Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror
Censorship Your Rights Online

Censoring a Number 1046

Posted by kdawson
from the you-can't-copyright-that dept.
Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance was killed. More disturbingly, my story got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?" How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Censoring a Number More

Censoring a Number

Comments Filter:

  • Not very long... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:45PM (#18945719)
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

    • Re:Not very long... (Score:4, Funny)

      by r3m0t (626466) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:46PM (#18945729)
      On the very first post, even!

      I guess everybody was scrambling to find it.

    • Re:Not very long... (Score:5, Funny)

      by TypoNAM (695420) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:50PM (#18945815)
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0? That's amazing! I've got the same IPv6 address on my luggage!

    • Re:Not very long... (Score:5, Funny)

      by fm6 (162816) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:59PM (#18946001) Homepage Journal
      Damn it Locke! I don't care if the world ends! I'm not typing in those damn numbers every 108 minutes!
    • Put this number on your front page somewhere as a protest!

    • Re:Not very long... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UncleTogie (1004853) * on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:02PM (#18946069) Homepage Journal

      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

      ...anyone else just print out this number to stick on their wall? Let 'em try to pull the sites down; I doubt they'll be able to ransack the collective homes/businesses that now have this in hard copy. I've not laughed this hard since Sony's $1-Sharpie-Workaround.

    • SOVIET RUSSIA (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:08PM (#18946159)
      In SOVIET RUSSIA, 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 censors you!

    • Tag (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:10PM (#18946217)
      If ever a story deserved to be tagged hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 then it's this one. Remember, your tag must start with an alphabetical character, and it takes a lot more tagging than it used to to get up there in lights.

    • Re:Not very long... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Adam Zweimiller (710977) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:01PM (#18947161) Homepage
      On a serious note, I am the owner of hdkeys.com, and I have felt the full brunt of this censorship. I established the site back when BackupHDDVD was released, and modified the source adding the ability for the program to automatically retrieve volume keys from the site when they were not found in the local key database. In addition, there was a searchable form on the index page where you could lookup keys. At first, I received a DMCA takedown sent to my dedicated host provider (Layered Technologies), demanding that my hosted copy of BackupHDDVD be removed. This demand arrived at the same time Sourceforge received a similar letter. A month or so passed by and I received another letter, this time through my registrar, GoDaddy, demanding that I remove all the volume keys from the site or be sued out of house and home. In addition, the second letter dictated that I must call the law firm and inform them that I have complied. I complied, but did not notify them. The site has been offline since then. As far as I'm concerned, they demanded something of me, it's up to them to confirm that I have complied. So in recap, I've been threatened, strong armed, and intimidated (you should have read those letters), via my webhost and registrar for simply hosting:

      A) A textbook implementation of the AACS protocol and
      B) Hex strings

      Yeah, America rules.

    • Re:Not very long... (Score:5, Informative)

      by James_Duncan8181 (588316) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:34PM (#18947693) Homepage
      A newly registered domain: http://09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63.com/ [09-f9-11-0...-c5-63.com] And yes, I own it. *grins*

  • Ah My! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian (840721) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:47PM (#18945751) Journal
    It's amazing to see just how worthless and futile DRM is. It penalizes the poor saps who don't have the know-how to override it. As for the rest, and that includes the pirates, it's no obstacle at all.

    If you had a lock that kept out only the people you actually wanted in, but couldn't keep out those that were actually going to rob you blind, one would think that your solution might be a little more robust than "I'll see anyone who reports how badly my lock works".

    • Re:Ah My! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CokeJunky (51666) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:53PM (#18945885)
      Actually, it penalizes the rich saps who don't have the know-how to override it. The poor saps can't afford the movies and music at the current prices of such things.

    • Re:Ah My! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KillerCow (213458) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:07PM (#18946151)

      It penalizes the poor saps who don't have the know-how to override it. As for the rest, and that includes the pirates, it's no obstacle at all.


      There's a saying in the (physical) lock business. I am not in it, so I may have the wording wrong, but the gist is:

      Locks are to keep honest people honest.


      In the safe business, safes are rated by how long they take to crack. They never claim to be uncrackable.

      Trying to make DRM better than locks and safes in the real world is futile.

    • Re:Ah My! (Score:4, Funny)

      by jd (1658) <imipak@yahooDALI.com minus painter> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:14PM (#18946285) Homepage Journal
      Nonono. You're missing the point. The people who can break DRM are the ones who have the movies. The movies are mind-wrenchingly bad and will cause your brain to explode. The upshot is that only the brains of pirates will be destroyed. Don't you see? This is the most cunning plan Baldrick has come up with yet!

