Illegal prime number

Re:Illegal prime number by danielweber on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @10:18AM (#8108248)

The argument that "it's just numbers" was considered insipid 20 years ago. There's a Dilbert where Wally says "I was just transmitting 1s and 0s, it's your computer that is really at fault for encoding them into <whatever the thing that got him into trouble with HR>." We are, of course, not meant to take Wally's argument seriously.

I could encode my inciting of a mob to violence as a prime number. No one, least of all HN, should accept this argument that "it's just a number."

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Re:Illegal prime number by TazeTSchnitzel on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @10:22AM (#8108281)

The thing about the illegal prime wasn't so much that it's "just a number", rather that it would be archived and published independently because it's a novel prime for mathematical value, not for the purpose of breaking DRM, hence providing an interesting test to free speech law (can you really say that a specific prime cannot be published in a list of primes simply because it happens to represent DeCSS's source code?)

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Re:Illegal prime number by danielweber on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @11:20AM (#8108696)

The law is full of contradictions. Pointing out an inconsistency is not a victory[1]. One principle or the other will lose, and the one that loses might be yours.

[1] http://xkcd.com/651/

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