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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and how the tech are you. I've been getting some

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Speaker 1: requests on Twitter as well as the talk back feature

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Speaker 1: that's in the I Heart Radio app under the tech

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Speaker 1: Stuff podcast label. More on that at the end of

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Speaker 1: the episode, and I wanted to start tackling some of

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Speaker 1: those requests this week. We also will have a special

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Speaker 1: episode coming up a bit later this week, so it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be a little different from a normal tech Stuff week.

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Speaker 1: That will actually carry over next week in a bit

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Speaker 1: beyond as well, because I'm going to take a short

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Speaker 1: vacation from work. But I'm trying to record stuff in

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Speaker 1: advance to at least cover some of that so that

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Speaker 1: it's not all reruns. Anyway, let's get to the request

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Speaker 1: for today's episode. Now, today's episode comes to us courtesy

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Speaker 1: of the Gregorlis on Twitter, who asks, quote, could you

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Speaker 1: do a tech Stuff tidbit episode about the illegal number?

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Speaker 1: End quote? And yes I can. The Gregorlis. Now, first

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Speaker 1: I should say there's not just one illegal number. Not

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Speaker 1: if we follow the logic, and I use the term

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Speaker 1: loosely about what makes a specific number illegal. There is

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Speaker 1: a particular number referred to as the illegal number, and

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Speaker 1: I'll explain that as well. I will not be saying

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Speaker 1: that number, not because I fear reprisal. It's not that

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Speaker 1: I'm worried that the Feds are gonna kick down my door.

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Speaker 1: It's because the illegal number is a one thousand, four

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Speaker 1: hundred one digit number. And by the time I would

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Speaker 1: finish saying it, we be well into Tuesday. So this

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Speaker 1: topic ties into some other stuff I've been talking about

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Speaker 1: in recent episodes. And to understand how a number can

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Speaker 1: be illegal, we have to cover a few different concepts.

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Speaker 1: Some of those concepts deal with technology, uh, some deal

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Speaker 1: with politics, and some deal with business. And as you

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Speaker 1: might imagine, the last two categories there, politics and business

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Speaker 1: have a great deal over of overlap because we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the United States in particular. Also, you could overlay

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Speaker 1: the word stupid or at least absurd over those two.

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Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna cover the political and business stuff

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Speaker 1: first because this ties into the specific case of the

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Speaker 1: illegal number. So back in here in the United States,

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Speaker 1: then President Bill Clinton signed into law the Digital Millennium

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Speaker 1: Copyright Act, or d m c A. The d m

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Speaker 1: c A in turn incorporated two World Intellectual Property Organization

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Speaker 1: or wi BO treaties UH. These were the WIPO Copyright

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Speaker 1: Treaty and the WIPEO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both of

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Speaker 1: which had very similar language in them. Now, WHIPO itself

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Speaker 1: is an international organization that is part of the United Nations,

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Speaker 1: and it has been since nineteen seventy four. The purpose

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Speaker 1: of WIPO is to create international agreement on certain aspects

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Speaker 1: of copyright so that the created works enjoy copyright protection

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Speaker 1: across borders, though the extent of that protection and the

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Speaker 1: penalties incurred by those who ignore it are largely up

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Speaker 1: to each individual country's government, so enforcement and everything that's

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Speaker 1: not covered in the treaty just that these are the

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Speaker 1: basic concepts that we want to make sure countries across

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Speaker 1: the world agree on. So the d m c A

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Speaker 1: is America's version of adhering to the rules established by

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Speaker 1: those two WIPO treaties. The protections in the d m

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Speaker 1: c A stem from those treaties, but the actual wording

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Speaker 1: and implementation are uniquely American. UH. The d m c

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Speaker 1: A also has other stuff that wasn't directly covered by WIPO.

