Fergie's Tech Blog

How a Number Became the Latest Web Celebrity

Brad Stone writes in The New York Times:

The geeks are in open revolt.

A throng of tech-savvy Internet users have banded together over the last two days to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the movie industry to prevent illegal copying of high-definition movies.

The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the movie industry, because only sophisticated technologists can use it to tailor the decryption software capable of getting around the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power on the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.

The online uproar came in response to a series of cease-and-desist letters from lawyers for a group of movie studios and electronics companies, demanding that the code be removed from several high-profile Web sites. Rather than wiping out the code, which is essentially one long number, the letters led to its proliferation on Web sites, in chat rooms, inside cleverly doctored digital photographs and on user-submitted news sites.

posted by Fergie @ 5/02/2007 04:08:00 PM