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Illegal number

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An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter or propagate. Any information that can be represented in binary format is, ipso facto, representable as a number, and therefore if the information itself is illegal in some way, the pure number itself may be illegal. To date, the idea of a number being illegal has not been tested in the courts.

An illegal number may represent some type of classified information or trade secret, legal to possess only by certain authorized persons. An AACS encryption key that came to prominence in May 2007 is an example of a number claimed to be a secret, and whose publication or inappropriate possession is claimed to be illegal in the United States. It allegedly assists in the decryption of any HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc released before this date. The issuers of a series of cease-and-desist letters claim that the key itself is therefore a copyright circumvention device, and that publishing the key violates Title 1 of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

In part of the DeCSS court order and in the AACS legal notices, the claimed protection for these numbers is based on their mere possession and the value or potential use of the numbers. This makes their status and legal issues surrounding their distribution quite distinct from that of mere copyright infringement.

Any image file or an executable program can be regarded as simply a very large binary number. In certain jurisdictions, there are images that are illegal to possess, due to obscenity or secrecy/classified status, so the corresponding numbers could be considered illegal.

See also

References

  1. Phil Carmody. "An Executable Prime Number?". Retrieved 2007-05-08. Maybe I was reading something between the lines that wasn't there, but if arbitrary programs could be expressed as primes, the immediate conclusion is that all programs, including ones some people wished didn't exist, can too. I.e. the so called 'circumvention devices' of which my previous prime exploit was an example.
  2. Thomas C Greene (2001-03-19). "DVD descrambler encoded in 'illegal' prime number". The Register. Retrieved 2007-05-08. The question, of course, is whether an interesting number is illegal merely because it can be used to encode a contraband program.
  3. "The Prime Glossary: illegal prime". Retrieved 2007-05-09. The bottom line: If distributing code is illegal, and these numbers contain (or are) the code, doesn't that make these number illegal?
  4. "AACS licensor complains of posted key". Chilling Effects. Retrieved 2007-05-08. Illegal Offering of Processing Key to Circumvent AACS Copyright Protection are thereby providing and offering to the public a technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed, produced, or marketed for the purpose of circumventing the technological protection measures afforded by AACS (hereafter, the "circumvention offering"). Doing so constitutes a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the "DMCA")
  5. ^ Memorandum Order, in MPAA v. Reimerdes, Corley and Kazan (NY; Feb. 2, 2000)
  6. "Prime Curios: 48565...29443 (1401-digits)". Retrieved 2007-05-09. What folks often forget is a program (any file actually) is a string of bits (binary digits)—so every program is a number.
  7. "Criminal Justice Act 1988 + amendments". Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  8. Aniconism in Islam
  9. Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy#Aniconism

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