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Speaker 1: For example, under Title five of the d m c A, UH,

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Speaker 1: there was a new form of protection created for quote

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Speaker 1: the design of vessel hulls end quote as in boats

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Speaker 1: and a dooming boats because the update to the Copyright

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Speaker 1: Code only applies to boat hole designs with holes that

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Speaker 1: are no longer than two hundred feet. So yeah, this

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Speaker 1: update got real specific. But never mind that we're not

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Speaker 1: here to talk about boats. I'll say that for some

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Speaker 1: future episode. The part we need to focus on is

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Speaker 1: the bit that created section twelve oh one one hundred

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Speaker 1: one to Title seventeen of the US Code. That section covers, quote,

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Speaker 1: the obligation to provide adequate and effective protection against circumvention

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Speaker 1: of technological measures used by copyright owners to protect their

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Speaker 1: works end quote, or as we typically think about it,

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Speaker 1: digital rights management or DRM. Now, a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: including myself, have oversimplified the intent of this piece of

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Speaker 1: legislation to say that this protection means it's illegal to

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Speaker 1: get around DRM, which means that while you are within

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Speaker 1: your rights here in the United States to make a

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Speaker 1: backup copy of a work for your personal use, whether

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Speaker 1: it's a digital music file or some software or a book.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it can be a physical thing. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: have to be digital. Whatever it is. You are allowed

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Speaker 1: to make a personal copy for your own backup purposes

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Speaker 1: as long as that's all it's for. But you are

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Speaker 1: not allowed to circumvent DRM in order to do it,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of like saying the stuff that's inside

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Speaker 1: this locked safe is yours, and you can do whatever

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Speaker 1: you want with the stuff that's in this safe. You

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Speaker 1: can copy it as many times as you like, but

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Speaker 1: you're not allowed to open the safe to get at it. Now,

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Speaker 1: that analogy isn't perfect, because you can still use DRM

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Speaker 1: to material, but there can be some limitations depending on

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Speaker 1: the implementation of DRM. But I think it gets the

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Speaker 1: idea of the issue across well. The d m c

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Speaker 1: A gets a bit more nuanced than just that. It's

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Speaker 1: actually a little more complicated, though in practice it doesn't

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Speaker 1: end up mattering very much. See, the d m c

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Speaker 1: A actually differentiates between measures that control the access to

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Speaker 1: a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of

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Speaker 1: a copyrighted work. So, if you were making a personal

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Speaker 1: backup copy of a copyrighted work that is legitimate, it's

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Speaker 1: a type of fair use. So if the technological prevention

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Speaker 1: of copying is all it's stopping you from making a copy,

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Speaker 1: it's okay to circumvent that protection, assuming the copy you

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Speaker 1: make is legitimate under the umbrella fair use. So if

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Speaker 1: you were archiving, say a piece of software, and the

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Speaker 1: only thing stopping you was an anti copy piece of technology,

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Speaker 1: there's no legal issue getting around it. However, if the

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Speaker 1: DRM controls access to the copyrighted work, it's a different story.

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Speaker 1: The d m c A is clear about that is

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Speaker 1: illegal to circumvent or develop tools meant to circumvent DRM

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Speaker 1: that controls access to a work. Well, here's the real problem.

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Speaker 1: The way companies use DRM is tied directly to access. Yes,

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Speaker 1: copying is part of that, but it's a sub part.

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Speaker 1: So trying to get around it so that you can

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Speaker 1: make your personal copy also means having to get around

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Speaker 1: the access part, and that's illegal. Let's consider the DRM

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Speaker 1: that Apple used to use on digital music files. They

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Speaker 1: don't use it anymore, but they used to use a

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Speaker 1: system called fair Play. Apple was strong armed into developing

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Speaker 1: fair Play by the major music labels of the time,

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Speaker 1: the DRM put a limit on how many devices would

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Speaker 1: be allowed to access any given digital file. That would

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Speaker 1: prevent the unauthorized distribution of digital songs that were downloaded

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Speaker 1: from Apple's store, because you would very quickly hit the

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Speaker 1: small limit of devices that would be allowed to access

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Speaker 1: the file, and creating or using a tool to strip

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Speaker 1: those files of that protection would be against the law

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Speaker 1: because of the d m c A. Now, there are

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Speaker 1: a few other exceptions to the d m c A

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Speaker 1: that would allow folks to get around DRM and it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be illegal, but those are extremely limited in scope.

