Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you. I've been getting some
Speaker 1: requests on Twitter as well as the talk back feature
Speaker 1: that's in the I Heart Radio app under the tech
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast label. More on that at the end of
Speaker 1: the episode, and I wanted to start tackling some of
Speaker 1: those requests this week. We also will have a special
Speaker 1: episode coming up a bit later this week, so it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a little different from a normal tech Stuff week.
Speaker 1: That will actually carry over next week in a bit
Speaker 1: beyond as well, because I'm going to take a short
Speaker 1: vacation from work. But I'm trying to record stuff in
Speaker 1: advance to at least cover some of that so that
Speaker 1: it's not all reruns. Anyway, let's get to the request
Speaker 1: for today's episode. Now, today's episode comes to us courtesy
Speaker 1: of the Gregorlis on Twitter, who asks, quote, could you
Speaker 1: do a tech Stuff tidbit episode about the illegal number?
Speaker 1: End quote? And yes I can. The Gregorlis. Now, first
Speaker 1: I should say there's not just one illegal number. Not
Speaker 1: if we follow the logic, and I use the term
Speaker 1: loosely about what makes a specific number illegal. There is
Speaker 1: a particular number referred to as the illegal number, and
Speaker 1: I'll explain that as well. I will not be saying
Speaker 1: that number, not because I fear reprisal. It's not that
Speaker 1: I'm worried that the Feds are gonna kick down my door.
Speaker 1: It's because the illegal number is a one thousand, four
Speaker 1: hundred one digit number. And by the time I would
Speaker 1: finish saying it, we be well into Tuesday. So this
Speaker 1: topic ties into some other stuff I've been talking about
Speaker 1: in recent episodes. And to understand how a number can
Speaker 1: be illegal, we have to cover a few different concepts.
Speaker 1: Some of those concepts deal with technology, uh, some deal
Speaker 1: with politics, and some deal with business. And as you
Speaker 1: might imagine, the last two categories there, politics and business
Speaker 1: have a great deal over of overlap because we're talking
Speaker 1: about the United States in particular. Also, you could overlay
Speaker 1: the word stupid or at least absurd over those two.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna cover the political and business stuff
Speaker 1: first because this ties into the specific case of the
Speaker 1: illegal number. So back in here in the United States,
Speaker 1: then President Bill Clinton signed into law the Digital Millennium
Speaker 1: Copyright Act, or d m c A. The d m
Speaker 1: c A in turn incorporated two World Intellectual Property Organization
Speaker 1: or wi BO treaties UH. These were the WIPO Copyright
Speaker 1: Treaty and the WIPEO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both of
Speaker 1: which had very similar language in them. Now, WHIPO itself
Speaker 1: is an international organization that is part of the United Nations,
Speaker 1: and it has been since nineteen seventy four. The purpose
Speaker 1: of WIPO is to create international agreement on certain aspects
Speaker 1: of copyright so that the created works enjoy copyright protection
Speaker 1: across borders, though the extent of that protection and the
Speaker 1: penalties incurred by those who ignore it are largely up
Speaker 1: to each individual country's government, so enforcement and everything that's
Speaker 1: not covered in the treaty just that these are the
Speaker 1: basic concepts that we want to make sure countries across
Speaker 1: the world agree on. So the d m c A
Speaker 1: is America's version of adhering to the rules established by
Speaker 1: those two WIPO treaties. The protections in the d m
Speaker 1: c A stem from those treaties, but the actual wording
Speaker 1: and implementation are uniquely American. UH. The d m c
Speaker 1: A also has other stuff that wasn't directly covered by WIPO.
