5 ms·

The often relevant "What Colour are your bits?" - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

shasta 14y ago
Summary: "Illegal number" is a term that you use to refer to protected digital information when you also want to convey that you have no grasp of the legal issues involved.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  Having read the article, I'm not sure if this summary is satirical or not. On the one hand, it sounds like it could be a relevant summary of his point, on the other hand it sounds like you're saying the author has no grasp of the legal issues involved. Can you clarify?
  - JoshTriplett 14y ago
    The author of that article specifically made a point of not calling either side "right" or "wrong"; the article just exists to help both sides understand the worldview of the other. Whichever mindset you hold, understanding the other mindset will help you make more effective arguments that don't sound inherently insane.
    - unimpressive 14y ago
      I'm aware, but the grandparent wrote a "summary" that could be read as either: His point, worded a little oddly. "The author got the law side wrong, and is yet another stupid nerd who doesn't get it."
      - JoshTriplett 14y ago
        From the perspective of the law, bits do have color, even though that makes no sense from a technical perspective. So, any given number may or may not qualify as "illegal" depending on how you generated it. That said, I don't think that makes the terms "illegal number" or "illegal prime" nonsensical, depending on context. In any case, I think the article doesn't deserve the pithy "summary" upthread; the summary provides actively unhelpful information if you haven't read the article.
        shasta 14y ago
        My summary was snarky, but "illegal number" is a silly term intended to emphasize that "it's just a number (so how could it be illegal?)", which is as sophisticated as the legal arguments "it's just a plastic disk with certain reflective properties" or "it's just some markings on a piece of paper." Your claim that bits having color "makes no sense from a technical perspective" sounds like more geek misunderstanding to me. There is no technical problem here -- only a problem of geeks applying technical results where they shouldn't.
        JoshTriplett 14y ago
        You've described one side of the debate, yes. The technical side has no less merit; don't dismiss it offhandedly. Hence why I find the essay on bits having color so useful: it frames the debate nicely without actually taking a side. The arguments you referenced would indeed make for relatively unsophisticated legal arguments, but they don't claim to be legal arguments; they're statements about technology and about how geeks want technology to work. They carry no less weight than statements about how lawyers want technology to work. Or, to put it more snarkily: your claim that bits have some unrepresentable property of "color" sounds like non-geek misunderstanding to me. There is no legal problem here -- only a problem of non-geeks applying legalistic results where they shouldn't. :) Let's not rehash the arguments that the essay already eloquently expresses; neither of us will get anywhere that way.
        shasta 14y ago
        We apparently had different interpretations of the color article. You seem to think the article was about there being two valid viewpoints (color exists and it doesn't), whereas I think it was just about trying to get the computer scientist to understand color. > Or, to put it more snarkily: your claim that bits have some unrepresentable property of "color" sounds like non-geek misunderstanding to me. The legality of information should and does involve tracking how they were obtained. This is not a property of mathematical bits, but is a property of the physical encoding of those bits in this world. Since the argument here is over how the law should work, a geek making arguments like this is just wrong. This is not a "they're both right" situation. > Let's not rehash the arguments that the essay already eloquently expresses; neither of us will get anywhere that way. Go reread the essay and see if you can really find support for your viewpoint. I just skimmed it (quickly, admittedly) and it seems to say what I remembered it to say.
  - geofft 14y ago
    It sounds to me like he's saying that the author of the "Illegal number" article has no grasp of the legal (or philosophical) issues involved, not that the author of the "What color are your bits?" article has no grasp of it.
- ewillbefull 14y ago
  > you have no grasp of the legal issues involved Let's have a thread about it then. What legal issues am I misunderstanding? It seems to me that the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA are rather unprecedented. Brandenburg v. Ohio demonstrated that free speech protects abstract advocacy of force or law violation. The anti-circumvention provisions criminalize the distribution of not just software that can be directly used, but anything that serves as a tool to violate copyright. That could be a small number, a key, or even a description of how a DRM scheme operates. I cannot imagine a constitutional basis for those provisions of the DMCA. What say you?
  - wmf 14y ago
    A non-lawyerly devil's advocate: I would argue that a secret key by itself does not qualify as a circumvention tool and thus should not be banned by the DMCA. Unfortunately, by my reading the law does not agree with me and specifically bans distribution of a circumvention "device, component, or part thereof"; it seems like a key is a part of a circumvention device. Looking at circumvention code itself, I would argue that such code should have no artistic or political expression when boiled down to its functional essence, in which case there is no meaningful free speech issue. If the code did have artistic or political aspects, arguably those aspects could be separated from the part of the code which performs circumvention. For example, the political opinion of being opposed to the DMCA can be easily expressed without using any code.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    The courts seem to put copyright on a roughly equal level with the first amendment, so any censorship caused by them is considered to be by design. http://gigaom.com/2012/07/30/censorship-ok-to-fight-copyright-infringement-but-not-sex-abuse/ http://gigaom.com/2012/07/30/censorship-ok-to-fight-copyrigh...
  - shasta 14y ago
    > The anti-circumvention provisions criminalize the distribution of not just software that can be directly used, but anything that serves as a tool to violate copyright. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm going to speculate that if you upload image.bmp, a picture you took with your camera, that happens by coincidence to contain a key that can be used for circumvention, then you would not be prosecuted or convicted. In other words, it's not the number that's illegal.

