a gthing science project

Posted by Sam at May 7th, 2007

Shortly after posting my last article, I got a stupid response. It is published below along with my comments.

Okay, this can’t be serious, it’s so stupid. But I am going to humor the writer anyway.

Are you freaking retard? Seriously! You can’t copyright a number!

No, and I said that my number constituted a “part of a circumvention device.” Under the DMCA, it is illegal to own this data without rights from the owner, in this case … me. Also, you appear to be from Germany. Unless you’re a U.S. citizen living or traveling abroad, I can’t imagine what you would presume to know about U.S. copyright laws.

I never claimed to have copyrighted a number. I do, however, have rights to a copyrighted work that is protected by my encryption key. You are not allowed to have it as it constitutes a circumvention device.

What the RIAA was TRYING to do (before a bunch of @$$ clowns like you decided to tell the world the secret) was protect the interests of copyright holders, like the film and music executives who deserve to make good money on THEIR COPYRIGHTED WORK!

The RIAA has nothing to do with this. This issues deals with the clowns behind AACS, a lame DRM scheme. Please note: DRM does not protect film and music executives from copyright-infringers. They will always find a way around whatever protection you add to a file. DRM punishes and criminalizes your every day users who don’t know better than to buy the crap. It also circumvents fair use rights. Execs do indeed have a right to make money, the issue is whether or not they should treat their customers as criminals to do so.

I can’t believe that there are people like you who think you can copyright a number - who are you? The RIAA? No, you’re some guy named GTHING who has a BLOG!

I don’t think I can copyright a number. As far as I know, neither do the people behind AACS. Again, the number supposedly constitutes a “circumvention device.” This is protected by the DMCA which stands for Digital Millennium COPYRIGHT Act. My name is not Gthing. It is Sam, it says so on every single article here. Do you think Bill Gates’ name is “Microsoft” because he owns microsoft.com?

Please, before you post, learn the FACTS! Think about all the good the RIAA could do if you would only let them! Imagine being a copyright holder (instead of a stupid blogger) and how hard it would be if you couldn’t eat because a bunch of bloggers decided to make your private, copyrighted encryption key free to the world.

The facts? The fact is that I encrypted a copyrighted poem. Now the key to decrypt it constitutes a circumvention device and I can sue you for knowing it. This is the claim that AACS is making about HD-DVD. You seem confused.

While we’re imagining things, let’s imagine you’re a artists and you can’t eat because your record company fooled you into signing a horrible contract and take more than their fair share of the work you created but don’t even own because the contract is so slanted against you. Let’s imagine you can’t eat because the organization supposedly representing you is a mob whose sole purpose is to exploit you and defend a poor excuse of an outdated business model and idiotic relationship philosophies.

Why are we even talking about the music industry? This is a separate issue. You’re confusing things. You’re defending DRM, not outdated business models.

Furthermore, you say that you CAN’T copyright a number, then right here you say “… make your private, copyrighted encryption key …” So which is it?

Think about these things, gthing (if that’s even your real name). Think about what it’s like to be somebody other than yourself who makes a living on copyrighted works - do you know how many musicians can’t feed their families (or themselves)? Have you ever even thought about why they are called STARVING ARTISTS?

They are called starving artists because they are either delusional and need to get a job, they suck, or they signed a bad contract. Please see this article courtesy of Courtney Love. The biggest problem in the industry is certainly not arcane DRM restrictions. This isn’t about protecting content anyway, this is about being able to own an encryption key.

Think about these things. I really hope that after thinking about these things you write a full retraction with an apology to the kind people of the RIAA trying to help people like you enjoy their world more.

I have never seen any evidence of people at the RIAA trying to help me enjoy the world more. They seem hell bent on making the world worse, exploiting artists, and lining their pockets the whole way. I respect artists, I respect legitimate labels, I don’t respect mob-mentality ego maniacs.

Furthermore, I don’t know why I would apologize to the RIAA for publishing a key to my own encrypted and copyrighted work. RIAA != MPAA != AACS.

Congratulations on being the dumbest person I’ve encountered all day.

