people out there who attempt to do cryptography as amateurs, and for the most part, they make mistakes similar to yours, for lack of experience and background. And hey - the cipher is secure, it's just inferior to known ones. (Oh, and another point about the publication of the cipher: see Kerckhoffs' principle - a good cipher is still secure even when the enemy knows the algorithms involved. So we should not be afraid to release the details, patent issues aside.) Mangojuice^talk 03:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In addition, the US government probably is using the one-time pad somewhere. It has been used in diplomatic communications since the early 1920s. For the reasons Mangojuice explains above they're not using this implementation of it. Hut 8.5 09:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Further Explanation Please

"This cipher, by contrast, requires a 60n-symbol key that is not fully random, but requires about 37.5n random symbols to generate it. (37.5 is approximately log36 (36! 5^{24})), and produces a 3n-symbol ciphertext."

I'd really like to understand more about ciphers in general. I admit I don't follow your remarks because I don't understand where the "60n" and the "37.5n" came from. While there are 36! ways to arrange the alphabet, they are broken into 3 areas, so it should be (36 choose 12) x (24 choose 12) x 12! since each of the 2-dimensional matrices should be multiplied by the row cipher arrangements [(26 choose 5) choose 3] x the column arrangements [(26 choose 5) choose 4] x the table heading arrangements [(26 choose 5) choose 3]. I know somewhere I am oversimplifying this or doing the math wrong, but this is "my guess" about it.

As for this comment: "the government operates very bureacratically and adopts this kind of technology very slowly." Yes, it took them over a year to reply to the first general inquiry, and by 2006, fours years after "giving it" to them, they said they would use it. The reason cited was that it solves the key distribution problem associated with the one-time pad. For each of those, you need the source table used to decipher the message. The IOTPCP uses one 64-bit number generated by the computer's internal clock to determine an "index" into the list of all possible tables. The index follows a formula. The tables are not "stored". For example, index 3,401,253,799,542 would allow the program to automatically scramble the letters into their matrices a certain way, generate a certain random column, row, and table prefixes, all automatically, without having to store anything. That way, there is an unlimited supply of "pads", which makes it an interesting portable one-time pad algorithm. And that is even in the name, Inexhaustible One Time Pad...

While it might not be used by the military to transmit documents about how to build the Aurora Aircraft, I see no reason why it would not be used to send emails back and forth. ChessHistorian 10:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's start with the combinatorics of choosing a table. 36! is the way of arranging the 36 characters into matrices, because the order matters: (36 choose 12) for the first matrix would imply that it is unimportant what order the symbols are in, but that order certainly does matter. My understanding of the labels is that there are 5 characters to choose from, and we have to choose 3 table labels, 12 column labels, and 9 row labels. However, my 5^24 figure is wrong because we have to make sure the labels are unique; the proper answer is (5*4*3) * (5*4*3*2)^3 * (5*4*3)^3 = 8*60^12: the log base 36 of (36! * 8 * 60^12) is about 35.28921. This means that if we generate 35 random symbols, there are 36^35 possibilities, but that isn't enough to generate all the tables, so we need more random symbols to generate one table properly.

From what you've said just now, though, the algorithm doesn't actually generate random tables. Instead, it uses a 64-bit index based on the computer's clock to do it. I note that it would take over 180 bits of randomness to generate a random table, so if the cipher does this with 64 bits, it is not in the most natural way. That's good for efficiency (64 bits of key per symbol, instead of 180+, but not nearly good enough to match what the one-time pad could do, which would be merely 5.17 bits of key per symbol), but it's a potential weakness in terms of security: if the method doesn't emulate a random choice of table very well, then the cipher could be attacked. It depends on the algorithm for generating the table from a 64-bit index.

The idea of using the computer's clock to generate the key is not new, certainly, but it does come with its own share of problems. I don't think this remotely solves the key distribution problem - in fact, it may make the problem worse, because if you don't know what key you'll be using until you encrypt, you can be guaranteed that the person you send the message to won't know the key you used either. The whole idea of key distribution is to get the two parties to agree on a value in advance: doing it when the message is to be sent is not good, because key distribution must be done through a secure channel (and if you have a secure channel available, just use that for the message!) There may be a notion that if the sender and receiver are synchronized, they can communicate, but it's effectively impossible to achieve nanosecond-level synchronization. Beyond the key distribution problem, there is also the problem that clock readings aren't random, and they certainly aren't independent of one another when many are taken in a restricted period of time. This puts even more strain on the table-generating algorithm.

If the table-generating algorithm is able to handle this much stress, then it is quite an interesting algorithm in itself, and would be the part of the cipher worth using.

As for emails: keep in mind this cipher can only handle letters and numbers, not punctuation, whitespace, and certainly not attached binary files. So, no, it really isn't suitable for email use, not to mention that the government already knows more efficient algorithms with the same properties. Mangojuice^talk 14:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Bias of Oli Filth

It seems to me that [Oli Filth] has some sort of axe to grind. He tagged one section of the main article with an "unsourced" modifier, yet there are many reputable sources. US Patent & Trademark Office, chessville.com website, Advances in Computer Games 10, a book that has been published. I'd like to know why Oli is working so hard AGAINST this article. Furthermore, if this continues, is there a way we can have him removed from accessing this page? ChessHistorian 11:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I added the tag because there are no references cited from that section. On a second look, I see that there are references, but they're all at the bottom, and they're not cross-referenced from the section in question. This needs fixing.