Speaker 1: For example, under Title five of the d m c A, UH,
Speaker 1: there was a new form of protection created for quote
Speaker 1: the design of vessel hulls end quote as in boats
Speaker 1: and a dooming boats because the update to the Copyright
Speaker 1: Code only applies to boat hole designs with holes that
Speaker 1: are no longer than two hundred feet. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: update got real specific. But never mind that we're not
Speaker 1: here to talk about boats. I'll say that for some
Speaker 1: future episode. The part we need to focus on is
Speaker 1: the bit that created section twelve oh one one hundred
Speaker 1: one to Title seventeen of the US Code. That section covers, quote,
Speaker 1: the obligation to provide adequate and effective protection against circumvention
Speaker 1: of technological measures used by copyright owners to protect their
Speaker 1: works end quote, or as we typically think about it,
Speaker 1: digital rights management or DRM. Now, a lot of people,
Speaker 1: including myself, have oversimplified the intent of this piece of
Speaker 1: legislation to say that this protection means it's illegal to
Speaker 1: get around DRM, which means that while you are within
Speaker 1: your rights here in the United States to make a
Speaker 1: backup copy of a work for your personal use, whether
Speaker 1: it's a digital music file or some software or a book.
Speaker 1: I mean, it can be a physical thing. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be digital. Whatever it is. You are allowed
Speaker 1: to make a personal copy for your own backup purposes
Speaker 1: as long as that's all it's for. But you are
Speaker 1: not allowed to circumvent DRM in order to do it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like saying the stuff that's inside
Speaker 1: this locked safe is yours, and you can do whatever
Speaker 1: you want with the stuff that's in this safe. You
Speaker 1: can copy it as many times as you like, but
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to open the safe to get at it. Now,
Speaker 1: that analogy isn't perfect, because you can still use DRM
Speaker 1: to material, but there can be some limitations depending on
Speaker 1: the implementation of DRM. But I think it gets the
Speaker 1: idea of the issue across well. The d m c
Speaker 1: A gets a bit more nuanced than just that. It's
Speaker 1: actually a little more complicated, though in practice it doesn't
Speaker 1: end up mattering very much. See, the d m c
Speaker 1: A actually differentiates between measures that control the access to
Speaker 1: a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of
Speaker 1: a copyrighted work. So, if you were making a personal
Speaker 1: backup copy of a copyrighted work that is legitimate, it's
Speaker 1: a type of fair use. So if the technological prevention
Speaker 1: of copying is all it's stopping you from making a copy,
Speaker 1: it's okay to circumvent that protection, assuming the copy you
Speaker 1: make is legitimate under the umbrella fair use. So if
Speaker 1: you were archiving, say a piece of software, and the
Speaker 1: only thing stopping you was an anti copy piece of technology,
Speaker 1: there's no legal issue getting around it. However, if the
Speaker 1: DRM controls access to the copyrighted work, it's a different story.
Speaker 1: The d m c A is clear about that is
Speaker 1: illegal to circumvent or develop tools meant to circumvent DRM
Speaker 1: that controls access to a work. Well, here's the real problem.
Speaker 1: The way companies use DRM is tied directly to access. Yes,
Speaker 1: copying is part of that, but it's a sub part.
Speaker 1: So trying to get around it so that you can
Speaker 1: make your personal copy also means having to get around
Speaker 1: the access part, and that's illegal. Let's consider the DRM
Speaker 1: that Apple used to use on digital music files. They
Speaker 1: don't use it anymore, but they used to use a
Speaker 1: system called fair Play. Apple was strong armed into developing
Speaker 1: fair Play by the major music labels of the time,
Speaker 1: the DRM put a limit on how many devices would
Speaker 1: be allowed to access any given digital file. That would
Speaker 1: prevent the unauthorized distribution of digital songs that were downloaded
Speaker 1: from Apple's store, because you would very quickly hit the
Speaker 1: small limit of devices that would be allowed to access
Speaker 1: the file, and creating or using a tool to strip
Speaker 1: those files of that protection would be against the law
Speaker 1: because of the d m c A. Now, there are
Speaker 1: a few other exceptions to the d m c A
Speaker 1: that would allow folks to get around DRM and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be illegal, but those are extremely limited in scope.
Speaker 1: For example, a nonprofit library would be allowed to circumvent
Speaker 1: DRM on some software, for instance, only for the purposes
Speaker 1: of evaluating the copyrighted software if the library were considering
Speaker 1: obtaining a legit copy for itself. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: this nonprofit library is saying, we're thinking about getting this,
Speaker 1: but we don't know yet. We want to evaluate it.