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Speaker 1: For example, a nonprofit library would be allowed to circumvent

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Speaker 1: DRM on some software, for instance, only for the purposes

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Speaker 1: of evaluating the copyrighted software if the library were considering

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Speaker 1: obtaining a legit copy for itself. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: this nonprofit library is saying, we're thinking about getting this,

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Speaker 1: but we don't know yet. We want to evaluate it.

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Speaker 1: We don't own a copy of it, so we have

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Speaker 1: to use this method to circumvent DRM to evaluate the copy.

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Speaker 1: That would be okay under those very specific circumstances. Security

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Speaker 1: companies could circumvent DRM for the purposes of testing computer

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Speaker 1: and network security and there are a few other exceptions,

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Speaker 1: but they're all very limited and they have specific criteria

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Speaker 1: that have to be met in order for it to

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Speaker 1: pass muster. So we arrived at a point where, because

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Speaker 1: of the technological protection overlaid on top of some copyrighted works,

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Speaker 1: US citizens were denied the rights to create personal backup

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Speaker 1: copies as is permitted under fair use, which is pretty absurd. Right,

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Speaker 1: you're allowed to do this thing, only there's a lock

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Speaker 1: that prevents you from doing that thing, and it's illegal

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Speaker 1: to get rid of the lock. So you're effectively saying

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Speaker 1: it's illegal for me to make a backup, and and

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Speaker 1: the court would say, oh no, no, it's perfectly legal

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Speaker 1: for you to make a backup. You just can't break

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Speaker 1: the lock that prevents you from making a backup to

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Speaker 1: make a backup. But if you can make a backup

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Speaker 1: without getting around or breaking the lock, you're good to go. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's patently absurd. You cannot do those things. It's the

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Speaker 1: sort of situation you would expect to encounter in a

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Speaker 1: a novel like Catch twenty two. Now companies were thrilled,

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Speaker 1: right like the big music labels were thrilled. Movie and

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Speaker 1: television studios were thrilled, publishers were thrilled. Organizations like the

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Speaker 1: Electronic Frontier Foundation were not thrilled. Also, while the measures

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Speaker 1: were intended to curb piracy, uh that largely failed. Piracy

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Speaker 1: was still running rampant, and in fact, there was a

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Speaker 1: pretty strong argument that the pirates were ending up with

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Speaker 1: better versions of the copyrighted works because their versions didn't

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Speaker 1: have all that pesky DRM attached to them. They had

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Speaker 1: stripped it out, and DRM could cause other problems like

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Speaker 1: for legit users, your DRM could actually interfere with your

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Speaker 1: access to material you had fairly and legally purchased. So

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Speaker 1: legitimate customers who did not remove their DRM had inferior

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Speaker 1: versions of the works that the pirates were enjoying. The

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Speaker 1: d m c A did, however, give big software and

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Speaker 1: media companies the equivalent of an enormous cannon They could

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Speaker 1: point at people who were found or suspected to be

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Speaker 1: downloading material without permission to do so. So they fueled

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Speaker 1: a lot of incredibly disproportionate lawsuits against people, and it

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Speaker 1: did not win the industry any favors. Anyway, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: pivot in a second. We're gonna come back to the

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Speaker 1: d m c A and DRM toward the end of

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Speaker 1: this episode because it will play a pivotal role in

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Speaker 1: the creation of the concept of the illegal number. First,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about abstraction. We're back, and it's time

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Speaker 1: for us to talk about computer languages and machine language.

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Speaker 1: It's a good jumping off point for the concept of abstraction. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you all know that when you really get

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Speaker 1: down to the hardware level of what's going on inside

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Speaker 1: a computer, all the information passing through the system is

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Speaker 1: in machine code a k A binary that's zeros and

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Speaker 1: ones bits. In other words, machines use zeros and ones

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Speaker 1: to represent anything and everything, and we can use zeros

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Speaker 1: and ones to represent different types of stuff. We just

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Speaker 1: need to gather enough zeros and ones to be able

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Speaker 1: to do it. So a collection of eight binary digits

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Speaker 1: is a bite. Eight bits is a bite. That's something

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Speaker 1: we arrived at after a lot of back and forth

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Speaker 1: in the computer industry. But there's no need to rehash

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Speaker 1: all of that right now. With eight binary digits, you

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Speaker 1: can represent up to two hundred fifty six different values

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Speaker 1: or two to the power of eight. We have two

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Speaker 1: possible states zero and one, and we have eight total

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Speaker 1: binary digits, so it's two to the power of eight.

