Illegal Prime Number

[Steel]

I just found out something that blew my mind.

There exists a prime number, that when converted to binary and executed, is a program that de-crypts DVDs. Obviously programs like this break copyright laws, so are illegal in many jurisdictions, but can we really make a number illegal? EDIT: Just to clarify, as it stands the number is not illegal

What are your thoughts on things like this?

(by the way I came across this watching an episode of

, about 35 mins in if you're interested)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

Edited August 30, 2015 by Steel

[Sampa]

gotta love when they put the actual number itself on the page itself... FAIL!

[Steel]

Well at the end of the day, it is just a number, nothing illegal about it

[Starwhip]

gotta love when they put the actual number itself on the page itself... FAIL!

Pfft, they put actual C (I think) code in the page! (As an image)

[Steel]

But is the act of writing that code illegal, or is it only illegal if used?

[K^2]

Well, obviously, Wikipedia isn't in jurisdiction they have to worry about it.

In US, at least for a while, the state of these laws was very odd. You could only get into trouble if you cross an international border in posession of such an algorithm. Hopefully, this silliness is on decline.

[SAI Peregrinus]

No, they're still illegal in the US. "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." 17 USC 1201(a) It also bans "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in" such technology.

Oh, and this one is executable x86 machine code, if converted to binary form.

More at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Edited August 31, 2015 by SAI Peregrinus

[magnemoe]

Well you could represent anything as an number up to an including blueray movies. yes it would be a idiotic large one.

And the result of the law is mainly to stop the sale of products who breaks copyright not dealing with hacker tools who has an far smaller user base.

Had probably been worse if standard dvd burner software could copy all dvd.

[Yukon0009]

"Police Arrest Mathtematican Over Typing Illegal Number Into Supercomputer"

[ZetaX]

Programs are encoded as numbers (binary sequences). Thus a number together with the way to decode it definitely is a program.

If you fix an encoding then indeed some numbers become illegal. But there is nothing interesting about this. It's very close to (actually the same as) some sequences of letters (say the latest book by George R. R. Martin, or the actual c code of that program) being illegal to share.

You chance of accidentally using such a number is ridiculously small; it is comparable to your chance of accidentally typing that program when hitting the keyboard.

[Shpaget]

Banning the number itself is asinine.

It's like banning kitchen knives because they could potentially be used for a murder (which is, I dare say, a much bigger issue than bypassing a DRM).

Anyway, I'm off to sue that Fleming guy out of his grave, since my bank card PIN is 007.

[ZetaX]

No, a kitchen knife is a simple thing. You could even stumble upon naturally formed objects that do the same job with a high chance (obsidian knifes, for example). The complexity of such a huge numbers is better compared to a stealth bomber or a modern tank. Which could not just "potentially be used for a murder" but are actually built for war.

[jwenting]

in fact, the UK tried seriously to ban kitchen knives for just that reason. It didn't make it through parliament, but not for lack of trying...

And no, those numbers aren't banned. That's just another insane youtube myth. What's banned is the specific use of the computer code that could potentially be generated on the right combination of hardware and software using those numbers that's possibly illegal.