4 ms·

Illegal prime

39 points by avinassh 10y ago

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Yet another incredibly stupid idea. Thank you, legal system.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  It's a stupid presentation of an arguably reasonable idea.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    What, that numbers can be owned? That's insane.
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      Numbers can be owned in specific contexts, not universally. Nothing insane about it.
  - crpatino 10y ago
    No, it is a stupid presentation of an even more stupid idea. Numbers are abstract constructions devoid of any meaning. For mathematics to have any practical application, there are of course ways to assign meaning to numbers, but there are arguable infinite amounts of mappings that can match numbers to concepts. There are also infinite number of ways to match every number to every other... so, if you have enough computing power, it can be demonstrated that you could, at least theoretically, match every conceivable concept to every other. The idiocity of the legal implications is beyond limits. The only legal defense to such enourmous liability is to restrict yourself, for your practical applications to sufficiently small numbers such that there is not enough entropy in them to hold any potentially forbidden information. Good bye IEEE754, hello PI==3!!!
    - dllthomas 10y ago
      Your analysis here is roughly isomorphic to the original presentation. The law doesn't care about the actual bits, except insofar as they represent evidence of what's really at issue. The law cares that you have some pattern of bits that you laid out with the intent that it represent BAD THING X. If it happens to appear in the digits of PI you've been reading out, you're not at risk. If you go to others saying "You can find the BAD THING at offset XYZ in PI", then that's another matter - you've got the data and the interpretation. On the other hand, if you happen to stumble across one of these primes and don't notice, not a problem. The known "illegal primes" were found specifically by looking for primes that represented illegal things. I'm not convinced that criminalizing possession of data is a good idea, but it's not "under some arbitrary interpretation".
deepnotderp 10y ago
Fuck the legal system.
SurrealSoul 10y ago
'An illegal prime is a prime number that represents information whose possession or distribution is forbidden in some legal jurisdiction' Maybe the coolest math term I heard all year.
tptacek 10y ago
This is the "they're all just plants, man, they grow in the earth" argument of technologists. I wonder what goofy arguments accountants have. If it wasn't obvious (for instance, because you've never implemented RSA before): all information can be represented as a number (and I suppose, theoretically, as primes).
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Well, duh: every computer program is just a single, very long, number. But it's still ridiculous.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That may be, but if it's ridiculous, it's not because it's ridiculous to "make numbers illegal". (If you're looking for more nits: this is also a misuse of the word "illegal", and further [and separately] it's not the numbers that are unlawful.)
- Retric 10y ago
  Not that it's really relevant, but I am not sure you can encode all QM information as a number even in theory. However, if we accept copyright/patents/trademarks/etc then this is not a big stretch.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    And trade secrets, and nondisclosure agreements in contracts between professionals, and tax information, and private medical information, and student grades, and driving records, and
- wahern 10y ago
  The particular argument you allude to (at least, the canonical version) concerns the nature of math as it relates to constitutional limitations on patents. I agree that it's a poor argument for many reasons, but it would be especially poor in this context because patent law doesn't make it illegal to communicate a patented invention, merely to use or apply the invention (or inducement thereto). Illegal primes, however, seem to relate more to DMCA anti-circumvention measures and the restraint on free speech imposed by law. The DMCA makes it illegal not only to actually circumvent copy protection, but to offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that— (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; It's much like arms control restrictions for cryptography. The particular issue is about free speech, not about unrestrained exploitation of information per se.
hbosch 10y ago
This concept is dizzying for me. Is it OK to think of numbers as a landmass? Is it OK to think of that numerical landmass to be partitioned and owned? Is it OK to hide things in private plots of numbers? Is it OK to expect your numerical plot to be private? I'm not sure if I like it, or hate it.
- Retric 10y ago
  All digital information can be thought of as a number. If we can restrict harry potter, then having an Illegal prime is not that big a stretch.
- probablybroken 10y ago
  Copyright and patent attempt to protect you from others stealing your research & efforts involved in producing a product. If someone represents your idea as a number, and then copies it with the intention of using it for their own purposes without coming to a licencing arrangement with you, then they have broken copyright / patent. It's incidental that the representation of the information is numerical. Additionally the likelihood of some other useful random number coinciding with the numerical representation of your special information is also extremely low - hence why the OP used a prime ( which are pretty common ), and also why it's interesting ( and therefore exceptional ).
eridius 10y ago
The budding discussion in these comments reminds me of the classic post "What Colour are your bits?" - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
kreetx 10y ago
What an interesting hack to publish source code! Read the first sentence of wikipedia quite a few times and still didn't understand, while the later text made it clearer..
slededit 10y ago
It's not the prime that's illegal, it's the prime + the connection to its ability to circumvent specific encryption. The number itself without that connection is not illegal. I.e. 123 is not illegal by itself. "123 is the encryption key to XYZ's DRM" is illegal.