Speaker 1: We don't own a copy of it, so we have
Speaker 1: to use this method to circumvent DRM to evaluate the copy.
Speaker 1: That would be okay under those very specific circumstances. Security
Speaker 1: companies could circumvent DRM for the purposes of testing computer
Speaker 1: and network security and there are a few other exceptions,
Speaker 1: but they're all very limited and they have specific criteria
Speaker 1: that have to be met in order for it to
Speaker 1: pass muster. So we arrived at a point where, because
Speaker 1: of the technological protection overlaid on top of some copyrighted works,
Speaker 1: US citizens were denied the rights to create personal backup
Speaker 1: copies as is permitted under fair use, which is pretty absurd. Right,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to do this thing, only there's a lock
Speaker 1: that prevents you from doing that thing, and it's illegal
Speaker 1: to get rid of the lock. So you're effectively saying
Speaker 1: it's illegal for me to make a backup, and and
Speaker 1: the court would say, oh no, no, it's perfectly legal
Speaker 1: for you to make a backup. You just can't break
Speaker 1: the lock that prevents you from making a backup to
Speaker 1: make a backup. But if you can make a backup
Speaker 1: without getting around or breaking the lock, you're good to go. Well,
Speaker 1: that's patently absurd. You cannot do those things. It's the
Speaker 1: sort of situation you would expect to encounter in a
Speaker 1: a novel like Catch twenty two. Now companies were thrilled,
Speaker 1: right like the big music labels were thrilled. Movie and
Speaker 1: television studios were thrilled, publishers were thrilled. Organizations like the
Speaker 1: Electronic Frontier Foundation were not thrilled. Also, while the measures
Speaker 1: were intended to curb piracy, uh that largely failed. Piracy
Speaker 1: was still running rampant, and in fact, there was a
Speaker 1: pretty strong argument that the pirates were ending up with
Speaker 1: better versions of the copyrighted works because their versions didn't
Speaker 1: have all that pesky DRM attached to them. They had
Speaker 1: stripped it out, and DRM could cause other problems like
Speaker 1: for legit users, your DRM could actually interfere with your
Speaker 1: access to material you had fairly and legally purchased. So
Speaker 1: legitimate customers who did not remove their DRM had inferior
Speaker 1: versions of the works that the pirates were enjoying. The
Speaker 1: d m c A did, however, give big software and
Speaker 1: media companies the equivalent of an enormous cannon They could
Speaker 1: point at people who were found or suspected to be
Speaker 1: downloading material without permission to do so. So they fueled
Speaker 1: a lot of incredibly disproportionate lawsuits against people, and it
Speaker 1: did not win the industry any favors. Anyway, we're gonna
Speaker 1: pivot in a second. We're gonna come back to the
Speaker 1: d m c A and DRM toward the end of
Speaker 1: this episode because it will play a pivotal role in
Speaker 1: the creation of the concept of the illegal number. First,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about abstraction. We're back, and it's time
Speaker 1: for us to talk about computer languages and machine language.
Speaker 1: It's a good jumping off point for the concept of abstraction. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you all know that when you really get
Speaker 1: down to the hardware level of what's going on inside
Speaker 1: a computer, all the information passing through the system is
Speaker 1: in machine code a k A binary that's zeros and
Speaker 1: ones bits. In other words, machines use zeros and ones
Speaker 1: to represent anything and everything, and we can use zeros
Speaker 1: and ones to represent different types of stuff. We just
Speaker 1: need to gather enough zeros and ones to be able
Speaker 1: to do it. So a collection of eight binary digits
Speaker 1: is a bite. Eight bits is a bite. That's something
Speaker 1: we arrived at after a lot of back and forth
Speaker 1: in the computer industry. But there's no need to rehash
Speaker 1: all of that right now. With eight binary digits, you
Speaker 1: can represent up to two hundred fifty six different values
Speaker 1: or two to the power of eight. We have two
Speaker 1: possible states zero and one, and we have eight total
Speaker 1: binary digits, so it's two to the power of eight.