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Speaker 1: With eight binary digits, we could designate different letters and figures.

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Speaker 1: For example, the letter A and binary is zero one

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Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero zero one. The letter Z in

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Speaker 1: binary is zero one zero one one zero one zero.

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Speaker 1: And yes, it sounds like I'm singing robots by Fly

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Speaker 1: of the concords, but that's how we could designate A

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Speaker 1: and Z in binary. Now you've probably already noticed that

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Speaker 1: using binary would be far too clunky for humans. We

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Speaker 1: would quickly get lost while trying to spell a simple word,

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Speaker 1: let alone create complex instructions for a computer to follow.

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Speaker 1: For that reason, we have different ways or abstractions to

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Speaker 1: deal with machine languages. Programming languages are an example. With

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Speaker 1: programming languages, we can use formats that humans can read,

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Speaker 1: some we can read more easily than others, and machines

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Speaker 1: cannot read. These not natively programming languages that aren't far

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Speaker 1: removed from the struction set that's used by the machine itself.

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Speaker 1: Those are called low level languages. Assembly, or sometimes as

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Speaker 1: Simbler language, is the ultimate example of low level languages.

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Speaker 1: These days, a utility program would take the instructions written

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Speaker 1: an assembly, which would very much mirror the instruction set

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Speaker 1: of the architecture of the machine that's running the stuff,

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Speaker 1: and then it would convert the assembler language into executable

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Speaker 1: machine code. So it takes this one representation of processes

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Speaker 1: and converted into a different representation of processes, and it's

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Speaker 1: the representation that the machine can actually use. Higher level

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Speaker 1: programming languages have more levels of abstraction in them. They

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Speaker 1: are generally speaking easier for people to work with, so

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Speaker 1: it's much easier to write a program in these languages.

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Speaker 1: The instruction sets in these programming languages are further removed

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Speaker 1: from the base architecture of the machine that you are

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Speaker 1: programming for. In fact, there are programming languages where you

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Speaker 1: can program for all sorts of different machines, and you

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Speaker 1: use a different utility for each machine to convert it

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Speaker 1: into a language the machine can use. And because of

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Speaker 1: all this, the computer code has to go through a

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Speaker 1: process called compiling before a machine can actually execute the program.

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Speaker 1: If there was no compiling process, the machine wouldn't know

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Speaker 1: what to do with the sets of instructions. It would

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Speaker 1: be it would be as if you spoke only one language,

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Speaker 1: someone else spoke only a different language, and you just

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Speaker 1: tried to keep on asking the same question like eight

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Speaker 1: different ways in English, for example, and the other person

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Speaker 1: only speaks a Mandarin, it wouldn't matter how many times

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Speaker 1: you reworded the question. The languages are fundamentally different. There

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Speaker 1: would be no communication same sort of thing. Without compiling,

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Speaker 1: the machine has no way of understanding what is you

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Speaker 1: wanted to do. So the compiler is absolutely key in

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Speaker 1: this case. Now, the compiler essentially takes one language and

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Speaker 1: converts it into a different language. That language could be

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Speaker 1: assembly language. So compiling could take your very complex, sophisticated program,

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Speaker 1: break it down into all the different steps that would

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Speaker 1: be required to make that program work in assembly language,

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Speaker 1: and then through an assembler that we get converted into

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Speaker 1: machine code, and then the computer would ultimately quote unquote,

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Speaker 1: understand what to do with your program. So you might

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Speaker 1: write a program in a language like Python, and a

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Speaker 1: compiler might take that and translate it into assembly language,

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Speaker 1: and then through an assembler that gets converted into machine

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Speaker 1: code and a computer actually uses that. So really we

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Speaker 1: can think of all this as a general process by

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Speaker 1: which we humans take stuff that we can work with

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Speaker 1: easily and convert that into stuff that a machine can

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Speaker 1: work with easily. There's a lot more to it than that,

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Speaker 1: and I am oversimplifying, but you get the idea now.