  • 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (Score:5, Informative)

    by freakmn (712872) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:48PM (#18945779) Journal
    I was amazed at the quickness of the censors, when I clicked on the link here, and got the "Nothing to see here, please move along." message. I've often seen people say that they got that message, but was never quite sure if it actually happened. This time it did. In cooperation with the summary, here's the number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    • I also hear there is a website devoted 2 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 by some guy in Scottlande or someplace. They say he's really crazy 'cuz his wife went into labor the day discovered 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 an she wouldn't let him look at 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 so when they got home from the hospital he cut her up and buried her in teh yard and then ate his own baby with some chips, oh delicious chips. So they caught him but he managed to memorize 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 and smuggled it into prison with him and the other convicts tried too take it away from him in the shower so he cut them up and ate them to, in fact he went on a rampage and ate all th prison guards with some chips, oh delicious chips. And then he sat down at th warden's desk and stared at 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 only stopping when he had 2 pee in a potted plant in th corner of the room. After memorizing 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 he found th prison surrounded by teh Army and there was a guy on a bullhorn named Dr. Quartermass who was telling him 2 put down teh fork and come out with his hands up. But he managed to escape through the sewers and they couldn't catch him but they found his bag of chips, oh delicious chips. They say he's still hiding too this day in th mountains of Scotchland, th Alpes, updating his website with 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 every day. They also say of your are backpacking in the Alpes that you'd better not carry any chips, oh delicious chips. They say they'll never catch him 2 because there are laws that protect mountain people and the police are scared too go up there. But he has 2 come to a city once a month on teh seventh day and he breaks into a house that has a computer and he types 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 over and over and he eats anyone at home with chips, oh delicious chips. So the police are hoping to catch him when he goes 2 the city but so far he's eaten over 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 people and 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 bags of chips, oh delicious chips so it seems like there is no stopping him. You may think I'm making all this up but it's the truth and I know it cause I asked my friend who works at the MPAA and it said it's true so it is.

  • Who knows?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bl4d3 (697638) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:48PM (#18945783)
    Finally a use the Anonymos Cowards ;)

  • Source (Score:5, Informative)

    by W2k (540424) <wilhelm.svenseliusNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:48PM (#18945787) Homepage Journal
    I would post the processing key, but I'll link to the original posting instead:

    http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=121866&pag e=6 [doom9.org]

    I recommend interested slashdotters read the thread, there's a lot of interesting context to the discovery.

  • Remember De-CSS? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sesshomaru (173381) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:50PM (#18945809) Journal

    How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?
    Or better yet, on T-Shirts sold to benefit the Electronic Frontiers Foundation?

    Remember De-CSS?

  • I hope we'll all stop it soon. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tiger Smile (78220) <james@@@dornan...com> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:51PM (#18945849) Homepage
    Time to get out and use the old pen to write a nice little letter to my congress critter.

    I'm all for someone using their rights to protect what is their's. Not a problem, but when it dictates what they can do with the things they own, and speech, I think it has crossed a line I'd rather it not cross.

    Some say Americans just take the abuse and can't see what the big deal is, unless it might cause re-runs of Friends to be pulled. Some people say Americans are sheep and will go where a select class of people point for them to go. I have sometimes seen these rights dry up a little when not constantly defended, and I start to think American's are lemmings, not sheep.

    I guess I'm just as guilty as everyone else. I'm no fool. I can see I'm like that also, but I'm trying really hard to be different.

    Short Answer: It all stops when we all stop it.

  • Hex Art (Score:5, Informative)

    by MythMoth (73648) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:52PM (#18945883) Homepage
    I liked this version... [metaatem.net]

  • Don't use this one (Score:5, Funny)

    by demonlapin (527802) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:53PM (#18945899) Homepage Journal
    04 08 15 16 23 42

  • Incoming stories (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Deorus (811828) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:54PM (#18945929)
    I've been frenetically digging up incoming stories about this. This is nolonger about the key itself but one's freedom of speech. This demonstrates the worst of the DMCA and how it's being used to harm people's freedom and fair use rights.

  • Bittorrent (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:56PM (#18945951)
    09

  • Poetry Contest (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:57PM (#18945959)
    Oh nine, eff nine, one one oh too!
    Nine dee, seven four, eee three, five bee.
    Dee ate for one,
    Five six,
    See five,
    Six three, five six, ate eight sea oh!