Speaker 1: With eight binary digits, we could designate different letters and figures.
Speaker 1: For example, the letter A and binary is zero one
Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero zero one. The letter Z in
Speaker 1: binary is zero one zero one one zero one zero.
Speaker 1: And yes, it sounds like I'm singing robots by Fly
Speaker 1: of the concords, but that's how we could designate A
Speaker 1: and Z in binary. Now you've probably already noticed that
Speaker 1: using binary would be far too clunky for humans. We
Speaker 1: would quickly get lost while trying to spell a simple word,
Speaker 1: let alone create complex instructions for a computer to follow.
Speaker 1: For that reason, we have different ways or abstractions to
Speaker 1: deal with machine languages. Programming languages are an example. With
Speaker 1: programming languages, we can use formats that humans can read,
Speaker 1: some we can read more easily than others, and machines
Speaker 1: cannot read. These not natively programming languages that aren't far
Speaker 1: removed from the struction set that's used by the machine itself.
Speaker 1: Those are called low level languages. Assembly, or sometimes as
Speaker 1: Simbler language, is the ultimate example of low level languages.
Speaker 1: These days, a utility program would take the instructions written
Speaker 1: an assembly, which would very much mirror the instruction set
Speaker 1: of the architecture of the machine that's running the stuff,
Speaker 1: and then it would convert the assembler language into executable
Speaker 1: machine code. So it takes this one representation of processes
Speaker 1: and converted into a different representation of processes, and it's
Speaker 1: the representation that the machine can actually use. Higher level
Speaker 1: programming languages have more levels of abstraction in them. They
Speaker 1: are generally speaking easier for people to work with, so
Speaker 1: it's much easier to write a program in these languages.
Speaker 1: The instruction sets in these programming languages are further removed
Speaker 1: from the base architecture of the machine that you are
Speaker 1: programming for. In fact, there are programming languages where you
Speaker 1: can program for all sorts of different machines, and you
Speaker 1: use a different utility for each machine to convert it
Speaker 1: into a language the machine can use. And because of
Speaker 1: all this, the computer code has to go through a
Speaker 1: process called compiling before a machine can actually execute the program.
Speaker 1: If there was no compiling process, the machine wouldn't know
Speaker 1: what to do with the sets of instructions. It would
Speaker 1: be it would be as if you spoke only one language,
Speaker 1: someone else spoke only a different language, and you just
Speaker 1: tried to keep on asking the same question like eight
Speaker 1: different ways in English, for example, and the other person
Speaker 1: only speaks a Mandarin, it wouldn't matter how many times
Speaker 1: you reworded the question. The languages are fundamentally different. There
Speaker 1: would be no communication same sort of thing. Without compiling,
Speaker 1: the machine has no way of understanding what is you
Speaker 1: wanted to do. So the compiler is absolutely key in
Speaker 1: this case. Now, the compiler essentially takes one language and
Speaker 1: converts it into a different language. That language could be
Speaker 1: assembly language. So compiling could take your very complex, sophisticated program,
Speaker 1: break it down into all the different steps that would
Speaker 1: be required to make that program work in assembly language,
Speaker 1: and then through an assembler that we get converted into
Speaker 1: machine code, and then the computer would ultimately quote unquote,
Speaker 1: understand what to do with your program. So you might
Speaker 1: write a program in a language like Python, and a
Speaker 1: compiler might take that and translate it into assembly language,
Speaker 1: and then through an assembler that gets converted into machine
Speaker 1: code and a computer actually uses that. So really we
Speaker 1: can think of all this as a general process by
Speaker 1: which we humans take stuff that we can work with
Speaker 1: easily and convert that into stuff that a machine can
Speaker 1: work with easily. There's a lot more to it than that,
Speaker 1: and I am oversimplifying, but you get the idea now.