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Speaker 1: The reason why I went through all that rigamarole is

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Speaker 1: one to talk about the actual types of information that

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Speaker 1: machines work with and why that's important, and also to

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Speaker 1: get across this idea that there are so many different

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Speaker 1: ways that we can represent numbers, and there are different

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Speaker 1: ways we can represent stuff in numerical form. And if

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Speaker 1: we go back to a bide of information, those eight bits,

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Speaker 1: we can describe that in several ways. Right. We can

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Speaker 1: say eight bits represents two to the eight values, or

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Speaker 1: we could say it represents two D fifty six values,

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Speaker 1: or that we can say it represents values from zero

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Speaker 1: to two D fifty five, and so on. All of

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Speaker 1: those are essentially saying the same thing, but we're saying

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Speaker 1: it in different ways. Right. Well, there are other ways

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Speaker 1: to represent numbers as well. Another numeral system that's often

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Speaker 1: used in computing is called hexadecimal. Hexadecimal is a base

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Speaker 1: sixteen system. So the system that you and I count

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Speaker 1: in is based ten. Right, you start at zero, you

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Speaker 1: go to nine, then you move into the tens. So

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Speaker 1: ten is just one zero, eleven is just one. One

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Speaker 1: do you go up to nineteen? You move up to

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Speaker 1: the twenties. That's to zero. So that's base ten. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: how the heck do you have a base sixteen? Right?

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Speaker 1: How do you get up to a point where? How

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Speaker 1: do you count in base sixteen? You only have ten

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Speaker 1: single digit numerals from zero to nine. Well, the way

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Speaker 1: you create base sixteen as you start to borrow from letters,

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Speaker 1: hexadecimal designation goes from zero through nine, and then to

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Speaker 1: represent values ten through fifteen, we switch to letters and

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Speaker 1: use a through F. Now, in hexadecimal, a single digit

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Speaker 1: represents four bits, so two hexadecimal digits are equal to

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Speaker 1: a byte or eight bits. So we can go from

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Speaker 1: eight zeros to eight ones for the full range of

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Speaker 1: expression with bits right, eight zeros to eight ones, that

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Speaker 1: would be zero to two hundred fifty five. If we

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Speaker 1: thought about it numerically, in like the regular digits that

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Speaker 1: we use today, but in hexadecimal, we would represent that

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Speaker 1: as zero zero, which would be the same thing as

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Speaker 1: eight zeros, or f f, which would be the same

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Speaker 1: thing as eight ones. So hexadecimal creates a slightly easier

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Speaker 1: way to represent binary data than just working with zeros

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Speaker 1: and once. Now, the whole reason I brought all this

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Speaker 1: up is that it really is important to understand there

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Speaker 1: are so many different ways to represent numbers. You can

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Speaker 1: convert one number system into another number system. You can

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Speaker 1: convert numbers into other stuff too, like you could create

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Speaker 1: an image based off numbers, or vice versa. You could

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Speaker 1: take an image and reduce it to numerical data representing

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Speaker 1: the image. If we couldn't do that, computers would not work,

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Speaker 1: or at least they wouldn't be able to do anything

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Speaker 1: other than perform operations on numbers like a very simple calculator.

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Speaker 1: But Ada Lovelace had it right. We can use numbers

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Speaker 1: to represent all sorts of incredible things, from images to

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Speaker 1: music to sophisticated programs like the Curse of Monkey Island.