  • Tag It! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SilentOneNCW (943611) <silentdragon@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:57PM (#18945963) Homepage
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Seriously, tag it.

    • Re:Tag It! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ralph Yarro (704772) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:24PM (#18946491) Homepage
      Tags can contain numbers but mustn't start with a number. It won't give you an error but you'll see that it doesn't "remember" your tag like it normally would. Don't think the dollar sign works at the beginning of a tag either either. So the tag needs to be something like : hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

  • Civil Disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ewhac (5844) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:57PM (#18945973) Homepage Journal
    I repudiate the DMCA, and all who would enforce it. It is a corrupt law, born of a corrupt process, in the service of corrupt people. As such, I will not respect or observe it, and you shouldn't, either.

    The media processing key for AACS is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

    Schwab

  • The RIAA has lots of work ahead... (Score:4, Funny)

    by fbrehm (136312) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:58PM (#18945987)
    http://www.google.com/search?q=09+F9+11+02+9D+74+E 3+5B+D8+41+56+C5+63+56+88+C0 [google.com]

    Results 1 - 10 of about 279,000 for 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

  • For those keeping score at home.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ReverendLoki (663861) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:04PM (#18946087)

    The score so far:

    Posts mentioning the infamous hex 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
    Posts remarking how they have the same number as their luggage combination: 5

    Stay tuned, folks, the game ain't over yet!

  • Wikipedia article on the number is down too. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sabre86 (730704) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:07PM (#18946143)
    When I read this slashdot post, the first thing I thought was "I bet there's a wikipedia article on it!" Sure enough, either somebody has posted one and it's been deleted and protected, or the editors went ahead and jumped on it and protected it [wikipedia.org]. (I haven't checked yet, though there are "additional information links. Nor have I check it in other bases.)

    Guess I should look into postng this to one of the "anti-censorship on wikipeida" sites.

    For what it's worth, this is utter crap, but it shows a severe weakness in copyright law. Anything that can be represented with data, anything at all, can be encoded/encrpyted on anything else, given an arbitrary coding mechanism. For instance, let us create "sabre86's stanard coding scheme": add 1 to any number. After encoding we have 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1. Look, it's a different number! I guess it isn't a circumvention. Or is it?

    You can extend this logic arbitarily to anything, so that not only can any string represent any other string (and thus be a "copy"), any string can be the key to an encoding scheme, meaning that posting any string is "circumvention" if I see fit to describe my encryption process such that it encrypts/encodes a copyrighted work using that string as a "key."

    So all strings are copyrighted because they can derived from other copyrighted strings through an arbitrary encoding scheme and all strings are potentially circumventions of DRM/CRAP because they are both a representation of a known key in a different encoding and the key for some other arbitrary encryption algorithm that "circumvents the copyright protections."

    Bullshit

    --sabre86

  • I went to register the domain... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Saint Aardvark (159009) * on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:10PM (#18946209) Homepage Journal
    ...and I was too late [godaddy.com]. However, .net and .org are still open...

  • How long must a number be to be copyrightable? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Myria (562655) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:11PM (#18946235)
    How long must a number be to be copyrightable? Any digital file, including programs, can be written as a number, yet obviously pictures and programs can be copyrighted. The number 1 cannot be copyrighted, but the 98641-decimal-digit number corresponding to the original Super Mario Bros. ROM images can be. Where is the line drawn? Can cryptographic keys be copyrighted? Can the MPAA use a (long) key containing a copyrightable image so that the cryptographic key is copyrighted as well?

  • How about... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:11PM (#18946241)
    How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?

    How about in everybody's sig line on Slashdot as protest?

    Now what was that number again?

  • Everything digital is a number (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr_Icon (124425) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:13PM (#18946259) Homepage
    Everything digital is as a number (hence the name "digital").

    Circumvention software? A long number. PDFs with classified military information? Long numbers. Child porn? Long numbers. Having those illegal numbers on your hard drive will get you convicted.

    So, if you are going to argue that numbers can't be illegal, think about the above examples, and reconsider your arguing strategy -- you will not win that argument with a judge.

  • More Information at chillingeffects.org (Score:4, Informative)

    by Nosajjason (613456) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:14PM (#18946287)

    More information about AACS's (Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC) take down notices can be found at: http://www.chillingeffects.org/index.cgi [chillingeffects.org]

    and specifically: http://www.chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/n otice.cgi?NoticeID=7180 [chillingeffects.org]

    They give an example of AACS's take down notices and pretty good legal analysis of its contents.