Summary: "Illegal number" is a term that you use to refer to protected digital information when you also want to convey that you have no grasp of the legal issues involved.

unimpressive 14y ago
Having read the article, I'm not sure if this summary is satirical or not. On the one hand, it sounds like it could be a relevant summary of his point, on the other hand it sounds like you're saying the author has no grasp of the legal issues involved. Can you clarify?
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  The author of that article specifically made a point of not calling either side "right" or "wrong"; the article just exists to help both sides understand the worldview of the other. Whichever mindset you hold, understanding the other mindset will help you make more effective arguments that don't sound inherently insane.
  - unimpressive 14y ago
    I'm aware, but the grandparent wrote a "summary" that could be read as either: His point, worded a little oddly. "The author got the law side wrong, and is yet another stupid nerd who doesn't get it."
    - JoshTriplett 14y ago
      From the perspective of the law, bits do have color, even though that makes no sense from a technical perspective. So, any given number may or may not qualify as "illegal" depending on how you generated it. That said, I don't think that makes the terms "illegal number" or "illegal prime" nonsensical, depending on context. In any case, I think the article doesn't deserve the pithy "summary" upthread; the summary provides actively unhelpful information if you haven't read the article.
      - shasta 14y ago
        My summary was snarky, but "illegal number" is a silly term intended to emphasize that "it's just a number (so how could it be illegal?)", which is as sophisticated as the legal arguments "it's just a plastic disk with certain reflective properties" or "it's just some markings on a piece of paper." Your claim that bits having color "makes no sense from a technical perspective" sounds like more geek misunderstanding to me. There is no technical problem here -- only a problem of geeks applying technical results where they shouldn't.
        JoshTriplett 14y ago
        You've described one side of the debate, yes. The technical side has no less merit; don't dismiss it offhandedly. Hence why I find the essay on bits having color so useful: it frames the debate nicely without actually taking a side. The arguments you referenced would indeed make for relatively unsophisticated legal arguments, but they don't claim to be legal arguments; they're statements about technology and about how geeks want technology to work. They carry no less weight than statements about how lawyers want technology to work. Or, to put it more snarkily: your claim that bits have some unrepresentable property of "color" sounds like non-geek misunderstanding to me. There is no legal problem here -- only a problem of non-geeks applying legalistic results where they shouldn't. :) Let's not rehash the arguments that the essay already eloquently expresses; neither of us will get anywhere that way.
        shasta 14y ago
        We apparently had different interpretations of the color article. You seem to think the article was about there being two valid viewpoints (color exists and it doesn't), whereas I think it was just about trying to get the computer scientist to understand color. > Or, to put it more snarkily: your claim that bits have some unrepresentable property of "color" sounds like non-geek misunderstanding to me. The legality of information should and does involve tracking how they were obtained. This is not a property of mathematical bits, but is a property of the physical encoding of those bits in this world. Since the argument here is over how the law should work, a geek making arguments like this is just wrong. This is not a "they're both right" situation. > Let's not rehash the arguments that the essay already eloquently expresses; neither of us will get anywhere that way. Go reread the essay and see if you can really find support for your viewpoint. I just skimmed it (quickly, admittedly) and it seems to say what I remembered it to say.
- geofft 14y ago
  It sounds to me like he's saying that the author of the "Illegal number" article has no grasp of the legal (or philosophical) issues involved, not that the author of the "What color are your bits?" article has no grasp of it.
ewillbefull 14y ago
> you have no grasp of the legal issues involved Let's have a thread about it then. What legal issues am I misunderstanding? It seems to me that the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA are rather unprecedented. Brandenburg v. Ohio demonstrated that free speech protects abstract advocacy of force or law violation. The anti-circumvention provisions criminalize the distribution of not just software that can be directly used, but anything that serves as a tool to violate copyright. That could be a small number, a key, or even a description of how a DRM scheme operates. I cannot imagine a constitutional basis for those provisions of the DMCA. What say you?
- wmf 14y ago
  A non-lawyerly devil's advocate: I would argue that a secret key by itself does not qualify as a circumvention tool and thus should not be banned by the DMCA. Unfortunately, by my reading the law does not agree with me and specifically bans distribution of a circumvention "device, component, or part thereof"; it seems like a key is a part of a circumvention device. Looking at circumvention code itself, I would argue that such code should have no artistic or political expression when boiled down to its functional essence, in which case there is no meaningful free speech issue. If the code did have artistic or political aspects, arguably those aspects could be separated from the part of the code which performs circumvention. For example, the political opinion of being opposed to the DMCA can be easily expressed without using any code.
- Natsu 14y ago
  The courts seem to put copyright on a roughly equal level with the first amendment, so any censorship caused by them is considered to be by design. http://gigaom.com/2012/07/30/censorship-ok-to-fight-copyright-infringement-but-not-sex-abuse/ http://gigaom.com/2012/07/30/censorship-ok-to-fight-copyrigh...
- shasta 14y ago
  > The anti-circumvention provisions criminalize the distribution of not just software that can be directly used, but anything that serves as a tool to violate copyright. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm going to speculate that if you upload image.bmp, a picture you took with your camera, that happens by coincidence to contain a key that can be used for circumvention, then you would not be prosecuted or convicted. In other words, it's not the number that's illegal.