Speaker 1: The reason why I went through all that rigamarole is
Speaker 1: one to talk about the actual types of information that
Speaker 1: machines work with and why that's important, and also to
Speaker 1: get across this idea that there are so many different
Speaker 1: ways that we can represent numbers, and there are different
Speaker 1: ways we can represent stuff in numerical form. And if
Speaker 1: we go back to a bide of information, those eight bits,
Speaker 1: we can describe that in several ways. Right. We can
Speaker 1: say eight bits represents two to the eight values, or
Speaker 1: we could say it represents two D fifty six values,
Speaker 1: or that we can say it represents values from zero
Speaker 1: to two D fifty five, and so on. All of
Speaker 1: those are essentially saying the same thing, but we're saying
Speaker 1: it in different ways. Right. Well, there are other ways
Speaker 1: to represent numbers as well. Another numeral system that's often
Speaker 1: used in computing is called hexadecimal. Hexadecimal is a base
Speaker 1: sixteen system. So the system that you and I count
Speaker 1: in is based ten. Right, you start at zero, you
Speaker 1: go to nine, then you move into the tens. So
Speaker 1: ten is just one zero, eleven is just one. One
Speaker 1: do you go up to nineteen? You move up to
Speaker 1: the twenties. That's to zero. So that's base ten. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: how the heck do you have a base sixteen? Right?
Speaker 1: How do you get up to a point where? How
Speaker 1: do you count in base sixteen? You only have ten
Speaker 1: single digit numerals from zero to nine. Well, the way
Speaker 1: you create base sixteen as you start to borrow from letters,
Speaker 1: hexadecimal designation goes from zero through nine, and then to
Speaker 1: represent values ten through fifteen, we switch to letters and
Speaker 1: use a through F. Now, in hexadecimal, a single digit
Speaker 1: represents four bits, so two hexadecimal digits are equal to
Speaker 1: a byte or eight bits. So we can go from
Speaker 1: eight zeros to eight ones for the full range of
Speaker 1: expression with bits right, eight zeros to eight ones, that
Speaker 1: would be zero to two hundred fifty five. If we
Speaker 1: thought about it numerically, in like the regular digits that
Speaker 1: we use today, but in hexadecimal, we would represent that
Speaker 1: as zero zero, which would be the same thing as
Speaker 1: eight zeros, or f f, which would be the same
Speaker 1: thing as eight ones. So hexadecimal creates a slightly easier
Speaker 1: way to represent binary data than just working with zeros
Speaker 1: and once. Now, the whole reason I brought all this
Speaker 1: up is that it really is important to understand there
Speaker 1: are so many different ways to represent numbers. You can
Speaker 1: convert one number system into another number system. You can
Speaker 1: convert numbers into other stuff too, like you could create
Speaker 1: an image based off numbers, or vice versa. You could
Speaker 1: take an image and reduce it to numerical data representing
Speaker 1: the image. If we couldn't do that, computers would not work,
Speaker 1: or at least they wouldn't be able to do anything
Speaker 1: other than perform operations on numbers like a very simple calculator.
Speaker 1: But Ada Lovelace had it right. We can use numbers
Speaker 1: to represent all sorts of incredible things, from images to
Speaker 1: music to sophisticated programs like the Curse of Monkey Island.
Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, we're gonna go back
Speaker 1: to the d m c A, and we're gonna combine
Speaker 1: the things we learned about the d m c A
Speaker 1: and the things we learned about using numbers to represent
Speaker 1: different things and figure out how a number can be
Speaker 1: illegal But first, let's take another quick break. All right,
Speaker 1: back to the d m c A. The d m
Speaker 1: c A makes it illegal to attempt to circumvent access
Speaker 1: controls on digital copyrighted works. That means it's illegal to
Speaker 1: develop tools expressly for the purposes of getting around digital
Speaker 1: rights management or d r M. So let's say that
Speaker 1: someone goes out and writes a program that is essentially
Speaker 1: a work around of d r M. That program is
Speaker 1: illegal unless it happens to be used in one of
Speaker 1: those very narrow exemptions I mentioned earlier. Distributing that program
Speaker 1: is also illegal. You could reduce the program to something
Speaker 1: like its source code, and you could represent that source
Speaker 1: code in some other format. You could then post that
Speaker 1: format on a web page for anyone to see, and
Speaker 1: someone could see that representation, they could copy the representation,
Speaker 1: they could reverse the process you use to arrive at
Speaker 1: that representation, and then they would have the source code,
Speaker 1: which means now that person has possession of the illegal material. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, by changing the representation of the program,
Speaker 1: you have created a different means of of displaying that information.
