Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue May 01, 2007 10:26 PM
from the toothpaste-back-in-the-tube dept.
from the toothpaste-back-in-the-tube dept.
fieryprophet writes "An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show. Search digg for HD-DVD song lyrics, coffee mugs, shirts, and more for a small taste of the rebellion." Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved. Update: 05/02 05:44 GMT by J : New blog post from Kevin Rose of Digg to its users: "We hear you."
Related Stories
[+]
Censoring a Number 1046 comments
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?
[+]
EFF and Dvorak Blame the Digg Revolt On Lawyers 262 comments
enharmonix writes "A bit of an update on the recent Digg revolt over AACS. The NYTimes has taken notice and written quite a decent article that actually acknowledges that the take-down notices amount to censorship and documents instances of the infamous key appearing in purely expressive form. I was pleased to see the similarity to 2600 and deCSS was not lost on the Times either. More interesting is that the EFF's Fred von Lohmann blames the digg revolt on lawyers. And in an opinion piece, John Dvorak expands on that theme."
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Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt
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I'd like to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Your wonderful little Digg isn't looking so wonderful now - is it?
In comparison to Digg's censorship, slashdot has the hex key as a story tag. [slashdot.org]
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://commandline.org.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday May 30, @05:49AM)
Who'd have thought, they would use all that Web 2.0 wisdom of the crowds stuff to hide the fact they censor everything.
kdawson, and the old Taco himself, we salute you.
Re:P.S. Digg This (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.alex4u2nv.net/)
Re:P.S. Digg This (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://commandline.org.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday May 30, @05:49AM)
Digg decides to stand up to the MPAA! (Score:4, Informative)
http://blog.digg.com/?p=74 [digg.com] [digg.com]?
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts...
In building and shaping the site I've always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We've always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
Re:Digg decides to stand up to the MPAA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Digg decides to stand up to the MPAA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Digg decides to stand up to the MPAA! (Score:5, Insightful)
When /. pulled the Scientology comment, they owned up to it like men. Kevin Rose tried to hide it like a bitch. Then, we he got called on it, suddenly he's posturing like he's John Wayne or something.
Re:P.S. Digg This (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.elflord.net/ | Last Journal: Monday March 19 2007, @10:35AM)
From the post:
"We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."
fuckin 'ey, Kevin!
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot is better than digg post-popularity. The only two clear incidents of censorship on slashdot that I remember - the scientology posts that were deleted, and the thread about story moderation - are both quite exceptional; the scientology censorship was done with as much publicity and openeness as could be expected, and the story-moderation censorship was (presumably) done by a now-disbanded and dishonoured editor (Michael Sims, 'Nazi Editor').
The point being: Slashdot has retained much or all of its independence; it survived the surge of popularity only to be bought up by a - as far as I can tell - benign corporate overlord, losing none of its independence and none of its verve (as much as the latter may seem to be lacking).
Digg, meanwhile, seems to be a short-lived exercise in user-defined content that has devolved into a juvenile comment squad and an editorship that is apparently willing to practice censorship for the basest of reasons.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Informative)
It's been that way since then. Whenever I return from working double shifts to hit a milestone for a week, some mod points were waiting for me.
(And no, that's no attempt to get you silenced, that's just how it "works" for me)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Interesting)
i don't think digg will forever be a forum for immature posts, but it is still young and what we see now may not be its equilibrium state. though, i sure wouldn't mind if its homepage were always as hilarious as it is right now.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.nomorestars.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday December 31 2003, @11:23AM)
On the Digg site there was armchair geeks who couldn't find the format command in DOS commenting about it, t'was moronic.
Digg may be entertaining and 'power to the people' but all it takes is a decent sized group of 'people' and next thing you know you have 911 'truthers' with front page articles.
Sure they get buried, but then they just submit another one. It's like whack a mole, and there is no real content on Digg.
What really drives me nuts is the 'make me famous' posts where someone posts a blog entry with 15 words about something huge, and they all go to this blog site first before watching some dumb youtube clip.