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Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, we're gonna go back

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Speaker 1: to the d m c A, and we're gonna combine

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Speaker 1: the things we learned about the d m c A

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Speaker 1: and the things we learned about using numbers to represent

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Speaker 1: different things and figure out how a number can be

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Speaker 1: illegal But first, let's take another quick break. All right,

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Speaker 1: back to the d m c A. The d m

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Speaker 1: c A makes it illegal to attempt to circumvent access

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Speaker 1: controls on digital copyrighted works. That means it's illegal to

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Speaker 1: develop tools expressly for the purposes of getting around digital

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Speaker 1: rights management or d r M. So let's say that

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Speaker 1: someone goes out and writes a program that is essentially

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Speaker 1: a work around of d r M. That program is

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Speaker 1: illegal unless it happens to be used in one of

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Speaker 1: those very narrow exemptions I mentioned earlier. Distributing that program

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Speaker 1: is also illegal. You could reduce the program to something

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Speaker 1: like its source code, and you could represent that source

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Speaker 1: code in some other format. You could then post that

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Speaker 1: format on a web page for anyone to see, and

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Speaker 1: someone could see that representation, they could copy the representation,

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Speaker 1: they could reverse the process you use to arrive at

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Speaker 1: that representation, and then they would have the source code,

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Speaker 1: which means now that person has possession of the illegal material. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, by changing the representation of the program,

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Speaker 1: you have created a different means of of displaying that information.

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Speaker 1: Does that, in fact make that display itself illegal? If

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Speaker 1: we follow the d m c A rules, to the letter,

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Speaker 1: and we acknowledge that it is possible to share something

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Speaker 1: that is illegal to possess if we just represent that

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Speaker 1: thing in numerical value, well, by extension, the only logical

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Speaker 1: thing we can say is that that number itself is illegal.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, you could go a step further. You

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Speaker 1: could break down illegal material such as an encryption key

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Speaker 1: for example, convert that into hexadecimal code. Convert the hexadecimal

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Speaker 1: code into an image, and use that image to distribute

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Speaker 1: the code. This whole thing is still reversible, Like you

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Speaker 1: have to know the steps that were used, but you

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Speaker 1: could do those same steps in the reverse order and

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Speaker 1: we're you know, arrive at that source code. This this

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Speaker 1: could be a form of steganography, that's hiding a message

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Speaker 1: inside something else, like an image. Doesn't have to be

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Speaker 1: an image, but that's frequently what we think of when

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Speaker 1: we think of steganography. Now, if we follow D M

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Speaker 1: C A to the logical conclusion, we would say, well,

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Speaker 1: that would mean the image itself would be illegal. So really,

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Speaker 1: when you break it down, the concept of illegal numbers

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Speaker 1: is meant to show how absurd it is to try

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Speaker 1: and legislate information, because information is mutable. That is, you know,

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Speaker 1: we can change it from one format into a different format,

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Speaker 1: and the format that would seem innocent and definitely abstract

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Speaker 1: from whatever it was representing, and any attempts to ban

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Speaker 1: that information becomes absurd because how far do you go

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Speaker 1: with that. Let's say, for example, that I cracked the

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Speaker 1: encryption used by some software companies to protect their work.

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Speaker 1: Right it limits the access to their work, And I've

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Speaker 1: cracked it, and I create a program that lets other

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Speaker 1: people circumvent this protection, and then I represent the program

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Speaker 1: as a hexadecimal value, which, when you convert it over,

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Speaker 1: becomes the source code for this program. But then I

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Speaker 1: take that hexadecimal value and I use it to run

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Speaker 1: through another program that creates a very very large number,

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Speaker 1: and it's totally reversible. If you were to take that

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Speaker 1: very very large number and run it through a similar program,

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Speaker 1: you would arrive at the hexadecimal value, which you could

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Speaker 1: then can vert into the source code, and you would

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Speaker 1: be back where I started. So I post this very

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Speaker 1: very large number, which by itself, without any other context,

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Speaker 1: is just a number. Can the software company actually claim

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Speaker 1: that that very large number is in violation of its

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Speaker 1: intellectual property, because isn't that absurd, But because of the

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Speaker 1: nature of digital information, all of this is entirely possible.

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Speaker 1: Complicating matters is that sometimes once you do all these conversions,

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Speaker 1: you end up with a prime number. Depends on what

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Speaker 1: you're using in order to create these. Like I said,

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Speaker 1: you're usually using some form of software that takes the

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Speaker 1: value of something and converts it into another format. There

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Speaker 1: are some where if you do this and you set

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Speaker 1: things just right, then the end output you get is

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Speaker 1: a prime number. If that prime number represents illegal material,

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Speaker 1: does that make that prime number illegal? And if so,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't that mean that listing that number in a database

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Speaker 1: of prime numbers would be a crime. But there are

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Speaker 1: legit reasons you want to be able to get lists

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Speaker 1: of prime numbers. Prime numbers are incredibly useful in computation.

