i hope you werent under the delusion that youre a good, law-abiding citizen. and in the unlikely event that you actually WERE as pure as driven snow, i apologize for turning you into a criminal. presuming you live under the legally insane entity that is the United States of America, that is.

see, by merely visiting this page, and seeing this blog entry, you have broken the law. the title of this post, a 128-bit number in hexidecimal notation, is actually illegal to possess or distribute. you read that correctly... a NUMBER is illegal. a NUMBER. youd better purge your cache while you still can, before the math police kick down your door.

[EDIT:] it seems some folks are unclear on what "hexidecimal notation" means. its base-16. if it makes it easier to understand, its the same as:

13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640 base-10
1001111110010001000100000010100111010111010011100011010110111101100001000001010101101100010101100011010101101000100011000000 base-2
CfkRAp1041vYQVbFY1aIwA base-64

they are ALL numbers, and they are ALL the SAME. and they are ALL ILLEGAL to possess or distribute. yes, really.[/EDIT]

what makes this number so dangerous the very knowledge of it must be suppressed? its one of the cryptographic keys for HD-DVD/BlueRay discs. scary, i know. thanks to the lunacy of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, it is illegal to possess or distribute anything might be used to circumvent copy protection... leading to the absurd notion that a number, a mathematical constant, could be illegal.

theres been an uproar across the internet regarding this dread integer. the AACS encryption key controversy article in wikipedia has more info about the whole saga... but so far i havent seen anyone suggest what seems like the most obvious solution to this whole situation: reduce it down to the ultimate absurdity.

thats right, use the whole absurdity of the laws underpinning this "illegal number" against itself. seems to me, all someone needs to do is develop the LAMEST COPYRIGHT PROTECTION SCHEME EVER (LCPSE), and have its whole security underpinned by a number... say, 4. release something commercially on the internet using LCPSE, and begin sending DMCA takedown notices to every website on the internet with the numeral 4 on it. then actually follow up on them. file criminal charges for illegal copyright circumvention, and persue those charges against the vile offenders who dare to help crackers circumvent LCPSE.

yeah, its absurd. thats the point. im not a lawyer or legal scholar, but based on my limited understanding of whats going on here, this OUGHT to be perfectly doable. so anyone with some deep pockets, access to intellectual property lawyers, and a lot of free time feel like throwing a wrench in the whole crazy system?