Speaker 1: Does that, in fact make that display itself illegal? If
Speaker 1: we follow the d m c A rules, to the letter,
Speaker 1: and we acknowledge that it is possible to share something
Speaker 1: that is illegal to possess if we just represent that
Speaker 1: thing in numerical value, well, by extension, the only logical
Speaker 1: thing we can say is that that number itself is illegal.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you could go a step further. You
Speaker 1: could break down illegal material such as an encryption key
Speaker 1: for example, convert that into hexadecimal code. Convert the hexadecimal
Speaker 1: code into an image, and use that image to distribute
Speaker 1: the code. This whole thing is still reversible, Like you
Speaker 1: have to know the steps that were used, but you
Speaker 1: could do those same steps in the reverse order and
Speaker 1: we're you know, arrive at that source code. This this
Speaker 1: could be a form of steganography, that's hiding a message
Speaker 1: inside something else, like an image. Doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: an image, but that's frequently what we think of when
Speaker 1: we think of steganography. Now, if we follow D M
Speaker 1: C A to the logical conclusion, we would say, well,
Speaker 1: that would mean the image itself would be illegal. So really,
Speaker 1: when you break it down, the concept of illegal numbers
Speaker 1: is meant to show how absurd it is to try
Speaker 1: and legislate information, because information is mutable. That is, you know,
Speaker 1: we can change it from one format into a different format,
Speaker 1: and the format that would seem innocent and definitely abstract
Speaker 1: from whatever it was representing, and any attempts to ban
Speaker 1: that information becomes absurd because how far do you go
Speaker 1: with that. Let's say, for example, that I cracked the
Speaker 1: encryption used by some software companies to protect their work.
Speaker 1: Right it limits the access to their work, And I've
Speaker 1: cracked it, and I create a program that lets other
Speaker 1: people circumvent this protection, and then I represent the program
Speaker 1: as a hexadecimal value, which, when you convert it over,
Speaker 1: becomes the source code for this program. But then I
Speaker 1: take that hexadecimal value and I use it to run
Speaker 1: through another program that creates a very very large number,
Speaker 1: and it's totally reversible. If you were to take that
Speaker 1: very very large number and run it through a similar program,
Speaker 1: you would arrive at the hexadecimal value, which you could
Speaker 1: then can vert into the source code, and you would
Speaker 1: be back where I started. So I post this very
Speaker 1: very large number, which by itself, without any other context,
Speaker 1: is just a number. Can the software company actually claim
Speaker 1: that that very large number is in violation of its
Speaker 1: intellectual property, because isn't that absurd, But because of the
Speaker 1: nature of digital information, all of this is entirely possible.
Speaker 1: Complicating matters is that sometimes once you do all these conversions,
Speaker 1: you end up with a prime number. Depends on what
Speaker 1: you're using in order to create these. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you're usually using some form of software that takes the
Speaker 1: value of something and converts it into another format. There
Speaker 1: are some where if you do this and you set
Speaker 1: things just right, then the end output you get is
Speaker 1: a prime number. If that prime number represents illegal material,
Speaker 1: does that make that prime number illegal? And if so,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that mean that listing that number in a database
Speaker 1: of prime numbers would be a crime. But there are
Speaker 1: legit reasons you want to be able to get lists
Speaker 1: of prime numbers. Prime numbers are incredibly useful in computation.
Speaker 1: And the reason I talked so much about the d
Speaker 1: m c A is that the big instance of the
Speaker 1: concept of illegal numbers. In fact, the number that is
Speaker 1: referenced as the illegal number, popped up because of an
Speaker 1: issue that happened around two thousand one. That's when some
Speaker 1: programmers created software that they called d E c s S.