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Speaker 1: And the reason I talked so much about the d

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Speaker 1: m c A is that the big instance of the

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Speaker 1: concept of illegal numbers. In fact, the number that is

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Speaker 1: referenced as the illegal number, popped up because of an

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Speaker 1: issue that happened around two thousand one. That's when some

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Speaker 1: programmers created software that they called d E c s S.

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Speaker 1: This software could decrypt DVDs, so DVDs had encryption that

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Speaker 1: would prevent people from doing things like copying the DVDs. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are a couple of reasons you might want to

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Speaker 1: decrypt a DVD. One might be that you do want

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Speaker 1: to copy DVDs, you want to create bootlegs of it

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Speaker 1: and sell bootlegs at a mark down price on a

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Speaker 1: street corner or something. That's the dread piracy route that

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Speaker 1: the big companies were all scared of. But another reason

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Speaker 1: you might want to get around DVD encryption would be

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Speaker 1: to run the DVD on, say a computer system that

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Speaker 1: had an operating system that wasn't supported by DVD encryption,

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Speaker 1: like Lenox back in the day. You have a Linux computer.

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Speaker 1: You want to watch a DVD on that Linux computer,

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Speaker 1: but because Linux is not compatible with that encryption method,

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Speaker 1: you need to strip the encryption off of it first. Now,

433
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: according to the d m c A, the d e

434
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: c s S program was illegal. It allows one to

435
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: circumvent the access control of the copyrighted work on the DVD,

436
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: and d e c s S prompted criminal cases against

437
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 1: the programmers, only one of whom was ever identified, and

438
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: and that one was acquitted. But in the United States,

439
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: d E c s S was deemed an illegal piece

440
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: of software. Well, then a programmer named Phil Carmatti got

441
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 1: the nifty idea to convert the code, the source code

442
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,199
Speaker 1: for d E c s S into a prime number.

443
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 1: So he took the source code, which was originally programmed

444
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: in the C programming language, and he used a Unix

445
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: process to reduce the file size. Um it's called g zip.

446
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: He then took the new file format and he ran

447
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: it through a different program in order to arrive at

448
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: a one thousand, four hundred one digit prime number. He

449
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: would later actually boost that up to one five digits

450
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: for reasons I'll explain in a second. Now, when that

451
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: prime number gets converted into hexadecimal, it would represent a

452
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,199
Speaker 1: g ZIP file of the original source code for d

453
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: E c SS. Now, his whole point was that he

454
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: could create an archivable representation of this illegal software. You see,

455
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: because prime numbers are important and they could be mathematically interesting.

456
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: If you were to take information that has deemed illegal

457
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 1: for whatever reason and use this conversion process and turn

458
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: it into an interesting prime number, then that would be

459
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: enough to have reason to archive it like it's it's

460
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 1: important you need to be able to archive it, which

461
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: means that whether the information is illegal or not, you

462
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: can you can save it, you can archive it, and um, yeah, sure,

463
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: that number ultimately, if you go through this process, represents

464
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: a way to decrypt DVDs illegally. But that same number,

465
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: it can also be mathematically interesting on its own merits,

466
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: So making it illegal to publish that number would be

467
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 1: a real sticky wicket, as they say, And that's why

468
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: he boosted it to one thousand, nine five digits. The

469
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: one thousand, four hundred one digit prime number, he argued,

470
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: was not really mathematically interesting and so it probably did

471
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: not represent a really a strong case for being archivable

472
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: without being illegal. But by boosting it, he said, well,

473
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: this number does have some interest mathematically, and so therefore

474
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: it would be ludicrous to deem it as illegal, even

475
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: though it also represents this illegal process. Now, Karamati's thought

476
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: was that the banning of pure information just doesn't make

477
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: any sense, and he sees source code as being a

478
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: type of pure information. And I think his argument is

479
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: really strong since we've seen there are so many different

480
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: ways to represent pure information. You could convert those numbers

481
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: into music if you liked you would just need to

482
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: create a program that would follow specific rules in order

483
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: to take this and turn it into music. And then

484
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: would you say that that music which represents these numbers,

485
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: which ultimately, through however many layers of abstraction, represents illegal material.