Illegal prime

39 points by avinassh 10y ago

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Yet another incredibly stupid idea. Thank you, legal system.

dllthomas 10y ago
It's a stupid presentation of an arguably reasonable idea.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  What, that numbers can be owned? That's insane.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    Numbers can be owned in specific contexts, not universally. Nothing insane about it.
- crpatino 10y ago
  No, it is a stupid presentation of an even more stupid idea. Numbers are abstract constructions devoid of any meaning. For mathematics to have any practical application, there are of course ways to assign meaning to numbers, but there are arguable infinite amounts of mappings that can match numbers to concepts. There are also infinite number of ways to match every number to every other... so, if you have enough computing power, it can be demonstrated that you could, at least theoretically, match every conceivable concept to every other. The idiocity of the legal implications is beyond limits. The only legal defense to such enourmous liability is to restrict yourself, for your practical applications to sufficiently small numbers such that there is not enough entropy in them to hold any potentially forbidden information. Good bye IEEE754, hello PI==3!!!
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    Your analysis here is roughly isomorphic to the original presentation. The law doesn't care about the actual bits, except insofar as they represent evidence of what's really at issue. The law cares that you have some pattern of bits that you laid out with the intent that it represent BAD THING X. If it happens to appear in the digits of PI you've been reading out, you're not at risk. If you go to others saying "You can find the BAD THING at offset XYZ in PI", then that's another matter - you've got the data and the interpretation. On the other hand, if you happen to stumble across one of these primes and don't notice, not a problem. The known "illegal primes" were found specifically by looking for primes that represented illegal things. I'm not convinced that criminalizing possession of data is a good idea, but it's not "under some arbitrary interpretation".

deepnotderp 10y ago

Fuck the legal system.

SurrealSoul 10y ago

'An illegal prime is a prime number that represents information whose possession or distribution is forbidden in some legal jurisdiction' Maybe the coolest math term I heard all year.

tptacek 10y ago

This is the "they're all just plants, man, they grow in the earth" argument of technologists. I wonder what goofy arguments accountants have. If it wasn't obvious (for instance, because you've never implemented RSA before): all information can be represented as a number (and I suppose, theoretically, as primes).

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Well, duh: every computer program is just a single, very long, number. But it's still ridiculous.
- tptacek 10y ago
  That may be, but if it's ridiculous, it's not because it's ridiculous to "make numbers illegal". (If you're looking for more nits: this is also a misuse of the word "illegal", and further [and separately] it's not the numbers that are unlawful.)
Retric 10y ago
Not that it's really relevant, but I am not sure you can encode all QM information as a number even in theory. However, if we accept copyright/patents/trademarks/etc then this is not a big stretch.
- tptacek 10y ago
  And trade secrets, and nondisclosure agreements in contracts between professionals, and tax information, and private medical information, and student grades, and driving records, and
wahern 10y ago
The particular argument you allude to (at least, the canonical version) concerns the nature of math as it relates to constitutional limitations on patents. I agree that it's a poor argument for many reasons, but it would be especially poor in this context because patent law doesn't make it illegal to communicate a patented invention, merely to use or apply the invention (or inducement thereto). Illegal primes, however, seem to relate more to DMCA anti-circumvention measures and the restraint on free speech imposed by law. The DMCA makes it illegal not only to actually circumvent copy protection, but to offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that— (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; It's much like arms control restrictions for cryptography. The particular issue is about free speech, not about unrestrained exploitation of information per se.

hbosch 10y ago

This concept is dizzying for me. Is it OK to think of numbers as a landmass? Is it OK to think of that numerical landmass to be partitioned and owned? Is it OK to hide things in private plots of numbers? Is it OK to expect your numerical plot to be private? I'm not sure if I like it, or hate it.

Retric 10y ago
All digital information can be thought of as a number. If we can restrict harry potter, then having an Illegal prime is not that big a stretch.
probablybroken 10y ago
Copyright and patent attempt to protect you from others stealing your research & efforts involved in producing a product. If someone represents your idea as a number, and then copies it with the intention of using it for their own purposes without coming to a licencing arrangement with you, then they have broken copyright / patent. It's incidental that the representation of the information is numerical. Additionally the likelihood of some other useful random number coinciding with the numerical representation of your special information is also extremely low - hence why the OP used a prime ( which are pretty common ), and also why it's interesting ( and therefore exceptional ).

eridius 10y ago

The budding discussion in these comments reminds me of the classic post "What Colour are your bits?" - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

kreetx 10y ago

What an interesting hack to publish source code! Read the first sentence of wikipedia quite a few times and still didn't understand, while the later text made it clearer..

slededit 10y ago

It's not the prime that's illegal, it's the prime + the connection to its ability to circumvent specific encryption. The number itself without that connection is not illegal. I.e. 123 is not illegal by itself. "123 is the encryption key to XYZ's DRM" is illegal.