Speaker 1: This software could decrypt DVDs, so DVDs had encryption that
Speaker 1: would prevent people from doing things like copying the DVDs. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of reasons you might want to
Speaker 1: decrypt a DVD. One might be that you do want
Speaker 1: to copy DVDs, you want to create bootlegs of it
Speaker 1: and sell bootlegs at a mark down price on a
Speaker 1: street corner or something. That's the dread piracy route that
Speaker 1: the big companies were all scared of. But another reason
Speaker 1: you might want to get around DVD encryption would be
Speaker 1: to run the DVD on, say a computer system that
Speaker 1: had an operating system that wasn't supported by DVD encryption,
Speaker 1: like Lenox back in the day. You have a Linux computer.
Speaker 1: You want to watch a DVD on that Linux computer,
Speaker 1: but because Linux is not compatible with that encryption method,
Speaker 1: you need to strip the encryption off of it first. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the d m c A, the d e
Speaker 1: c s S program was illegal. It allows one to
Speaker 1: circumvent the access control of the copyrighted work on the DVD,
Speaker 1: and d e c s S prompted criminal cases against
Speaker 1: the programmers, only one of whom was ever identified, and
Speaker 1: and that one was acquitted. But in the United States,
Speaker 1: d E c s S was deemed an illegal piece
Speaker 1: of software. Well, then a programmer named Phil Carmatti got
Speaker 1: the nifty idea to convert the code, the source code
Speaker 1: for d E c s S into a prime number.
Speaker 1: So he took the source code, which was originally programmed
Speaker 1: in the C programming language, and he used a Unix
Speaker 1: process to reduce the file size. Um it's called g zip.
Speaker 1: He then took the new file format and he ran
Speaker 1: it through a different program in order to arrive at
Speaker 1: a one thousand, four hundred one digit prime number. He
Speaker 1: would later actually boost that up to one five digits
Speaker 1: for reasons I'll explain in a second. Now, when that
Speaker 1: prime number gets converted into hexadecimal, it would represent a
Speaker 1: g ZIP file of the original source code for d
Speaker 1: E c SS. Now, his whole point was that he
Speaker 1: could create an archivable representation of this illegal software. You see,
Speaker 1: because prime numbers are important and they could be mathematically interesting.
Speaker 1: If you were to take information that has deemed illegal
Speaker 1: for whatever reason and use this conversion process and turn
Speaker 1: it into an interesting prime number, then that would be
Speaker 1: enough to have reason to archive it like it's it's
Speaker 1: important you need to be able to archive it, which
Speaker 1: means that whether the information is illegal or not, you
Speaker 1: can you can save it, you can archive it, and um, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: that number ultimately, if you go through this process, represents
Speaker 1: a way to decrypt DVDs illegally. But that same number,
Speaker 1: it can also be mathematically interesting on its own merits,
Speaker 1: So making it illegal to publish that number would be
Speaker 1: a real sticky wicket, as they say, And that's why
Speaker 1: he boosted it to one thousand, nine five digits. The
Speaker 1: one thousand, four hundred one digit prime number, he argued,
Speaker 1: was not really mathematically interesting and so it probably did
Speaker 1: not represent a really a strong case for being archivable
Speaker 1: without being illegal. But by boosting it, he said, well,
Speaker 1: this number does have some interest mathematically, and so therefore
Speaker 1: it would be ludicrous to deem it as illegal, even
Speaker 1: though it also represents this illegal process. Now, Karamati's thought
Speaker 1: was that the banning of pure information just doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense, and he sees source code as being a
Speaker 1: type of pure information. And I think his argument is
Speaker 1: really strong since we've seen there are so many different
Speaker 1: ways to represent pure information. You could convert those numbers
Speaker 1: into music if you liked you would just need to
Speaker 1: create a program that would follow specific rules in order
Speaker 1: to take this and turn it into music. And then
Speaker 1: would you say that that music which represents these numbers,
Speaker 1: which ultimately, through however many layers of abstraction, represents illegal material.
