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I think this is less a philosophical argument than a legal one. If a court can prove that you explicitly owned the illegal data in its raw format, and used that

I think this is less a philosophical argument than a legal one. If a court can prove that you explicitly owned the illegal data in its raw format, and used that to generate something (even if it has secondary value), they should be free to prosecute in my opinion. That includes searching through and highlighting data that already exists in the wild such as large prime numbers. Presumably showing statistics of how often random data would decode to someone's credit card number would prove this beyond reasonable doubt. The fact all data exists 'in nature' - while interesting, is not something I think should override the intent of data laws.

dTal 6y ago
Yes. A commentary on Shakespeare that just happens to hash to Bill Gates' personal details is so monumentally unlikely to occur by accident that its existence constitutes proof of intent beyond all reasonable doubt. Disingenuously asserting that "it's education!" is a bit like the mafia boss asserting that no, the front business really is a laundromat. https://qntm.org/number https://qntm.org/number
lupire 6y ago
It's really amazing how many experts and professionals in information technology seem to understand what information is less well than stodgy old lawyers and politicians.