Recently , someone leakedthe cryptographic key(a 16 - finger’s breadth hexadecimal figure ) that can be used to decode content on the high definition HD - videodisk data formatting , making it possible to rend HD - videodisk discs — something which has long been potential , though illegal , for conventional DVDs . The story made it to the WWW siteDigg . If you ’re not familiar with the site , it works like this : mass submit story from around the Web and other Digg exploiter give them a thumbs up ( “ digg ” ) or a thumbs down ( “ bury ” ) . The more popular the story gets , the more conspicuously it ’s displayed on the site . There are other similar website , likeReddit , but Digg is among the most popular , able to drive vast amounts of traffic that can bring even openhanded sites to their knees . Getting dugg can be both a blessing and a hex to a webmaster .
alas , while this may have seemed like a legitimate step for the AACS - LA to take , it was also somewhat darn stupefied .
You see , from my experience , the kind of people who are concerned in this information also lean to be the kind of citizenry who will react quickly and vehemently to what they comprehend as censoring . As a resolution , dozens upon 12 of story containing the tonality have now bulge up on Digg and elsewhere . Some users have disguised the key as other information : for deterrent example , sneak it into the Wikipedia page on the IPv6 protocol as a hex informatics address . ( It was later on take away ) One persontranslated the jinx value into colors ; another usermade an OS X screensaver that does nothing but display the code . Geek fame Wil Wheatonencouraged people to bring the code to his Wikipedia entryas his favorite act . It ’s even beenimmortalized in songandon shirts . Other chronicle were as simple as “ I would wish to share my favorite fresh numbers with everyone ! ” In myopic , that code is now everywhere . It ’s quite perhaps the most apace spread piece of information to ever seem on the Internet .
The HD - DVD family have run into a meridian model of the hydratic equation . You may remember the tale of the multi - headed Hydra from Greek mythology : Every prison term Heracles trim back off one of the heads , two more sprang up in its berth . Not that there was anything that really could have been done about it — once the code genie get out of the bottle , he was n’t go back in . That inevitableness points to one of the fundamental flaws of digital right management ( DRM ) . Most DRM systems depend on “ surety through obscurity ; ” they trust upon keeping one of the essence piece of information , like a password , secret . The job is , if you keep entropy in an encipher material body and somebody wants to take in that information , it has to be decrypted first . And that entails having that mystical headstone . So the Francis Scott Key is , in outcome , just waiting to be discover , and the flux cleverness of the world ’s hacker ensures that preferably or later , the Francis Scott Key will issue forth out .
So , how do you protect a organisation that ’s doomed to nonstarter ? Legislate it , of course . The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( DMCA ) makes it a crime to break the encoding schemes , even for totally innocuous acts like making a digital copy of your videodisk for personal backup purpose . It ’s also deserving noting that breaking this encoding is the only way user on platforms like Linux can watch protect content like videodisc on their reckoner , since officially sanctioned program usually are n’t made useable for Linux .
There ’s also a larger question here : can numbers can be considered rational holding ? Certainly a word or phrase can be trademarked or otherwise copyrighted , but can I type909897234985792834759237495and say that nobody else is allow to use that number without my license ? If so , then I contend that something is very , very wrong with our rational property organisation . Now , I would for sure be annoyed — and for good ground — if my watchword was abruptly send on Digg , but I do n’t conceive that I ’d have grounds for effectual activity , especially of the intellectual property variety , merely because someone had plasteredpleistocene42all over the cyberspace . For one thing , merely receive the secret code does n’t allow you to break off the encoding ; you still require a program to do it . I ’m guessing ( and fervently hop ) that any attempt to use the DMCA to engage those spreading the computer code would be thrown out of court . It ’s like sue somebody for judge what phone number you ’re thinking of .
Digg has , at least , learn an important example here which the HD - DVD people would be well advised to heed : when you give the power to the people , sometimes they ’re going to turn it right back on you .
Dan Moren is the author of Macworld.com ’s Gadgetbox column and co - editor of theMacUserblog .
