The Numbers Will Be The Death Of Us All...
So here's the story on the numbers I posted below if you don't know.
They are the numbers that might kill one of my favorite sites, Digg, and its partly ( a very small part) my fault.
That 32 digit hex number is the key to the encryption of HD-DVD. I am not entirely sure how that works, but apparently one of the things that it lets you do is play HD-DVD movies in linux (which apparently couldn't do that before) and at some point could lead to the breaking of the encryption on the movies and the easy copying of them on to computers.
A story about those numbers was posted on Digg recently. The makers of the encryption sent a court order telling them to take it down. Digg took it down. This fact was eventually reported to the general Digg population. They were not happy. Some blamed Digg for censoring their users. Others, like me, thought that Digg should stand up to the people who would try and turn a number into something that could not be said, and make people not truly own a movie they have bought. My and their fight wasn't against Digg but we were using Digg as a tool to make our point. Others still just thought this was something funny and a good way to make themselves seem like a rebel without having to leave their homes.
Anyway all these people ended up doing things like constantly submitting pages with the numbers and posting the numbers in the comments of stories that have nothing to do with them. Even though Digg kept trying to delete these stories and banned some people, at one point all the stories on the front page were about the numbers. Eventually, Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg and all around pretty cool guy, got the message. He posted a statement on the Digg corporate blog stating that Digg has heard the users. "You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company." He said. And "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying." He even went so far as to put the numbers as the title of his blog post.
This story has made it all around the technology sites. They all say that the future looks bleak for Digg if the guys in charge of the encryption do in fact decide to sue. It is possible that Digg could lose millions and eventually have to shut down. Not to mention that, by bowing down to their users, it might appear to Digg's investors that Digg has lost control of its user and may feel less confident in investing.
All this could add up to the end of Digg. I hope it doesn't though. While I still feel that when I posted the numbers in a few comments on Digg I was doing the right thing, I would hate for it to mean that this site that I have loved for almost two years now is dead.
I have posted the numbers below as part of an experiment. Google has supposedly told some people that posted it on their blogs to take it down or they will take it down for them. I kind of want to see if Google sees us. I emailed Carlos before I posted the numbers, and told him that Google might have something to say about it. I told him that if he receives anything resembling a take down notice, he should feel free to take it down. As of yet we have not heard from them. Maybe they don't see us. Maybe they are starting to feel that since the numbers are everywhere now, it is pointless to ask everyone who has them to take them down.
Anyway that is the long story of the numbers.
They are the numbers that might kill one of my favorite sites, Digg, and its partly ( a very small part) my fault.
That 32 digit hex number is the key to the encryption of HD-DVD. I am not entirely sure how that works, but apparently one of the things that it lets you do is play HD-DVD movies in linux (which apparently couldn't do that before) and at some point could lead to the breaking of the encryption on the movies and the easy copying of them on to computers.
A story about those numbers was posted on Digg recently. The makers of the encryption sent a court order telling them to take it down. Digg took it down. This fact was eventually reported to the general Digg population. They were not happy. Some blamed Digg for censoring their users. Others, like me, thought that Digg should stand up to the people who would try and turn a number into something that could not be said, and make people not truly own a movie they have bought. My and their fight wasn't against Digg but we were using Digg as a tool to make our point. Others still just thought this was something funny and a good way to make themselves seem like a rebel without having to leave their homes.
Anyway all these people ended up doing things like constantly submitting pages with the numbers and posting the numbers in the comments of stories that have nothing to do with them. Even though Digg kept trying to delete these stories and banned some people, at one point all the stories on the front page were about the numbers. Eventually, Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg and all around pretty cool guy, got the message. He posted a statement on the Digg corporate blog stating that Digg has heard the users. "You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company." He said. And "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying." He even went so far as to put the numbers as the title of his blog post.
This story has made it all around the technology sites. They all say that the future looks bleak for Digg if the guys in charge of the encryption do in fact decide to sue. It is possible that Digg could lose millions and eventually have to shut down. Not to mention that, by bowing down to their users, it might appear to Digg's investors that Digg has lost control of its user and may feel less confident in investing.
All this could add up to the end of Digg. I hope it doesn't though. While I still feel that when I posted the numbers in a few comments on Digg I was doing the right thing, I would hate for it to mean that this site that I have loved for almost two years now is dead.
I have posted the numbers below as part of an experiment. Google has supposedly told some people that posted it on their blogs to take it down or they will take it down for them. I kind of want to see if Google sees us. I emailed Carlos before I posted the numbers, and told him that Google might have something to say about it. I told him that if he receives anything resembling a take down notice, he should feel free to take it down. As of yet we have not heard from them. Maybe they don't see us. Maybe they are starting to feel that since the numbers are everywhere now, it is pointless to ask everyone who has them to take them down.
Anyway that is the long story of the numbers.
posted by Oscar at 10:41 AM
1 Comments:
FIGHT THE MACHINE KEVIN!
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