Speaker 1: Would you say the music itself as illegal. It's all
Speaker 1: very puzzling, and the more you think about it, the
Speaker 1: more it feels like you're slipping into an alice in
Speaker 1: Wonderland situation. Lewis Carroll would have a field day with
Speaker 1: this stuff. But that is the concept of the illegal number,
Speaker 1: a number that ultimate le represents a process to decrypt DVDs.
Speaker 1: And as I said, it is the illegal number, But
Speaker 1: there are other illegal numbers. Really, anything that could represent
Speaker 1: illegal material could be conceived of as an illegal number.
Speaker 1: It might be that the majority of people who see
Speaker 1: that number have no idea why it represents, nor would
Speaker 1: they necessarily know how to go through the process of
Speaker 1: converting that number into whatever the illegal material ultimately is.
Speaker 1: But the argument still stands that if you can successfully
Speaker 1: say that this this number displaying this number is illegal,
Speaker 1: where does that end? How do how do we actually
Speaker 1: have a world that makes sense where you have made
Speaker 1: pure data illegal to distribute or to exhibit. That is
Speaker 1: the the absurdity that's on on display here, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it shows how the the worlds of technology, politics, and
Speaker 1: business can come into conflict with one another. And you
Speaker 1: can kind of understand the perspectives of the different parties here,
Speaker 1: but it still doesn't make it any less absurd. So
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know it was
Speaker 1: a bit of a convoluted one, but it's important to
Speaker 1: kind of get all these different concepts in your head
Speaker 1: so that you can kind of understand the the challenges
Speaker 1: here when you're trying to balance things like copy protection
Speaker 1: versus the representation of pure information. Um, it does get
Speaker 1: messy and there may not be any simple solution for
Speaker 1: all of this, but I definitely think that prosecuting people
Speaker 1: for demonstrating for you know, showing a number would be
Speaker 1: absolutely ludicrous. Like again, where does that stop. It's entirely
Speaker 1: possible to have something like the with Krmadi. He he
Speaker 1: actually said, if you have a prime number that represents
Speaker 1: ultimately this illegal process, there are legitimate reasons for demons
Speaker 1: for displaying that prime number. They have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the process, right, It's all about the prime numbers,
Speaker 1: and therefore you cannot make it illegal to display, because
Speaker 1: if you did, then you would invalidate all of these
Speaker 1: legitimate purposes for showing that information, which makes no sense.
Speaker 1: It would be like saying, you know what, uranium is
Speaker 1: a dangerous element, so from now on, you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to show it on the periodic table of elements. Does
Speaker 1: make no sense either, Right, That's kind of what we're
Speaker 1: going at here. Anyway, thank you the Gregorlis for that suggestion.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun to go down that
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. And uh, I welcome everyone to send in
Speaker 1: their suggestions for episodes like this. I'm good. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be tackling a few of them in the
Speaker 1: upcoming episodes. The way you can reach out to me,
Speaker 1: there are two ways. One is that you can get
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app and you can go to
Speaker 1: the tech stuff page and I Heart Radio app and
Speaker 1: you can use the little microphone talk back feature there,
Speaker 1: which will let you record a message of up to
Speaker 1: thirty seconds in length. And uh, the only people who
Speaker 1: can hear that are Tori and myself, and if we
Speaker 1: you know, if you like, we can even use that
Speaker 1: thirty seconds in an episode to kind of launch into
Speaker 1: whatever the topic suggestion is. Uh, but if you don't
Speaker 1: want that, just let me know and I definitely won't
Speaker 1: play it, but that is a possibility and I love
Speaker 1: hearing from you. I'm gonna be using one of those
Speaker 1: pretty soon, so that's one way. The other way, of course,
Speaker 1: is to reach out via Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is text stuff hs W. Just send me a
Speaker 1: message that way. That's how the Gregor List did it,
Speaker 1: and I'll be sure to see that as well. That's
Speaker 1: it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed it and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H