In future, I would appreciate it if you didn't respond in such an over-the-top way. Please read WP:CIVIL. Oli Filth 13:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Calm down, ladies. We can't prevent anyone from editing this page, as this is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." So, I suggest you both cool down and assume good faith and I'll solve the references problem ASAP. OK? --Boricuaeddie 14:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I suggest you (Oli Filth) be more careful when tagging pages that are going to appear on the Main Page with an unnecessary unreferenced template. Happy editing! --Boricuaeddie 14:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comments. In my defence, I didn't know it was going to appear on the Main Page (how does one tell that?). Also, if a section appears to be unsourced, then I think that adding an {{unsourced}} tag isn't an unreasonable course of action.

P.S. If people don't make wild accusations, then I act perfectly calmly! Oli Filth 16:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There's no way of knowing unless you check what links to the article and happen to know about WP:DYK and how it works. A notice would appear here after the article appears on the main page, but not before. Mangojuice^talk 16:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

A Few Remarks

Dear Wikipedia Editors,

As I examine the discussion that is going on here, I feel compelled to offer a few remarks.

1. Thanks for you time and effort.

I didn't expect a page like this to spring forth so I am more than marginally surprised. Someone has done a great deal of shaping of the article and reformatting it to match the Wikipedia style. To those who did the original research, and the stylized editing, my many thanks.

2. Play nice!

Remember, even comments on this discussion page are going to be google-able back to my name. So please try to avoid the sticks and stones type of diatribe. In particular, ChessHistorian don't try to jump to any conclusions about who is biased about what, and Oli Filth please don't keep taking pot shots at me. I've done some work worthy of mention and publishing, so take the time to be more than a "Google Detective".

Also, and this applies to everyone: Think about the impact before you post. Just because someone posts to a blog somewhere that some celebrity was seen sneaking out the back door of someone else's house late at night, doesn't mean they were sleeping together. The internet has become ubiquitous, so try and verify source material before posting items of questionable repute.

3. Feel free to ask quesions!

Believe it or not, I can probably answer any questions about items in doubt because, well, I most likely was involved (or NOT involved, if the item is not factual.)

Thanks again for your time and effort.

With my regards, GothicChessInventor 17:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, it seems I'm being accused of bad stuff again! Twice on the same talk page, in one day! Awesome. Please remind me, where have I "kept taking pot shots" at you?

Whilst Google isn't the ultimate decider, it's usually a fair indicator of whether something is notable. After all, if Google returns nothing on X, then basically no-one's mentioned X on a website anywhere, so it's unlikely that anyone's talked about X, which makes its notability questionable. Furthermore, Google is pretty much the only common denominator that all editors have access to. Oli Filth 17:31, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding point 2, this is standard for all articles. Sources for the article should meet Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and controversial information must be sourced, as specified in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.

As for Google searching, some editors above did use Google searches to justify not including material. The reason for this is that it is the responsibility of the editor introducing material to back it up, not the responsibility of others to disprove it. Editors should make some attempt to find sources, but a Google search is about all you can reasonably expect. (And I can't see Oli Filth saying the subject hasn't done anything noteworthy anywhere.) Hut 8.5 17:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, let me give you a "for instance" about nobody mentioning something. I did quite a bit of research regarding replacing Silicon as the substrate of choice for microprocessors with Gallium Arsenide (See GaAs for more information.) I also worked on the Cray III Supercomputer, replacing the Czochralski_process with one designed by myself and my colleague, Dr. Goyette. Had the Cray founder not died tragically in a car accident, we may have pulled off a means to break the 250 Ghz barrier imposed by using Silicon. That means: superfast (and super super expensive) computers would be out now, possibly over 100 times faster than today's top-of-the-line.

Just an FYI.

GothicChessInventor 17:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I know you've done noteworthy things. I was saying that Oli Filth has not claimed you had not done noteworthy things. Hut 8.5 17:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Oli, try doing a Google search on "Ed Trice" and "Gallium Arsenide", and you get 0 hits. Yet I spent 3 years of my life as a researcher in this field, also publishing a notable paper on it. And, even on the wikipedia page on Gallium Arsenide, they talk of a something that bears my name, the Trice Goyette Technique. My point: A google return of 0 just means that nook-and-cranny has not been filled. It doesn't mean anything else.