It's a waste of space, but it attracts the yahoos leaving the more intelligent sites alone.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
it's late and i might be saying something really obvious... but i've convinced myself that slashdot is better because it has been around for so long. the user base has mostly been around for very long and is familiar with the system as well as what possibilities exist to exploit and troll it. ie, it is stable and i always know what i'm getting.
i don't think digg will forever be a forum for immature posts, but it is still young and what we see now may not be its equilibrium state. though, i sure wouldn't mind if its homepage were always as hilarious as it is right now.
Slashdot was great before the idiot hordes of brainless 15 year olds found it (as opposed to the intelligent 15 year old geeks who belong here). Then it sucked while the morons were around. Now it's great again since they've left for digg.
I think your premise is correct, that slashdot established enough of a culture and history of people who know what they're talking about that there was something to revert to after it was (thankfully) no longer the flavor of the month. I don't think digg has that. I think once the kiddies roll over to the next big thing, digg doesn't have enough of an essence to sustain it. What is digg without the kiddies? Just the ability to vote on stories? Idol worship of that Kevin guy? Doesn't seem enough to sustain it. Digg was headed down, but it really jumped the shark when it opened itself to non-tech stories.
I think slashdot owes digg a substantial debt, in that digg took a large number of the morons and made it more than likely that highly moderated posts on slashdot are actually insightful as opposed to insipid.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://studyinjapan.blogspot.com/)
Google turns up nothing except for obvious fake explanations of what happened involving multiple acts of sodomy and a few members of the Free Software Foundation
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] doesn't have anything either. Can someone just tell me what the heck happened?
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.nearlydeaf.com/ | Last Journal: Friday June 16 2006, @12:24AM)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/03/16/1256226.shtml [slashdot.org]
Re:You think that's funny.... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://evil.google.com/)
I don't see why a guy who's ever only posted one comment [slashdot.org] to this site gets to own everybody else's comments...
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.ganjablogger.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 05 2006, @05:36PM)
Anytime you have negative PR coming to a large tech company (particularly software companies and the larger the more prevelent the problem) there are dozens of posts defending the company in the comments here that could have come right off an official press release.
If you have ever attended the sales seminars and meetings from these companies you will recognize their material being used both defensively and offensively all over Slashdot. The biggest companies respond to highly moderated negative posts about them even if the story isn't about them. It's pretty clear these companies have full time Slashdotters.
I once put an intentional grammar error in my sig to catch grammar trolls and forced them into ACdom. Maybe now I should do a similar hunt for corporate shills and list the ones I've found in my journal.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://literalbarrage.org/blog)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer nerds grow up to become corporate shills. Would you rather spend years at an unknown startup or game company, slaving away 24-7 on a product which may not succeed, or would you like an 8+ hour flexible time job with a nice $80K paycheck + benefits? If you had the latter, you might take a little pride in the company paying you, and you might know something that is being misconstrued and want to correct the
I have friends at places including Adobe, Apple, Amazon, IBM, Google, Microsoft, etc. They all read
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://tsfraser.googlepages.com/index.html)
Over time people realize that the Republican/Consertive view does have merit too, but by working with people with these different views and understanding that they are not the devil and their views are quite rational. Right now GEN are mostly populated with people with the same views so it serves to reinforce their beliefs so you don't get the other side from people you can trust and thus you stay on your side. I actually grew up in a conservative family and over time I have become more liberal, on many things, Computer Liberalism did peak in college but sense calmed down. But in general I am more of a liberal person then I use to be.
Microsoft doesn't need to me me or anyone to post on a board that their product isn't really that bad anymore, or hey they actually did that part correctly now. or to say I think RMS is too radical for OSS, and disconnected from reality. These are my views from me, I have made them with information I have gained over time, Linking with the values that were taught to me then moderated and manipulated over years of experience, and combining them with Logic to help predict possible. Nor corporate money all the time.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.demaagd.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 27 2002, @06:53PM)
That's unfortunate. It is and has been an atmosphere where you get accused of being what you are not, I think it's sad that replies resort to that rather than actually respond properly to a statement.
I've found that I can't breathe a word against Linux without some sort of venom spat at me, and the same went for saying anything against Apple as a corporation. At times, the same goes with saying Microsoft actually does something right on occasion, in my opinion.
