ZDnet features an article about the had patent at AltNet http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5534087.html . Apparantly this issue plays already for some time, now the p2p companies are threatened, becuase they use hashing to recognize files.
As far as I know hasing is a very old technique used to quickly look up information. The use of hashing always requires an idnetity check, because the lookup is not unique (mapping a very big amount of possibilities on a limited amount of entries). This is a fast and robust way of finding information, if the right hashing function is used.
I don't know the details, but I'm willing to bet that the kind of hashes being disputed here are cryptographic hashes, not the kind that Python uses for dictionaries. I'm also willing to bet that the patent won't hold up in court because there's quite a lot of prior art with respect to cryptographic hashes, too.
-- Robert Kern [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high Are the graves of dreams allowed to die." -- Richard Harter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