With my regards,

GothicChessInventor 19:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Umm, why are you directing this challenge at me? As Hut 8.5 has already explained, I'm not challenging anything you have or haven't done in your life. Oli Filth 19:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And Oli, since you just visited that page and proposed it for deletion, I will not be communicating with you at all from now on. Have a nice life! GothicChessInventor 19:51, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I came across the Trice Goyette Technique article earlier whilst searching for "Trice Goyette" (you mentioned it the name earlier, it sparked my interest). I propsed it for deletion, as it cites no sources and doesn't assert notability (and again, Google shows nothing...) I guess you assume this is some kind of personal vendetta, it's not meant to be - take a look at my edit history, this is not the first article I've nominated for deletion by a long stretch! If you can give a reference for the paper you published, please add it to Talk:Trice Goyette Technique; I'll add it to the article and remove the {{prod}} tag. Oli Filth 19:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That article did originally have one reference but it was subsequently removed by an IP without comment. In addition, GothicChessInventor's comments here can be interpreted as contesting the deletion of the article, in which case the article should not be run through the proposed deletion process anyway. Thus I have removed the prod tag. Feel free to list the article at WP:AFD if you still think it should be deleted. Hut 8.5 20:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Guys guys you need to chill! This guy worked on the Cray-3 supercomputer and you're giving him a hard time? That thing was UltraUberDoubleSecretSquared before it came out!! Jeez Louise doesn't anybody who edits for this place remember the Cold War?? Let me guess, you were in diapers in 1990 right OliFilth? And can the two of you google yourself and prove where you went to grade school? No? Well, gee, I guess you don't know math and can't read or write then, huh? Or maybe some things just don't make it into the search engine, like secret research projects that went on before PDF was even a standard and the internet was nothing more than CERN. Ed I understand your frustation. Just tune them out. They are just article killers who have done nothing of merit and they enjoy removing the work of others. ChessHistorian 01:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

We wouldn't be discussing this at all if Ed hadn't brought it up. No, I can't Google anything relevant that I've done in my life, but then I don't have unreferenced articles on Wikipedia about stuff that I've done, so who cares. Whilst discussion of this would be more suited at Talk:Trice Goyette Technique, if there is zero evidence for something, it clearly can't go into Wikipedia (If you know of a useful reference for that article, please add it!) Just saying it was "ultra-secret" is not a mitigating factor, especially if that was many many years ago! Call that "article killing" if you like; I would call it "improving the signal-to-noise ratio of Wikipedia".

P.S. I would recommend ceasing with the uncalled-for ad hominem attacks, they're not productive, and considered disruptive editing. Oli Filth 07:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I am going through my list of contacts and trying to get some verifiable information from former Cray employees. I will report back on this later. ChessHistorian 16:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The Sniper

The section states that the Sniper "was the first software program to eclipse the 2200 barrier", and also that "The Sniper achieved this roughly four years after the Belle chess machine ... the first ever machine to earn the Master title". How can these be simultaneously true?

Oli Filth 20:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Very easily. Belle was a $600,000 (1980's dollars, easily $1,400,000 or more in 2007) hardware unit. The Sniper was software.

Belle was the first machine that was a master.

The Sniper was the first software program that was a master.

It was not until about 7 years after The Sniper was the first software master that a successor reached the same achievement. It should be noted that all of the great chess machines back then were hardware constructions. Belle, Hi Tech, and Deep Thought all were of this mold.

As for software, The Sniper lead the way. Hiarcs was the second software master in the 1990s, then the floodgates opened. Crafty, Fritz, Shredder, Fruit, Zappa and so on. What is interesting is that every other software program was running on PC hardware at least 10 times as fast as The Sniper was on its 16 MHz computer from 1987.

ChessHistorian 18:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! Oli Filth 18:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, there is currently no reference for the fact that it was the first... Oli Filth 18:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The Patent, Last Warning About Incorrect Citation

<Legal threat removed by kmccoy (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)>

GothicChessInventor 03:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats by any user against Wikimedia or other Wikipedia editors will result in blocking, per our policy. kmccoy (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not present the "Truth". It gives the world information that comes from reliable sources. Just because you say you paid it doesn't make it true. I'm sorry buddy, you can take this to any judge you like, but unless you have an actual source, the information stays. --Agüeybaná 03:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd favor removal of the line that the maintenance fees were unpaid, since they are based on a primary source (a legal document at the USPTO site). Though GothicChessInventor has no source to back up his comments above, I believe they create reasonable doubt whether the USPTO page means the patent has actually expired. If we had a reliable (secondary) source saying the patent had expired, then of course we should put that in. EdJohnston 16:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I see your point. In that case, perhaps the simplest compromise would be to remove any mention of the patent until an appropriate source can be found that clears the matter up? Oli Filth^(talk) 16:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, the problem here (the contention that the source is incorrect) is nothing to do with the fact that it's a primary source. Indeed, factual correctness (or lack thereof) isn't discussed at all at WP:PSTS. Oli Filth^(talk) 17:37, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Primary sources are acceptable to provide data of this nature. Nearly every patent reference is to a primary source, and there are a lot of patents referenced to the USPTO on wikipedia. Removing them all is not going to happen (and shouldn't), and removing this one because Trice is having (yet another) fit doesn't seem appropriate. Quale 17:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Calm down folks - Ed, your post above is moving dangerously close to the 'legal threat' line, which I hope you're aware is a big cultural no-no round here. Others - there's simply no reason to mention the patent info at all - it's not terribly important one way or the other, and the whole incident becomes as storm in a teacup with undue weight. Let's leave it alone. Purples 03:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)