486
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,719
Speaker 1: Would you say the music itself as illegal. It's all

487
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: very puzzling, and the more you think about it, the

488
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: more it feels like you're slipping into an alice in

489
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:52,959
Speaker 1: Wonderland situation. Lewis Carroll would have a field day with

490
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: this stuff. But that is the concept of the illegal number,

491
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: a number that ultimate le represents a process to decrypt DVDs.

492
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: And as I said, it is the illegal number, But

493
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: there are other illegal numbers. Really, anything that could represent

494
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: illegal material could be conceived of as an illegal number.

495
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: It might be that the majority of people who see

496
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: that number have no idea why it represents, nor would

497
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,239
Speaker 1: they necessarily know how to go through the process of

498
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: converting that number into whatever the illegal material ultimately is.

499
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: But the argument still stands that if you can successfully

500
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: say that this this number displaying this number is illegal,

501
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: where does that end? How do how do we actually

502
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: have a world that makes sense where you have made

503
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: pure data illegal to distribute or to exhibit. That is

504
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: the the absurdity that's on on display here, and um, yeah,

505
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: it shows how the the worlds of technology, politics, and

506
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: business can come into conflict with one another. And you

507
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: can kind of understand the perspectives of the different parties here,

508
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: but it still doesn't make it any less absurd. So

509
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know it was

510
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: a bit of a convoluted one, but it's important to

511
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 1: kind of get all these different concepts in your head

512
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: so that you can kind of understand the the challenges

513
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: here when you're trying to balance things like copy protection

514
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: versus the representation of pure information. Um, it does get

515
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,959
Speaker 1: messy and there may not be any simple solution for

516
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,719
Speaker 1: all of this, but I definitely think that prosecuting people

517
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: for demonstrating for you know, showing a number would be

518
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: absolutely ludicrous. Like again, where does that stop. It's entirely

519
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: possible to have something like the with Krmadi. He he

520
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: actually said, if you have a prime number that represents

521
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: ultimately this illegal process, there are legitimate reasons for demons

522
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: for displaying that prime number. They have nothing to do

523
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: with the process, right, It's all about the prime numbers,

524
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: and therefore you cannot make it illegal to display, because

525
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: if you did, then you would invalidate all of these

526
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 1: legitimate purposes for showing that information, which makes no sense.

527
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 1: It would be like saying, you know what, uranium is

528
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 1: a dangerous element, so from now on, you're not allowed

529
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: to show it on the periodic table of elements. Does

530
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: make no sense either, Right, That's kind of what we're

531
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: going at here. Anyway, thank you the Gregorlis for that suggestion.

532
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun to go down that

533
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. And uh, I welcome everyone to send in

534
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: their suggestions for episodes like this. I'm good. Like I said,

535
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be tackling a few of them in the

536
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: upcoming episodes. The way you can reach out to me,

537
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: there are two ways. One is that you can get

538
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app and you can go to

539
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: the tech stuff page and I Heart Radio app and

540
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: you can use the little microphone talk back feature there,

541
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 1: which will let you record a message of up to

542
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: thirty seconds in length. And uh, the only people who

543
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: can hear that are Tori and myself, and if we

544
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: you know, if you like, we can even use that

545
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: thirty seconds in an episode to kind of launch into

546
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: whatever the topic suggestion is. Uh, but if you don't

547
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: want that, just let me know and I definitely won't

548
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: play it, but that is a possibility and I love

549
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: hearing from you. I'm gonna be using one of those

550
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: pretty soon, so that's one way. The other way, of course,

551
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: is to reach out via Twitter. The handle for the

552
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 1: show is text stuff hs W. Just send me a

553
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: message that way. That's how the Gregor List did it,

554
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: and I'll be sure to see that as well. That's

555
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed it and I'll

556
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an

557
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,

558
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

559
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H