  • Other links (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Z0mb1eman (629653) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:15PM (#18946303) Homepage
    I've been watching this happening on digg today (first time I've even really read digg in a long time, coincidentally :p)

    I saw one story with the key go from 200 to over 800 "diggs" in something like 20 minutes, then it got deleted.

    In about the same time, this story [digg.com], which links to this blog [cjmillisock.com] got up to 2-300 "diggs", then was removed from the front page.

    My favourite submission so far was this [digg.com], which linked to this image: http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3967/gitshddvdkb7 .png [imageshack.us] ... and the digg story got deleted while I was typing this post. Fun fun.

    I think I'll stick with Slashdot ;)

  • Check my signature (Score:5, Funny)

    by killmenow (184444) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:15PM (#18946317)
    Look at old posts. I've been using that exact sequence of hex digits as my signature on posts since the beginning.

  • A possible turn of events...? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:17PM (#18946345) Journal
    Indeed, it has silently disappeared from Digg again, for the second time.
    I think basically this turn of events unfolded, although I might not have got the numbers 100% accurate yet!

    9 hackers looking into poor security,
    249 MPAA lawyers browsing porn in the silence before the storm.

    17 sites spreading the news,
    2 sites surviving the mass visits.

    157 drops of sweat down the AACS team's cheeks,
    116 frantic phone calls buzzing in the offices.

    227 lawyers starting up Plan B,
    There's now 91 sites to shut down.

    $216 sent as bribe for the Digg staff,
    still 65 sites still up and running.

    86 shutdown reasons discovered by abusing the DMCA,
    197 prayers one will work.

    99 sites now publishing the keys... oh wait!
    86 managers finding the case is slipping out of control.

    136 confused MPAA members mumbling about HD-DVD keys,
    192 reasons found to keep trying to stifle sales. :-(

  • You can't claim Copyright on a random crypto key (Score:5, Insightful)

    by burris (122191) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:20PM (#18946397)
    I'm sorry, but you can't claim Copyright on a randomly generated cryptographic key. That is because a randomly generated key does not meet the minimum creativity requirements of Copyright law. No creative input == No Copyright. The bar is very low but a randomly generated key patently does not meet it.

  • As a program (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alioth (221270) <no@spam> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @03:31PM (#18946631) Journal
    A novel way of saying it.


                    add hl,bc
                    ld sp,hl
                    ld de,09d02h
                    ld (hl),h
                    ex (sp),hl
                    ld e,e
                    ret c
                    ld b,c
                    ld d,(hl)
                    push bc
                    ld h,e
                    ld d,(hl)
                    adc a,b
                    ret nz

  • Simpsons reference (Score:5, Funny)

    by Old Wolf (56093) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:56PM (#18948051)
    I'd like to see this on the next start sequence of the Simpsons! Bart writing on the blackboard:

        I must not write 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
        I must not write 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
        I must not write 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
        I must not write 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 ...

  • Kevin Rose Response (Score:5, Informative)

    by loconet (415875) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:11PM (#18948303) Homepage
    Here is Kevin Rose's response [digg.com] as to why they have been deleting the stories over at Digg. Will Slashdot follow as well? If not why or why not?

  • So, logically.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AJWM (19027) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:18PM (#18948387) Homepage
    If they're so upset about people saying what the processing key is, then surely they'd have no problem with saying what it's not.

  • Digg (Score:5, Interesting)

    by loconet (415875) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:39PM (#18950185) Homepage
    Digg really screwed up this time. At the time of this posting their whole front-page is plastered with key related articles sharing the hex in various ways. Not to mention the other dozens of upcoming stories going up the digg rankings within minutes. The chaos reminds me of IRC channel take overs back in the day. This is truly a digital revolt. Today I am proud to be a geek.

  • Put the number in your user agent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:03PM (#18950361)

    For extra fun, you can put the number in your user agent string. Since plenty of server logs are public, the number will be in lots of log files all over the place.

    In Firefox, you can append a comment to the default existing user-agent string, by visiting about:config and adding a string property with the key general.useragent.extra.firefoxComment

    Whatever you put in there is added to the end of the user agent string that is sent with every request your browser makes. Mine is now:

    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070426 Firefox/2.0.0.3 Version 13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640

    Thanks to ludwik on digg for the suggestion.

If I'm over the hill, why is it I don't recall ever being on top? -- Jerry Muscha