Yours truly,

GThing

Posted by Sam at May 7th, 2007

From Boingboing:

Last week, the AACS consortium made history by issuing legal threats against the 1.8 million web-pages (and counting) that mentioned its secret code for preventing HD-DVD discs from being copied.

In effect, AACS-LA (the AACS Licensing Authority) claimed that it owned a randomly chosen 128-bit number, and that anyone who possessed or transmitted that number was breaking the law. Moreover, it claimed to own millions more random numbers — claimed that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalises telling people how to break anti-copying software, gave it exclusive dominion over its many keys.

I have generated my own encryption key for a copyrighted haiku over at freedom to tinker. My number is C2 7B 5A 83 8C 92 9C DF A0 26 5F 3B 5E E8 4C CB and it is ILLEGAL to know it, transmit it, or otherwise distribute or use it in any way. It is part of a circumvention device designed to decrypt my copyrighted data. You may not use it. I have generated several more numbers and you are not allowed to use those ones either, but I’m not telling you what they are. If you use them I will sue the pants off of you.

Posted by Sam at May 1st, 2007

The biggest battle in recent online history is taking place right now. And it’s all over this number:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Spread it far and wide. It’s big media’s deepest secret - the HDDVD decryption code.

Update: Despite Reddit being able to have the number published on their site for nearly 24 hours, Digg has undertaken a massive censorship campaign to keep people from posting numbers on their site.

It’s being called “The Day Digg Died” and the day that takedown notices flowed like wine. Even boingboing, the Internet freedom fighter has been largely silent on the topic for some unknown reason. I wrote Cory Doctorow about a T-Shirt I had made with the code on it, and he advised me to take it down and cancel all orders for it.

The Digg admins were deleting stories as fast as they were getting submitted. They banned stories that contained the number, hinted at the number, criticized Digg, or even just questioned the censorship that was going on. Eventually, they just started banning users. I was banned for digging up stories regarding Digg’s censorship.

And still no answer from Digg. It is likely that Kevin Rose will go on as if nothing happened. We’ll see in the next diggnation I guess, although I don’t think I can bring myself to watch it anymore.

Score 1 against social bookmarking and freedom of information online. All over a simple number. I don’t need the number and I don’t think I’ll ever use it. But now I will always remember it because of what happened today.

Reddit put a communist flag on their logo, presumably as a jab to Digg who can’t seem to handle a little freedom of information.

Posted by Sam at May 1st, 2007

I attended a concealed weapons class at Cabelas in Lehi, Utah tonight. The class is a basic firearms safety and basic legal class that covers the issues of carrying a gun in Utah.

I found out two thing that were interesting.

First of all, the instructor announced that the class would be free for all students. He explained that this was his way of “sticking it to the man.” It is his form of protest against the University of Utah which has re-kindled their fight to ban guns on campus after the Virginia Tech shootings.

The class is normally $40 at Cabelas (and substantially more anywhere else), so getting it for free is pretty cool. Any student in Utah has no excuse not to attend. Even if you don’t have a gun, you can at least go get the class done in case you want to get one later - or just to learn basic laws regarding guns which is interesting in and of itself.

The second thing he mentioned that I thought was interesting is that open carry (carrying an unconcealed, openly-viewable) weapon is legal in Utah. You can carry all you want so long as the gun is not loaded. You can have rounds in the magazine, but not in the chamber (technically, you need to be two mechanical steps away from firing). No permit is required for open carry, turns out the second amendment is all you need.

If you are interested in signing up for the free class, contact the Cabelas in Lehi. Ask to speak with the instructor and double check that he is still offering the classes for free to students.

Edit:

The instructors name and information:

Larry Correia
(801)571-1160 (This is the number to his gun shop)
his email: Larry _at_ fmbginc _dot_ com

Posted by Sam at May 1st, 2007

Check out this picture of Sylar:

Okay, that’s not Sylar - but don’t you think it looks like him? The picture is actually of Clarence Greenwood (AKA Citizen Cope). I think he bears a striking resemblance. At least in this picture.

If you don’t watch Heroes or don’t know who Sylar is, here is a picture of him to compare.

Also, if you haven’t ever heard Citizen Cope, check him out. Here is his myspace page (where he looks nothing like Sylar). I haven’t heard this new music by him, but the old stuff is great.