Spread this number
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0. Wanna know what’s so
important about it?
The movie industry is threatening Spooky Action at a Distance for
publishing that number, specifically with copyright infringement.
I had no idea a number could be copyrighted.
Anyhow, what is it? From the site:
It’s the HD-DVD Processing Key for most movies released so far. I was
not aware that a string of numbers and letters was copyrightable.
Perhaps its just my ignorance but it seems that someone is abusing
the DMCA again.
This means the (admittedly long) number is precisely the key you need
in order to decrypt and watch HD-DVD movies in Linux (oh, okay, maybe
software is also required). And the fact that it’s out there,
spreading like wildfire, is killing the types at the movie studios
right now.
Now, even if this number stopped working (and it will, thanks to the
revocation procedures in HD-DVD’s encryption scheme) or if it were a
hoax, the decryption system has already been figured out and is
implemented in a software program called BackupHDDVD.
We did it with DVDs and DeCSS, and today I can use my trusty MPlayer
to play any DVD movie. We will eventually (rather soon) view HD-DVDs
in Linux as well (because the codecs are already there, even if they
are illegal in some countries).
Let’s show them no amount of DMCA will stop us.
Oh, do you crave for source code? Let the Doom9 forums answer your
prayers. If you’d like an explanation in news format, WIRED may be
what you were looking for.
http://rudd-o.com/archives/2007/04/30/spread-this-number/
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