It's not a good argument, I think it's more an argument based on a tech religion, ideology or insecurity than anything resembling a good argument.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://annonsbevakaren.com/)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://membled.com/)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, some of us still appear to be banned from moderation, presumably because of that thread. I don't remember modding it, and I don't remember commenting on it (although I may have), but I certainly read it.
I've not been able to moderate since. It was a good couple of years before I could even meta-mod; going to metamod.pl directly (I didn't get the link on the front page) gave me a curt "you're not allowed to do this" message.
It may just be a coincidence, but with a 5-digit UID account that hit the karma cap back when karma was a number rather than a textual description and stayed there I can't see what other crime I could have committed.
(And no, I've never bothered to ask; to be honest, I don't really care. I just thought I'd point out that while the editor responsible may well have been let go, the fallout still exists)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
I also gave Digg a try when it first came out, and what ruined it for me was the obvious lack of maturity. For example, right now the front page of Digg is completely full of "OMFGZ!!111! DIGG PWNED" articles.
The lack of maturity also lets a lot of articles that aren't really interesting get to the front page. What's "new" or interesting for a 13 year old isn't usually new or interesting for everyone else.
To make it worse, when I tried it again a few months ago they had modified the comment moderation system a bit, and people who went against the group-think were heavily modded down, regardless of if they were correct. On Digg you can say "The sky is blue", link to pictures, and have a dozen references, and still get modded down if the "group" says the sky is green.
It's like all the bad of Slashdot, but an order of magnitude worse. All for the slight possibility of seeing a rare interesting article before it reaches Slashdot. No thanks.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
As for the pot thing, maybe it's because I lot of people like to smoke pot? (I do.) Consider yourself in the boring, prudish minority on this one, bro. "Do dope and cook your brain" sounds like something my grandfather would say. Not the one who's still alive. The one who died 20 years ago. When he was 90. What is your hangup? It's not as if the smoke is coming through the monitor screen or something.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Look, it's your business if for some reason you have no self-control and find it necessary to put your private parts into the private parts of a member of the opposite sex... it's none of my business if for some strange reason you find it necessaary to do that... but keep it and the infant results of your "lifestyle choice" hidden at home and stop being so blatant about it.
Re:I'd like to say...(is pure flamebait) (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday July 12 2004, @09:38PM)
Don't like gay PDA? Well, imagine how some gays feel about hetero PDA. (I'm straight, for the record). Don't like Pro-420 articles? Well, simple fact is pot never killed anyone - you pass out before you can overdose. But every years thousands of people die from ingesting perfectly legal liquor. Don't like people tweaking the corporate plutocracy by posting crypto keys? Well, then just roll over and let the corporations tel you what to think. Lord knows it's easier than doing it yourself. You're a Troll. A Class A Troll, and I am appalled that you've been modded so well. And when you get your knickers all bunched up, please think twice before posting like that - although, once would be a grand improvement.
RS
Re:I'd like to say...(is pure flamebait) (Score:5, Funny)
II'm pretty sure Sony Clie is gay. And I've always assumed my Palm V is hetero.
This is an excellent point... (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Saturday November 03, @10:54PM)
This is an excellent point in favor of legalizing drugs. How often is there contaminantion of a batch of Jim Beam that makes people sick or kills them? Has there been any since Prohibition ended? But moonshine during Prohibition was often dangerous - homemade stills were much more likely to leech lead into the final product. Much like the 'but people steal to buy drugs', it's not a good arguement for keeping it illegal.
Now, the driving/walking under the influence arguement is different - I would believe that more people would die that way. But if other recreational drugs were illegal, would alcohol remain as popular? I'm not sure, really. (IIRC, results from Amesterdam seemed to indicate no - roughly the same total number of people would be getting stoned or drunk, it just shifted the share about.)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://127.0.0.1/)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://127.0.0.1/)
Of course, you can also argue that a DVD contains one really, really long number, and thus should not be copyrightable. I tell those people that they're full of shit and move on.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is just a number. Only a number. To use something to circumvent copy controls it has to have functions or methods associated with it (e.g. be executable computer code). This shouldn't qualify.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.elflord.net/ | Last Journal: Monday March 19 2007, @10:35AM)
2^6 x 5 x 19 x 12,043 x 216,493 x 836,256,503,069,278,983,442,067 = x
Solve for X and express in big-endian hexidecimal.