Comment by dalke

> At this time, Bloom filter was not even called Bloom filter. In his paper, Douglas calls it a “superimposed code scheme”.

A Bloom filter is a specific type of superimposed code.

Calvin Mooers developed random (1) superimposed coding in his Master's thesis at MIT back in the 1940s, directly influenced by Shannon's work.

Bourne's superb 1963 book "Methods of Information Handling" gives details of the mathematics.

I've no doubt Douglas knew about the broader technique, which, for example, the author of "The Large Data Base File Structure Dilemma" (1975) at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ci60001a005 described as "an old technique called super-imposed coding".

(1) The "random" is an important qualifier because there were superimposed codes predating Mooers, but they were not mathematically interesting or all that practically important.